In the last few weeks, an article by the Chairman Editorial Board of the Guardian sparked off controversies from the Nigerian music scene. In this interview conducted by JERRY ADESEWO in Abuja; Edmonton, Canada based Nigerian writer and cultural activist, Nduka Otiono who was National Secretary General of the Association of Nigerian Authors for four years offers his view on the article, the controversies and other issues on popular culture and the Nigerian Music scene.
How would you best describe popular culture?
There are different aspects of popular culture. Popular culture covers the music, the video films, popular theatre, popular press and popular literature. We need to break down the units and see which aspect of it we focus on. The idea of popular culture comes from the opposition between the high culture and the popular culture in which people use pop culture as a denigration of the kind of cultural products that are associated with the popular or the mass, I mean mass production. These are all implied in popular culture. Often time, people use them interchangeable but sometime they are not even clear what they mean if they say popular culture. So, if we say popular culture in the Nigerian context, it becomes very problematic to define, especially for me as one working in that field. So I would want to take it within specific context or genres like music, film making, Nollywood and even popular art as we found them in lorries buses and mammy wagons.
What is your opinion of Reuben Abati’s Recent Article and the controversies trailing it, especially as it concerns the content of Nigerian Music?
I have to first acknowledge the fact that Reuben Abati is a very brilliant writer. He is not one of those who take up an argument without first reflecting on it. As someone who has been a columnist myself, I think it’s a fortunate columnist that writes an article that generates a lot of responses. And I think he must be basking in the euphoria of the type of provocation it has proved to be. Though I haven’t read the article critically to be able to respond to every part of it but I have engaged it at the level of general brushstroke of the kind of ideas that he has dealt with and the kind of response since generated. I will begin by saying the responses, especially from the younger generations is very predictable. You do not begin to stir the honest nest with a generation that is very passionate and very much involve in the kind of environment they operate in and think that they would not respond. So, the basic thesis of Reuben’s article for me is worth taking seriously. It is worth paying more attention to beyond the adornment and colouration that the article goes with it which gave it some kind of attitude. This article must be read metaphorically because it has raised very strong points about what is considered popular music in Nigeria may not necessarily be anchored on a kind of foundation that it ought to be. And so, in conducting that argument, I think he also overshot the bound. We can also be looking at ways in which to get these things properly done. But to begin to say that there has been some prostitution of the art or that there has been some reduction or denigration of what otherwise is high culture. The argument about what is considered as popular, high or low is already emerging. The moment you create this dichotomy, we begin to run into this kind of crisis. These also have antecedents in some of our local cultures. In my town Ogwuachukwu in Delta State, there is a festival where people express their affection. They go to this festival to sing what you may call dirty songs. So what we should be doing now is looking back with the aim of determining what really constitute tradition? At what point is this tradition been broken by the younger generation? Where are they going wrong? Then it will be possible to conduct an argument to show that we have veered away from what some people considered as the hallowed or sacred tenet of these genres – be it music, literature, sculpture and other forms of art. And then, those at the receiving end should be magnanimous enough to accept reality and make amends rather than struggling to engage Reuben Abati who like I said earlier remained one of the best columnist this nation ever produced.
Do you share the view that Nigeria suffers identity crisis?
These artistes I think should feel great to have been credited with creating identity problem for Nigeria. This is a proof that what they are doing is not passing by unnoticed. I wouldn’t want to agree with that notion. The fact that the effort of these young artistes is been widely noticed should be commended. The issue of identity crisis has to be viewed based within the context of these cultures across the world and especially in West Africa. It’s like Nollywood. Can you say Nollywood for instance is an aberration? People started by not taking it serious but it is today the third largest film producer in the world. This is the same thing I foresee for Nigerian popular music. It hasn’t quite achieved the status of an industry in the sense that everything is still disorganized. You still buy CDs that are bleached and cannot measure up to international quality like in the case of Nollywood. So, if it is recognize as been capable of creating identity crisis for Nigeria then it mean that it is an art form that has potentials for being use for political statement and I personally would want to see that happen. So against this background I want to remind you that these are youths who have been frustrated by their society. Many of them never had the opportunity to hold down a job. Some of them don’t have the means to produce their art forms. They are exploited by their producers and recording companies. And so live a wretched live. And when they finally make something small they think they have arrived. Therefore, we must begin to engage this generation in a way that they would begin to package their art forms the way Fela did. Fela was able to package his music for the international market. Today, it may be difficult to handpick any artiste that has been able to capture international status in the real sense of it. If you take away the emerging ASA, Femi Kuti and Lagbaja Then, there is a whole cacophony of other artistes many of who are one album artistes like a flicker. The light flickers and then goes off because we haven’t that kind of structure that could create the global feel and sustain it. So, if this is the case, we may just then be exaggerating its capacity to create identity crisis for Nigeria.
