The mere mention of a Nigerian artiste in the same sentence with an international superstar is arguably every artiste’s dream in these parts; not to mention the online and social media buzz that would in no small measure triple the bragging rights of our local artistes.

If you’re social media savvy and up to speed with happenings in the Nigeria music industry, you would definitely know that one song that is generating a lot of conversation on both the local scene and in Diaspora is the recently-released musical collaboration involving Nigerian pop star, Wizkid, American singer/rapper,Drake and UK rapper,Skepta on the remix of Wizkid’s widely-acclaimed street anthem, “Ojuelegba”.

Not to say that this is the first international collaboration involving Nigerian artistes, it just so happens that this is one of the biggest collaborations-especially when looking at it from the perspective that it involves artistes from two of the biggest music industries on the globe.
Of course there have been international collaborations before now that caused some ripples in the music scene.


Most recent and notable of these collaborations include Carribean-born American artiste, Wyclef Jean’s collaboration with the former Plantashun Boiz duo of Innocent “2face” Idibia and Chibuzor “Faze” Orji along with Naija Ninjas general, Olanrewaju “Sound Sultan” Fasasi on the track “So Proud To Be African”, P-square’s collaboration with Maybach Music pioneer, Rick Ross for their R’n’B hit “Beautiful Onyinye” and most recently, Davido’s featuring of American rapper, Meek Mill on his single “Fans Mi”.

The gains of such joint musical effort between Nigerian artistes and their counterparts from Europe and America are potentially unimaginable. I mean, think about it. The artiste gets to have his or her brand and market value boosted thereby opening doors for potential endorsements from telcos, financial institutions and other multinational bigwigs who would almost lay at the feet of these artistes with blank cheques-in-hand in an attempt to woo the artistes into accepting ambassadorial roles for their brands.

However, in my usual manner of looking at issues and scenarios from both sides of the divide, I ask, “what really are the musical gains of these much-sought-after and cherished international collaborations?”.I know someone somewhere thinks I’m crazy for daring to ask such a seemingly dumb question but indeed let’s be neutral for a bit and put aside our love and fanaticism about these artistes for a bit so as to critically examine the issue properly.

While the perks of these “joint ventures” sound good enough to outweigh whatever demerits that may exist, it would interest you to know that some of these collaborations are not exactly collaborations in the real sense of it.

Believe it or not, a lot of these artistes practically beg for these so-called collaborations which sometimes involve foreign artistes whose careers are on the brink of extinction (if they weren’t dead already). If you thought that was bad enough, I wonder what you would call dolling out hundreds of thousands of dollars just so that an artiste whose influence doesn’t transcend the “hood” or state in which he or she is domicile, can drop a few lines (or bars like the hip-hop heads would call it) on a track.

Also (and I’m sure you would agree with me on this one), a lot of these songs that these foreign artistes “jump on” were actually near-perfect without the unnecessary and unneeded addition.

The featured artiste just ends up doing something basic which in the real sense doesn’t improve the musical or even commercial value of the track itself. I admit that it does get the local artiste a few hundred or possibly thousand downloads but that’s as far as it goes really. To further add salt to the already existing wound, the featured so-called bigger artistes hardly ever bring their A-game to the fore. They probably just slur a few times and mention their names along with the featuring artiste’s name and then drop a few tired and lame lines after which they almost disappear and these tracks end up not having videos for them thereby robbing them of the visibility that could have further propelled the local artiste’s career especially on the international scene.

Another downside of these features is that the Nigerian artiste ends up telling stories that are near alien to the Nigerian and even African reality. Why in the world would an African artiste be singing about Bentleys, Ferraris and all the luxurious facades when the total opposite is the case in their home countries?

The obviously misled and poorly-informed artiste then goes ahead to spend outrageous sums just to travel out of the country to shoot videos featuring scantily-clad Caucasian and Asian ladies shaking their bottoms to songs whose lyrics they don’t even understand. The local artiste thereby loses his African essence and originality that should have been brought to bear on the song. By the way, did I mention that these collabos with foreign acts get very little or no airplay even in the countries of the featured artistes?.Yes. It is that bad.

I can cry blue murder all I want but the fact still remains that some artiste somewhere is looking for an opportunity to pay or probably even beg (yeah I said it, BEG!) a foreign artiste to feature on his song so he could increase the popularity that he or she already has.

Conclusively, I advice our local acts to pay more attention to building their brand and credibility here on the African continent and portraying our African roots which have already forsaken in the positive light. Whether we like it or not, no one can tell the African story to the world better than an African would. I am optimistic that if this is done, even the foreign acts would want to work with us because even they know that our passion, drive and talent is unmatchable…my two cents anyway!

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http://crystaldigest.com/musical-synergy-reviewing-the-trend-of-nigerian-and-international-collaborations/

Well, all I have to say is: perks and percs make my day. Brb