Every culture that is alive will have a Modenine. By a Modenine, I mean a musician who appears to be above money-making pop even when he wants the fame and money it brings.
The trouble is always the culture because generally, a Modenine is smarter than most of the population. If he isn’t, he is at least the owner of a larger store of popular culture information. So, you have Modenine rapping an entire song based on tech lingo way before tech-culture became what it is now. This is partly the problem with Modenine: he is ahead of his time.
This is no fault of his. You could say it’s the price of genius. Some artists are born into their time, such that all they have to do is to be themselves for the population to follow.
READ: 14 years a genius – Why Modenine is still Nigerian god of rap
The clearest example of this in our time is Wizkid, who by just being Ayo Balogun (with Banky W’s vision and the attention of the media) has managed to make us look and listen. The culture is for this type of artiste because they are easily understandable and recognisable.
You know this type readily: Wizkid is that boy next door but with more talent. He wears skinny jeans just when it is fashionable. He sings brainless pop during a democracy when everyone is free to be any he or she likes. His lewder lyrics are normal for a culture saturated with porn and for a time people no longer feeling guilty for not going to church. Wizkid doesn’t just have a feeling for his time; he is the time. Wizkid is the zeitgeist.
For a Modenine, the culture can’t quite catch up; and the man can’t quite slow down. He was fortunate to have caught the wave when he released E Pluribus Unum. The culture and the man met and the result was awards for the man, and self-congratulation for the culture. The man could brag about having some publicity; the culture could say ‘at least I understand his brilliance’.
Unfortunately, the truce didn’t last long. And for some, this is because Modenine doesn’t get Nigeria. This is faulty reasoning. There aren’t many songs that have captured Lagos as well as Modenine did on DJ Jimmy Jatt‘s ‘Stylee’ or on his own ‘Lagos State of Mind’.
READ: 17 years an underdog: why Modenine is not the greatest
Of course, Modenine hasn’t quite tapped into that space as much as you might hope he would. And maybe this is where he’s at fault. There is some indulgence on his part, the type only brilliant artistes have: the thought that brilliance is everything. But surely, if the audience permits the repeated emptiness of a typical Nigerian dance-jam, what is wrong with the Modenine way of sprinkling brilliance here and there?
Nonetheless, there is some consolation. Almost a decade and a half later, there’s all this conversation around his work and legacy.
Ruggedman, who for a while was his rival spitting insults in interviews, is nowhere. He’s neither making money nor making music. He did his bit, went commercial, made money and then bust. Modenine never made as much money, true. But who is still releasing albums? Who is in the conversation? Brethren, your guess is as good as mine.
Rugged met Modenine on the scene. The scene has gone past Rugged. Not many people will pen articles to praise or pan the man. Why? Because Bros Rugged no longer matters.
What matters is how art works in the third world. And stay with me on this, because The Modenine Issue (MNI) goes beyond music.
Quick question: In Nigerian literature, is it possible that the local population could sustain the intellectual ambition of Teju Cole? We’ve done well by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who is a storyteller that cuts across the culture strata—from the averagely literate to the elite. But what about Teju Cole whose work requires literacy as well as curiosity? Could Nigeria ever be enough to do him right financially? Possibly perhaps, but It will be hard to say yes with confidence.
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Fortunately, no one tells him to be more like Adichie. If he did attempt to be an Adichie, there is a chance he’ll lose on both sides. One group will be unconvinced; the other unimpressed. This is the what folks who insist Modenine going commercial do not see. The fingerprint, unique as it is, is what artistes must go by. (This is exactly why M.I Abaga’s The Chairman album wasn’t quite as well-received as his Talk About It or MI2. But that is a story for another day.)
The MNI holds in our film industry as well. A few years ago, a Nigerian won the Étalon de Yenenga, one of the most prestigious awards in African cinema. Everyone knows Nollywood but this achievement by Newton Aduaka largely passed most of the country by. Like Asa, another important artiste in this discussion, Aduaka is based in France. In France, he’s not a rich man. But he’ll survive. In Nigeria, he’ll be poor, without acclaim and almost certainly without attention. We’ll speak about him in disdain.
Many people already speak of Modenine with disdain. But they don’t realise that such speech is really about their country.
For every society to have lasting culture products, quality artists must be taken care of, otherwise what you’ll have is a country living on melodrama, brainless dance-pop and pulp fiction. Believe me, you don’t want that. Sure pop artistes will have most of the money; the other group, however, should have an adequate number of followers and fans that will be enough to take care of their own needs. It is the reason culture institutions give grants to certain artists: they understand that these artists are important even if they don’t have a large audience.
Point is, some Nigerian artists are let down by a country that has failed to produce a sufficient number of persons that can tap into their vision. Or are curious enough to care.
It also hasn’t helped that the media has largely gone the way of promoting popular music exclusively. The agenda-setting role of the media has given way almost entirely to pandering, to publishing ‘clickbait’. It’s a sad state of things when those who already have publicity will be given more.
I’ll agree that Modenine’s powers have tapered over the last few albums—the decline was quite pronounced around the time of Alphabetical Order. But then, no rapper stays at the height of his powers forever. The artist dies before the man does. But even in this relative decline, Modo will rhyme most of his peers out of the booth. And why no one has copied him is simple: it is too hard; freestyling on some catchy beat and cashing out is way too easy.
This is the one harmful effect of Wizkid’s phenomenal success, the idea of an easy path to riches. It is true that to be copied is a great compliment. But to be impossible to copy, to be truly inimitable is just as valuable. For all of his greatness, there still isn’t an American rapper aping Eminem’s technique. Why? Because, as we say, that one na die.
The temptation is high in Nigeria but let’s not be quick to declare an artist unaccomplished because he never made huge sums of money. The fault isn’t his. In Modenine’s case, the media failed him and he’s right to complain. The culture fails him all the time and he’s right to be bitter.
Let’s just agree that Modenine is a brilliant rapper and leave it at that. When it’s time to discuss money, we can agree that the power lies entirely with the audience. When all of us music listeners who consider ourselves cultured and educated and intelligent shun his music, how can we turn around and blame him?
This is my submission: Next time you feel the need to blame someone for Modenine’s plight, his pain., look in the mirror. The person looking back at you is the problem.
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Oris Aigbokhaevbolo is West African editor at the Music in Africa website. A film and music critic, he won the 2015 All Africa Music Award for Music/Entertainment Journalism.