Is the commercialization of the art responsible in anyway for the lack of quality and depth in content of most music produced by the younger generation today?
I have continued to emphasize the idea of this culture. Let’s shut our eyes against these artistes and the content of their works and look at the average youths of this generation. What kind of cloths do they wear? What prompted the University of Lagos to prescribing a dress code for its students? It is not specific as it were to musical art or other cultural productions. It is indeed part of this generation that you talk about Yahoo-Yahoo. So, in some cases, commercialization would make the artistes try to produce what the market need. It is a market driven kind of productions and this is common with mass culture. Mass culture is a universal phenomenon that is not peculiar to Nigeria. We talk about market driven economy, deregulation and capitalization at the level of policy making. This is like saying whatever is happening now, it is like the youths are taking there destinies into their hands because they have been neglected for too long. And it is indeed a tribute to the Nigerian spirit and the Nigerian youths that they manage to create some form out of chaos in an environment that hardly care for them. In doing so you would expect that commercialization would be the way. However, the point that Reuben raised should be taking seriously that it cannot be all commerce. We don’t all have to play to the gallery. There must be some of these artistes that should be able to sit back and create some balance between youth experience and popular culture.
Where do you see the Nigerian Music Industry ten years from now, considering what is on ground presently?
If you look around the scene now, you would see that there are artistes who emerged in the mid - 90s but have frizzled away. Its look if you go away from Nigeria for a few months and before you know it there is a new star on the block. You get a CD and listen and its looks you have since been cut off. This is the indication of the amazing talents in this country. However, it is such a shame that we do not have the kind of structure that is required to make these artistes emerged as global musical forces. The same way you have a R-Kelly or 50 Cent coming in and is being advertised for N100,000 gate fees against some local artistes who are as good or even better and who have seen greater odds to even emerge to play music at all. And the claim that they don’t know how to play musical instrument should not even arise at all. It is a digital age. Many of these guys don’t necessarily need to know how to play instruments because the whole concept of music production itself is evolving. There are people who have become computer merge. They use the computer to all sorts of computer animation. If you take one of Lagbaja’s musical video for example, it deals with the June 12. It is talking about serious political issues but the video was made in animation. Even at the level of Nollywood where films are now been produced with animation without human stars. These and many more are all the things we need to consider before rating this generation. As for the future, I think there should be no going back for the industry.
Last Word
I am very happy about the Nigerian musical scene. I am happy about the abundant talent and the capacity of these youths to overcome almost creeping to make sure their voices is heard. This same thing is already also happening with spoken word. Jahman and co are at the fore-front it and I am also involved in it because I am studying this popular culture productions in order to see how we can evolve the content so that we can also begin to take them seriously. This is the good thing about Dr. Abati’s article. It has drawn attention to the capacity for critical engagement of this works. That is a major achievement of this article. Would they have preferred that nobody discuss them at such high level? Like someone of Dr. Abati’s caliber? So it points the way forward. It shows that more people like Nollywood begin to pay attention to the quality of what is been produced. Once this is done it begins to generate discussions academically and intellectually in very serious literary journals as indeed have been the case with hip pop in the United State of America and other parts of the world. And I see that the industry will recognize the importance of money making within if it can deal with piracy and copyright violation which continue to pauperize these young talented people who should be megastars and extremely wealthy based on God-given talent. Nigerian government should work towards that by recognizing it as a major foreign exchange earner and begin to build structures like they have done for Nollywood with film school in Jos, Plateau State or all of this Zuma film festival. There should be a proper Nigerian music festival that is conducted within like the Jamaican Reggae festival. Michael Jackson is dead and already there is a shrine put up for him at the Galleria in Lagos. This shows the level of contradiction in our society which reflects our recognition of imported cultures at the detriment of local ones. All these need to change.
