Nigeria at 62: Reminiscing On The Growth Of Nigeria’s Music Industry

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When Veno Mariaghae prophesied it nearly four decades ago, most people might have dismissed her words as wishful thinking.

The Delta songbird’s prayers on her 1985 bop dubbed, Nigeria Go Survive, still manifest deeply into the existence of this great country. It has been a 62-year-long adventure filled with twists, travails and triumphs.

In 1971, two years after he started STAR Records with I.K. Dairo, he released Oroki Social Club on Decca Records, an ode to the popular nightclub that hosts his performances in Osogbo. That album sold over five million copies and became his largest selling record till date. Many other names like Tunji Oyelana, the Funkees, Ofo the Black Company, The Hygrades, Colomach, Tabukah ‘X’, The Elcados, and many more were all lost from memory due to Nigeria’s horrid legacy of not keeping good archives.THE musical mad scientist, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, is another proud beam of Nigeria’s musical legacy. After he broke into the Nigerian music scene, in the ‘60s, with his Koola Lobitos band, he began to gain prominence.

Soon, the Ajegunle boys such as Daddy Showkey, Daddy Fresh, Baba Frayo, Marvelous Benji, Mad Melon & Mountain Black, African China, and others started fusing elements of music from other West African climes, popularising sub-genres such as Makossa, Konto, Galala, among others. The music was hard to categorise, at the time, with its very native appeal. There were stars like Pasuma and Obesere who were still holding the forte with Fuji music.

Founded in September 2010 with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria it offered a range of online media products, including its movie streaming website named iROKOtv focused on Nollywood Film productions, and ‘brokering’, a Nigerian music streaming platform. While cooking was short-lived, other music platforms – all owned by foreign companies – started to slowly crawl into the Naija music sphere.

In the middle of the pandemic, he released an album dubbed, Made In Lagos, which till today is one of the best-selling African albums of all time. Songs from Made In Lagos, such as Essence, attracted the entire diasporic community, with big stars including Rihanna, Jay Z, Chris Brown, and even former US President Barack Obama all giving their applause on the Terms-assisted song.

While they were not the first Nigerians to be nominated, Wizkid and Burna Boy became the first two Nigerian-based musicians to win big awards. Wizkid won, in 2021, for his contribution to Beyonce’s Lion King: The Gift album, while Burna Boy won in the same year for his Twice as Tall album, which earned him the Best Global Music Album.

 

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The Nigerian music industry most be the only sector that has been growing at a very positive rate, but in few years to come we will be looking at the growth of technology and infrastructures too

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