The Nigerian popular Music industry is currently and unarguably one of the most diverse in the universe.
Nigerian’s overall population is estimated at 220 million citizens and still growing.
Nigerian is broadly formulated in three major regions in coalition with the major ethnic groups; in the north are the Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri; in the southwest, the Yoruba and their numerous subgroups; and in the southeast, the Igbo people.
The audience is enough to sustain most artistic endeavours, and most artists tailor their music to a domestic audience using local linguist.
- RELATED: Flavour basking on longevity and originality with Igbo highlife
- RELATED: Simi’s nightingale voice and flawless songwriting edge on point
Nigerian topical inspirations have always formed a sizeable proportion of wide genres.
Nigeria is an economic and newly birthed artistical giant in Africa, with the relative golden worth of acts such as Wizkid, Davido, Burna Boy, Tiwa Savage and others.
Nigerian’s cultural bequest is a great source of pride, and Nigerians also have a great sense of the deep-rooted wealth of their nation.
- RELATED: Burna Boy on the verge of becoming the biggest Afrobeat Artiste
- RELATED: Why Nigerian music industry needs to be decentralised
Perhaps one shouldn’t be surprised by the level of variance in the industry since Nigeria in itself is a very diverse nation that shelters more than 250 ethnic groups.
However, anyone can classify any Nigerian artist as falling under a particular music genre since most artists tend to itinerate rather spontaneously from one genre to another as the tides of an ever-changing music culture sweep through the country.
Nigerian artists continued applying creative ideas in order to enhance their lives and explore their surroundings to add meaning to their life and the world at large in order not to be out of the market since their propelling force is the prospering gain and popularity it commands but relies on the message the music portrays.
Also, strengthening the above protestation, ‘Every civilization in the history of mankind succeeded in applying creative ideas to enhance the life of man in its environment and to explore or add meaning to the place and life of man in the naturality.
Music conventional has been known to provide comfort to people in distress, as well as providing some form of entertainment.
Over the centuries, Nigerian contemporary pop music has moved from one stage to another so that it can conform to the current trend.
A Critical Look at the Nature of Nigerian Contemporary Pop Music and the Values they Portray In the Nigerian music industry today, values are ascribed to human beings depending on one’s social status.
To most artistes, the concern for values is what the plurality of people agreed upon and do not depend upon the judgment of any individual.
One typical example of this genre migration is embodied in a particular Nigerian highlife singer Flavour.
Flavour is the modern pioneer of the renowned Igbo highlife, cultural orientation and preservation, with the ability to extensively converge a live performing atmosphere.
This goes to explain that the source of values in present-day Nigeria is external to the artist since there are circumstances and conditions of value that the artist cannot control but are dependent on the manner in which the society evaluate one another and the kind of cultural object they hold in high or low esteem.