How would you best describe popular culture?
There are different aspects of popular culture. Popular culture covers the music, the video films, popular theatre, popular press and popular literature. We need to break down the units and see which aspect of it we focus on. The idea of popular culture comes from the opposition between the high culture and the popular culture in which people use pop culture as a denigration of the kind of cultural products that are associated with the popular or the mass, I mean mass production. These are all implied in popular culture. Often time, people use them interchangeable but sometime they are not even clear what they mean if they say popular culture. So, if we say popular culture in the Nigerian context, it becomes very problematic to define, especially for me as one working in that field. So I would want to take it within specific context or genres like music, film making, Nollywood and even popular art as we found them in lorries buses and mammy wagons.
What is your opinion of Reuben Abati’s Recent Article and the controversies trailing it, especially as it concerns the content of Nigerian Music?
I have to first acknowledge the fact that Reuben Abati is a very brilliant writer. He is not one of those who take up an argument without first reflecting on it. As someone who has been a columnist myself, I think it’s a fortunate columnist that writes an article that generates a lot of responses. And I think he must be basking in the euphoria of the type of provocation it has proved to be. Though I haven’t read the article critically to be able to respond to every part of it but I have engaged it at the level of general brushstroke of the kind of ideas that he has dealt with and the kind of response since generated. I will begin by saying the responses, especially from the younger generations is very predictable. You do not begin to stir the honest nest with a generation that is very passionate and very much involve in the kind of environment they operate in and think that they would not respond. So, the basic thesis of Reuben’s article for me is worth taking seriously. It is worth paying more attention to beyond the adornment and colouration that the article goes with it which gave it some kind of attitude. This article must be read metaphorically because it has raised very strong points about what is considered popular music in Nigeria may not necessarily be anchored on a kind of foundation that it ought to be. And so, in conducting that argument, I think he also overshot the bound. We can also be looking at ways in which to get these things properly done. But to begin to say that there has been some prostitution of the art or that there has been some reduction or denigration of what otherwise is high culture. The argument about what is considered as popular, high or low is already emerging. The moment you create this dichotomy, we begin to run into this kind of crisis. These also have antecedents in some of our local cultures. In my town Ogwuachukwu in Delta State, there is a festival where people express their affection. They go to this festival to sing what you may call dirty songs. So what we should be doing now is looking back with the aim of determining what really constitute tradition? At what point is this tradition been broken by the younger generation? Where are they going wrong? Then it will be possible to conduct an argument to show that we have veered away from what some people considered as the hallowed or sacred tenet of these genres – be it music, literature, sculpture and other forms of art. And then, those at the receiving end should be magnanimous enough to accept reality and make amends rather than struggling to engage Reuben Abati who like I said earlier remained one of the best columnist this nation ever produced.
Do you share the view that Nigeria suffers identity crisis?
These artistes I think should feel great to have been credited with creating identity problem for Nigeria. This is a proof that what they are doing is not passing by unnoticed. I wouldn’t want to agree with that notion. The fact that the effort of these young artistes is been widely noticed should be commended. The issue of identity crisis has to be viewed based within the context of these cultures across the world and especially in West Africa. It’s like Nollywood. Can you say Nollywood for instance is an aberration? People started by not taking it serious but it is today the third largest film producer in the world. This is the same thing I foresee for Nigerian popular music. It hasn’t quite achieved the status of an industry in the sense that everything is still disorganized. You still buy CDs that are bleached and cannot measure up to international quality like in the case of Nollywood. So, if it is recognize as been capable of creating identity crisis for Nigeria then it mean that it is an art form that has potentials for being use for political statement and I personally would want to see that happen. So against this background I want to remind you that these are youths who have been frustrated by their society. Many of them never had the opportunity to hold down a job. Some of them don’t have the means to produce their art forms. They are exploited by their producers and recording companies. And so live a wretched live. And when they finally make something small they think they have arrived. Therefore, we must begin to engage this generation in a way that they would begin to package their art forms the way Fela did. Fela was able to package his music for the international market. Today, it may be difficult to handpick any artiste that has been able to capture international status in the real sense of it. If you take away the emerging ASA, Femi Kuti and Lagbaja Then, there is a whole cacophony of other artistes many of who are one album artistes like a flicker. The light flickers and then goes off because we haven’t that kind of structure that could create the global feel and sustain it. So, if this is the case, we may just then be exaggerating its capacity to create identity crisis for Nigeria.
