Adding Meaning To Our Musical Lyrics
Music is an organized sound that is pleasing to the ear. It is also the food of the soul; while the soul is the immortal element of man! The essence of playing music is not only to entertain, but also to heal. Music is also used in sending messages, preaching the ideals of life and fighting against injustice and other societal ills. It is also used in promoting people's culture and beliefs. This is why music is one of the yardsticks used in knowing the people's way of life. But, is our own music reflecting our own ways of life and who we truly are?
Before now, Western Music use to dominate our airwaves and market! In fact, I am one of those Nigerians who grew up with addiction to foreign music. But, all these changed when government intervened. When the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) saw that, foreign dominance of our market was affecting our own local musicians, it mandated all broadcast stations in the country to be playing more local music on our airwaves than their foreign counterparts. The directive leapfrogged our local musicians from taking the back seat to dominating our market, thereby putting more money in to their pockets. Today, the music industry has lifted many Nigerians out of poverty, from obscurity to notoriety and from lack to abundance; as it has created thousands of jobs for the hitherto unemployed Nigerians.
One interesting thing about the industry is that, it does not require high qualification or education unlike the other sectors of the economy, which sometimes requires unbeatable resume!
Nevertheless, it is now time for our musicians to add real values and meaning to the lyrics of their songs since they now have great influence on our youths and some older generation. For the fact that Nigeria is still a developing country have afforded them the opportunity to use their musical talents to contribute meaningfully to national development!
Their concern should now be on how to use music to fight against poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment, insecurity, infidelity among couples, injustice of any kind, corruption, conflicts, cronyism, nepotism, tribalism regionalism and religiosity in the country, and not the current bandwagon effects of singing for 'Baby-girls' and other meaningless songs with dancehall beats they churn-out as music which usually depicts and create the wrong impression of our youths as cult of irresponsible people and Casanovas who knows nothing beyond galivantism and hedonism against the time tested virtue of hard work and discipline which the people before us were known for.
The current musical tradition is capable of destroying our young ones who most times look up to those musicians as role models worthy of emulating!
Music should be seen and treated as a career on its own and not an 'accidental house of refuge' for the army of the unemployed youths. This may be partially responsible for the reasons why only a handful of our musicians who understands this facts are succeeding against all odds, by getting endorsements and show contracts from the various multi-national companies and medium sized establishments in the country, when compared to their stage-managed and over-hyped overnight superstars who don't last beyond one year or two years before they get broke and return to the wilderness.
The media having helped in projecting our local musicians to international status should now be demanding for quality and good lyrics as a condition before accepting to play those songs on the airwaves! This will help us in exporting our music, culture and value to the outside world and also add value to our economy.
Similarly, the current trend of every unemployed Nigerian wanting to become a musician, a comedian or even an actor or actress should be discouraged, because it is capable of denying the gifted and talented actors and actresses the opportunity of making the nation proud with their endowment.
Also, if every young Nigerian becomes musician, how do we get the needed labor in the country to drive other sectors of our national economy? Or should we continue to use expatriates in doing local jobs in the country? Certainly, this will not augur well for Nigeria as a nation that plans to join the group of 20 leading economies in the world by the year 2020! This is because; the strength of any nation is determined by how industrious the citizens of the country are!
Therefore, the youths should look beyond the music industry and form their career in other sectors of our national economy. The music industry should only support our growing economy through the entertainment and messages it preaches to the entire nation. The Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN) should professionalize the industry by working in partnerships with some of our tertiary institutions to train those who are talented in the musical field to make it their career in life, as the act of making music is not, and should not be viewed as an all comers affairs, because music is truly the food of the soul!
Comrade Edwin Ekene Uhara is an Activist and Public Affairs Commentator. He is also the National President of Young Nigerians for Change.
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