By ‘Dayo Showemimo
Photo: Mystreetz Magazine
YBNL stars, Olamide and Ololade Keshinro otherwise called Lil Kesh, are the cover celebrities for the latest edition of Mystreetz Magazine. According to Sesan Adeniji, publisher of Mystreetz magazine: ‘As we take inventory of the year 2014 in the Nigerian music industry, the ideal thing most parties will do is to tick all the right boxes that recorded tremendous growth and lament about the flaws that engulfed the entire year but at what point will we identify the major problems that have contributed to why most of the Nigerian music genres are steadily losing content and the life span of some of these music genres are short-lived. The major problem is the fact that the right knowledge has not been properly passed from one generation to the other. The Nigerian music industry has failed to properly raise protégés across all sectors of the music industry. From performing artistes, sound engineers, instrumentalists to name but a few, our sound quality and content is below par in comparison to the rest of the world we compete with. Check out this analogy; when Nigerian artistes perform at international events, the moment their music is played, the sound quality and performance level drops. Let’s answer this question, ‘what would have happened to Afro-Beat music if Fela did not raise Femi as his protégé?’
Speaking further, Sesan went on to add: ‘Arguably, some of the great music veterans have failed to mentor and raise the right protégé to carry on with the great works they have put out. This ideology is visible in the entire industry today but one artiste stood up to be counted. Despite the fact that he worked his socks off to become one of the greats in this industry; as young as he is, he has developed another worthy protégé to sustain his empire. From the first moment he graced the cover of Mystreetz magazine with the caption, ‘Olamide’s Eye on the Rap throne’, to the second time his success story warranted another cover titled; ‘What’s working for Olamide?’, with two albums in a year which ticked him as one of the most successful artistes of 2014, He is back on the cover of Mystreetz magazine with the Caption’ The King and His Protégé- Olamide and Lil Kesh.’