Is the commercialization of the art responsible in anyway for the lack of quality and depth in content of most music produced by the younger generation today?
I have continued to emphasize the idea of this culture. Let’s shut our eyes against these artistes and the content of their works and look at the average youths of this generation. What kind of cloths do they wear? What prompted the University of Lagos to prescribing a dress code for its students? It is not specific as it were to musical art or other cultural productions. It is indeed part of this generation that you talk about Yahoo-Yahoo. So, in some cases, commercialization would make the artistes try to produce what the market need. It is a market driven kind of productions and this is common with mass culture. Mass culture is a universal phenomenon that is not peculiar to Nigeria. We talk about market driven economy, deregulation and capitalization at the level of policy making. This is like saying whatever is happening now, it is like the youths are taking there destinies into their hands because they have been neglected for too long. And it is indeed a tribute to the Nigerian spirit and the Nigerian youths that they manage to create some form out of chaos in an environment that hardly care for them. In doing so you would expect that commercialization would be the way. However, the point that Reuben raised should be taking seriously that it cannot be all commerce. We don’t all have to play to the gallery. There must be some of these artistes that should be able to sit back and create some balance between youth experience and popular culture.
Where do you see the Nigerian Music Industry ten years from now, considering what is on ground presently?
If you look around the scene now, you would see that there are artistes who emerged in the mid - 90s but have frizzled away. Its look if you go away from Nigeria for a few months and before you know it there is a new star on the block. You get a CD and listen and its looks you have since been cut off. This is the indication of the amazing talents in this country. However, it is such a shame that we do not have the kind of structure that is required to make these artistes emerged as global musical forces. The same way you have a R-Kelly or 50 Cent coming in and is being advertised for N100,000 gate fees against some local artistes who are as good or even better and who have seen greater odds to even emerge to play music at all. And the claim that they don’t know how to play musical instrument should not even arise at all. It is a digital age. Many of these guys don’t necessarily need to know how to play instruments because the whole concept of music production itself is evolving. There are people who have become computer merge. They use the computer to all sorts of computer animation. If you take one of Lagbaja’s musical video for example, it deals with the June 12. It is talking about serious political issues but the video was made in animation. Even at the level of Nollywood where films are now been produced with animation without human stars. These and many more are all the things we need to consider before rating this generation. As for the future, I think there should be no going back for the industry.
Last Word
I am very happy about the Nigerian musical scene. I am happy about the abundant talent and the capacity of these youths to overcome almost creeping to make sure their voices is heard. This same thing is already also happening with spoken word. Jahman and co are at the fore-front it and I am also involved in it because I am studying this popular culture productions in order to see how we can evolve the content so that we can also begin to take them seriously. This is the good thing about Dr. Abati’s article. It has drawn attention to the capacity for critical engagement of this works. That is a major achievement of this article. Would they have preferred that nobody discuss them at such high level? Like someone of Dr. Abati’s caliber? So it points the way forward. It shows that more people like Nollywood begin to pay attention to the quality of what is been produced. Once this is done it begins to generate discussions academically and intellectually in very serious literary journals as indeed have been the case with hip pop in the United State of America and other parts of the world. And I see that the industry will recognize the importance of money making within if it can deal with piracy and copyright violation which continue to pauperize these young talented people who should be megastars and extremely wealthy based on God-given talent. Nigerian government should work towards that by recognizing it as a major foreign exchange earner and begin to build structures like they have done for Nollywood with film school in Jos, Plateau State or all of this Zuma film festival. There should be a proper Nigerian music festival that is conducted within like the Jamaican Reggae festival. Michael Jackson is dead and already there is a shrine put up for him at the Galleria in Lagos. This shows the level of contradiction in our society which reflects our recognition of imported cultures at the detriment of local ones. All these need to change.
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