Dance pop is dead. Yeah I said it. Not rap or hip hop in Nigeria, but dance, of the pop variety. It might appear to be still alive and kicking but it is surely on its last legs.
Pop music in Nigeria has had a bad reputation for a while, derided as the bastard child of contemporary music. The kid we all deny knowing in public even though we delight and dance to his accomplishments.
Derided because pop music was/is seen as being vacuous and too easy to produce. As if music making music should be an academic exercise.
For all of its faults, and there are quite a few, pop music, in this country more than most, is the voice and sound of the people. That, and its simplicity is why it is always widely appreciated and accepted by the people but looked down by those who consider themselves the custodians of Nigerian music. More like janitors if you ask me.
Most of the opprobrium of pop music has been reserved for the dance sub-genre, the get-up-and-shake-your-booty type, the type people like to call pangolo music, that still gets everyone, and I mean everyone dancing in the clubs and on the streets.
But that is all dead and gone. Dance pop is dead and buried. What is truly alive and well is love pop. Almost all of the biggest Nigerian songs of the last year have been love ballads, from Tekno’s ‘Pana’ to now Runtown’s ‘Mad Over You’. And for good reason.
Music retains the unique ability to entertain, rile and fiddle with our emotions, all at the same time and sometimes with the same song. Love ballads, especially when done over catchy beats, the way Nigerian producers can do like no other, are the true propagators of this.
Usually, love songs are seen as being too corny to appeal anyone who isn’t emotionally wrought already with lyrics soppy enough to make your skin crawl.
But the trend is changing and because the love songs have become more acceptable and more relatable. No more Mills and Boons in our love songs, more of the Lion and the Jewel.
For instance, when Tekno sings ‘Pana’ and entreats Folake to give him some love, we all can relate to it because we have surely encountered a Folake at one point in our lives who we wanted his/her love. Haven’t we all?
Which is why dance is dead as a dodo. How long do you want to dance to a dance song? Once you leave the club, what are you going to listen to when you are sleeping alone and missing the love of your life? Some more dance music? Hell no.
Love ballads allow us to express our our deepest yearnings and innermost desires, in a way no other genre can do. Dredging the bottom of our hearts to expose such that our mouths are probably too afraid to say.
So it is by no accident that a few Nigerian artistes have caught the wave and are churning out love ballads, and gaining acceptance by the day.
The place of love ballads in the pantheon of Nigerian contemporary music is assured, what is not clear is what, if anything is going to come next.
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