Have you noticed that when you sit in a smelling toilet for a while, it will get to a point where the smell seems not to be there again? Your nose no longer perceives the smell again such that you now feel comfortable. The smell didn’t go anywhere, it’s still right there but your nose is now accustomed to the smell. It is called sensory adaptation. It will take a significant higher concentration of pungent smell for your nose to perceive the smell again.

Sensory adaptation happens to all our sense organs and not only the nose. That is, eyes, ears, mouth and skin. A premiership league fanatic will believe the way football is being played in England is the best because that is what his eyes sees every weekend. His orientation will only change when a club from another league like Fc Barcelona defeat his club with 4 gaols to nothing.

I said all that to prove that when you are conditioned to listening to the same pattern of songs and watching the same kind of music videos over time, you tend to swallow it and conclude that maybe it’s just our own philosophy of music. Sensory adaptation just took place, requiring exposure and knowledge of other pattern of songs for you to know that you have been listening to crab all this time.

We are so used to listening to crappy music and watching inferior music videos. It didn’t just eventually happen but took place over time as a result of some factors that can be blamed on both the artists and even the general public.

Let us consider some 5 factors affecting Nigeria music generally.

Area Of Concentration (AOC)
You will almost not read any other topic again in your material if the course lecturer gives you some AOC to read for exam. You will read those AOCs as if your life depends on it. It may later turn to Area Of Confusion if none of the topics came out in the exams.

I don’t know about you, both I am so tired of hearing similar beats from our artists over and over again. Most Nigerian songs have similar pattern of beat. Notable reason is that, if Davido or Timaya releases a hit song that sells or trends well, watch as others begin to release similar beats of the song. Most of the beats in Tekno, Niniola and Timaya songs the same and it’s really tiring.

Artists concentrate on the beats of the song at the expense of the overall output. They make something fast and danceable. They are more specific than holistic. knowing what people want to see in the video, so they give you in reckless abandon ladies shaking their behind. To be fair to them, I think they are correct in that regard.

The Drive to sing
If you listen to most artist during interviews, they will tell you music has been part of them. You will hear things like they’ve been singing since I was 5 years old and all sorts. But their music composition and delivery is saying another thing entirely. The truth is this, most Nigerian artist rushed to music to escape poverty and hunger that is in the land. It’s an escape route. That’s why you will hear them mostly in their first 3 tracks talking about how they were suffering before and now they are making the money.

Because of their mission to escape poverty, they channel their style of music to what’s in vogue which is bringing the money and focus not about bringing out the creativity in them. In other words, survival and poverty is what drive most people into music and not the passion of music itself.

Meaningful Lyrics
Gone are those days when lyrics used to be the selling point; those were the good old days. Nowadays you hear something like ‘turkey to ketan, oya fun won legbegbe, omo shepeteri, soco soco’, it’s really a pity. Have you ever wondered why some old songs remain oldies and goodies while some recent songs are long forgotten? It’s because there is nothing meaningful to remember them for. We are left with only few ones now like Asa, Adekunle gold and Tu Face of old.


Acceptance
The success of any artist depends on the acceptability of the targeted audience. Ability to know what your audience like and working towards providing such need or want. Truth be told, you will have lower chances to succeed here in Nigeria if the majority of your songs are R&B. Coming back from work in a friend’s car and I thought I could play a cool music to calm the stress of the office. He wasn’t comfortable with it and told me to change it half way to something faster, I did that and he started dancing on the wheels.

It point fingers to why music artists focuses on high sounding beats and rhythm because they know it sells.


Knowledge and Experience
This is Nigeria, prior musical knowledge and experience doesn’t really matter before you start singing. You can always hit the studio to record a track once you feel inspired. The producer is also looking for money. Musical knowledge can never be underestimated if you really want to be an icon to be reckon with.

Small Doctor granted an interview of recent and he said he was a conductor before moving to music. There is nothing bad in that if he had gone straight to music school, but I’m sure Small Doctor has no time. Only few artists do live concerts without playing their songs underneath, all they do is miming and expression.


All these factors are the reasons why the western countries are still ahead of us musically. Even when they are singing about love, they make it sensible. There are always a good numbers of audiences for any genre of music the artist decides to sing. Larger percentage of them is not singing to survive or escape poverty. Most foreign artist are inspired before they sing and you could see the passion in them when they sing. I hope we get there someday.

http://binoreview.com/5-factors-affecting-nigerian-music-generally/

Well written.