I don’t think it will be fair to keep narratives on twitter just on the basis of shades, gossips, subs, and profanities without enriching our grasp of history.
Mr Eazi’s tweets touched on one thing that Nigerians hardly joke with – the nation’s pride – setting in motion another round of ancestral rivalry between brother states. On a personal note, I have not met Mr Eazi, neither have anyone solicits my assistance on this piece. This is basically my contribution to this discuss.
When he said Ghanaian music influenced the Nigerian music – he is not lying neither is he saying the “full” truth and I want to assume word use restriction on twitter might have contributed to his inability to articulate his position robustly. The word influence I believe should at this point be defined to serve as a guide – “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself”. You will agree with me that music as a form of art flourishes with solicited and unsolicited influence. Music just like other accessories of arts mutates with such interference.
No one can deny that Highlife originated from Ghana and spread to Nigeria in the 1930s. This genre of music which was popular more with the Igbos before the civil war, influenced our present way of rendition and percussion. Although not overbearing, however, the contribution of Highlife in the “cross-pollination” that begets our present genre of Naija music can not be undervalued. According to Wikipedia, “Highlife has a part to play in most of the present day Nigerian and Ghanaian music as most of their artistes fuse it with their style of music”. We can argue it, but we can not deny the influence no matter how negligible. Not even with a singer like Flavour whose music is a remodelled Highlife or others who seasoned theirs with Congolese rumba to be different.
Before the emergence of Music Africa, can you remember how shabby and ridiculous our music videos was? Do you still remember that what we called music videos then wouldn’t even pass for a viral video now? All that changed when Music Africa started playing those “Phamous People” of Philm Productions, music videos back to back. That is a huge influence on our music industry. It stirred the sleeping elephant in us and today Ghanaians can’t compete with our level of productions. Even though South Africans were shooting great music videos, we were not influenced or alarmed until when our black brothers from Ghana started making good videos available. It went further to impacts our sound then. Ghanaian artiste like VIP signed with Kennis Music, Tinny won African Best Act at Hip -Hop awards, Tic-tac became popular in Nigeria. Lots of Nigerian artistes caught the flu of Ghana vibe. Our overbearing influence on the Ghanaian music industry has overshadowed those influence, but it doesn’t mean it never exists.
Influence in art is no big deal. It is part of the art just like deception is to democracy. People will always and continually influence art forms because in its true nature it is without boundaries – racial, gender, country or state. It knows no foes or no rivalry.
Heard Mr Eazi apologises, I guess his conviction wasn’t firm enough or like the meme he “just want (s) to be happy in this life”, lol.
