So I’ve been off work and off social media for sometime.
But on getting back and seeing this Falz bants and rants, I was like… Woo Saa!!!
To solve a problem, you have to ask the right questions to have a better understanding of that problem, in order to proffer a generally acceptable solution.
But also note that not everyone will accept these solutions.
So this is my attempt at helping you and I understand why musicians praise the people with money.
Nigeria is a corrupt Nation that is slowly but surely having a paradigm shift in all sectors. This shift is happening. It’s at a very slow pace, but it’s happening.
We as a people have always celebrated people with money. We don’t ask how and where they got the money, but we celebrate them. This is a fundamental problem in all spheres of our society.
Now let’s move to Entertainment, as this is our concern.
Have we forgotten that at some point in our history nobody in the entertainment business was seen or perceived as a responsible human being? If you mentioned to your family that you wanted to be a Musician, Actor, Entertainment Photographer and the likes, you immediately became the black sheep of the family.
When the international record labels left Nigeria because they couldn’t function in our dis-functional society, the entertainment business was left for dead.
How would you expect a creative person to bring out their creativity without financial investment?
You most certainly couldn’t go to the banks to ask for a loan to finance your music or movie project. You would be laughed off if not stoned.
That’s where corrupt money comes in.
Corrupt money and Yahoo boys helped save and spark a revolution in the Nigerian music and entertainment business.
These guys had so much money and could only spend so much on themselves. So most of them turned into financiers of record labels and movie projects for the fun of it.
Since a struggling upcoming film producer or artiste couldn’t go to a bank with a detailed proposal of how he/she would invest loaned money into a business with a proven schematic that shows returns on investment, they would turn to the Baba Olowo or Chairman who dances to their music at parties or pubs; who has a considerable amount of change to spare without needing to see a detailed workable plan for profit on his investment.
Now tell me, why won’t you sing and praise this person when writing a song? Why won’t the artiste want to show gratitude to someone who has brought them out of poverty and given them a sense of purpose in life? Why won’t movie credits read special thanks to so and so chief even before the cast credits come up?
And why won’t these same individuals have control of what the music sounds like and what a movie should be like, when they invested millions? But this is a story for another day.
Fast forward to 2017.
The only reason we are having conversations like these, questioning the content and quality of what musicians and the likes put out, is because a lot has changed over the years and a lot more people are educated and more educated people have seen the massive effect of the entertainment business on the Nigerian economy.
There is a structure that is being built everyday as people work and learn on the go.
People in the entertainment business are now regarded as responsible members of society.
They can detail out financial plans that when followed up to the letter, will yield profits. They can speak the language of the financial world and show that their business is lucrative.
And with all these, we can now have professionals, educated Nigerians, well meaning individuals question the content of what entertainers give the consumer.
Why? Because now we have started to question people with money that can’t be explained.
We are now becoming bold enough to ask the right questions.
Blame the society. Not the musician!