WHEN THE MUSIC CHANGEDIn recent months, Nigeria and indeed Africa has witnessed the sad departure of her music greats. The crooners whose lyrics shaped the African psyche in the seventies down to the eighties and even the recent nineties. Chief Olive De Coque; Sonny Okosuns the Oziddi king; Orlando Owoh of the Kennery Rave and Miriam Makeba, the great South African woman who first brought African music to the international scene in the early seventies. With the departure of these greats, a season of reflection stares Africa in the face in the light of the achievements made by these great musicians, their impact on our nation and continent and indeed the legacy they leave viz-a-viz the next generation of musicians that will take over from them.
In the light of Nigeria’s current situation, it is unarguable that we as a people are largely responsible for the fall of the great giant of Africa. Through our actions and inactions, we all have contributed greatly to the moral decay that has crippled Nigeria’s economy and progress. It is a well-known fact that a people’s actions are shapened by their behavioral pattern, their behavioral pattern is also greatly shapened by their thought pattern and their thought pattern is greatly influenced by what they know, what they hear and what they believe. This fact shows the important role which music plays in the lives of our people. Musicians play such an important role in the society in that they have the power to shape the thought pattern of their listeners and when a musician is the toast of a community, he or she has a big impact on the behavioral patterns and inadvertently actions of the people of that community.
This strategic and important role of music has been gainfully exploited by establishments and corporate organizations in promoting their brands. One example that readily comes to mind is the dominance of the Hennessey brand of gin in the alcoholic drinks industry. Hennessey achieved this dominance when a popular American hip-hop group used it in their music video and made the brand a status symbol. In the polity, many instances abound where music has influenced the actions of people both positively and negatively. Tupac Shakur’s hit track ‘Hit ‘em up’ was banned from America’s airwaves when a violent youth claimed in court that he had behaved irrationally in public after he listened to the song. Also, the cry of the American people to their government to pull out of the Vietnam war gained a fresh burst of momentum after the reggae legend Jimmy Cliff released his song titled ‘Vietnam’ in which he described in very emotional lyrics the undue agony of the American Soldiers in the misguided war.
Music in Nigeria has always been a very strong influence on the thought pattern of our people. There was a generation of musicians in this country that shaped the thought pattern of the Nigerian people towards the dignity of hard work; towards nation building through honesty, patriotism and nationalism. This was the first generation of musicians who came up with songs such as:
‘Ha E Mura, e Mura s’ise o, ise l’oogun ise’ (Brace up yourself, work hard; hard work is the only solution to poverty)
These lyrics unequivocally tell the listener and indeed the community about the indispensable nature of hard work on the journey to achieving success. In the eighties, when I was in primary school, there was yet another song always played in the radio. It is a timeless piece that in no small way had an input into the kind of person that I have grown to become. The lyrics go in pidgin english thus:
‘Time Na money o, (Time is money)
Use your time well,
No yamayama, (There is no time for frivolities)
No gossip gossip,
No spoil another man, (Don’t spoil another man)
Use your time well,
Money no dey come from heaven, (Money doesn’t come from heaven)
Do better thing money go come, (Do something valuable and you will make it)
Na true word I dey tell you so o, (I’m telling you the truth)
O Na so. (That is the way it is)
These were the lyrics that dominated Nigeria’s airwaves in the past generation and their role in raising the standard of good morals in the nation cannot be underestimated. Men worked and were satisfied with the much they had. The present desperate struggle for wealth at any cost which is the hallmark of today’s Nigeria was a thing of shame and reproach in those days. However, in recent years, Nigeria has watched with helpless passivity, the gradual collapse and destruction of sanity and morality, which was once the building block of our nation, and which of course is the building block of any successful nation on earth.
With the coming of the new generation, the theme of Nigerian music has changed, and has changed in line with the moral slip that characterizes this generation. Whereas the music of the seventies and eighties laid great emphasis on the dignity and indispensable nature of hard work towards the achievement of success, the music today seeks to teach the youth that there is an alternative to hard work on the pathway to success. What with lyrics such as:
“Awon Kan w’aye wa s’ise (Some live to work on earth)
Awon Kan w’aye wa j’aye (Some live simply to enjoy life)
Awon kan w’aye wa sayo o” (Some live to drink to stupor)
And then a most recent one which declares a Godly way to celebrate fraud with these lyrics:
“Maga don pay, shout Halleluiah” (Internet victim has paid into my account, Praise God)!
Such brazen declaration of joy and temporal fulfillment in fraudulent activities by the negatively sharp youths of today have found their way into our music, onto the airwaves, and currently influences a lot of Nigerian youths to seek solace in the world of crime. Since the youths of today are definitely the leaders of tomorrow, the danger lies in that these vices may be transferred into governance in the years to come if urgent action is not taken to curb this trend and a massive re-orientation exercise is done for the youths. These lyrics depict the pervading thought pattern of the average Nigerian today. They show a mentality which says “make it anyhow” and a culture that celebrates anyone with the most amount of money, irrespective of how the money is acquired. This is why our nation has continually been rated as one of the most corrupt countries on the face of the planet. This is the underlying reason why our people suffer so much poverty in the midst of great prosperity, all because a clique of men will use the machinery of violence to perpetrate themselves in power to make more and more money, the only language our society understands.
But really, who is to blame for this mess? Shall we blame the youths of today, or shall we lay the blame at the feet of the passing generation? If a little boy does something wrong because he sees his father doing the same thing, you cannot condemn the boy, after all like my people say o ri eni fi jo! No matter how much an outsider tries to correct this little boy, he will not stop in his wrong actions, except he sees his father stop doing same. For as long as the little boy keeps seeing his father performing this wrong activity, he will continue to do as his father does, and guess what, with time, he becomes better and even surpasses the feat of his father.
The fault clearly lies at the feet of the passing generation. A generation of fathers who crumbled a brilliant legacy laid down by the founding fathers of our nation. Through the greed of generations of military and civilian rulers, corruption became the lingua franca of our nation. Corruption has since so weaved into the fabrics of our lives that a whole generation of Nigerians cannot really identify corruption anymore. It has become the norm of the society they met, grew up in, and saw the older generation do with impunity. As a result of this, the culture on the streets across Nigeria is a phenomenon which says “Grab your own share of the booty.” “Get a cut from any opportunity.” “A chance in government is a breakthrough.” “Government money is national cake, take yours in your time.” “That man has much money; he is a ‘correct man’. It doesn’t matter how he got it, he’s a sharp man.” The society reeks of this thought pattern; the government executes it with ingenuity and the church, I mean the church, celebrates it shamelessly!
This is the Nigeria that the present generation grew in. This is the nation they grew up to know. This is the culture that shaped their thought pattern and as they grew up, the street wise among them embraced the newly evolving crime called internet fraud. The music talents in their midst, sang and elevated the evil culture with their music genius and a generation continues to sink in the mire of moral decadence and national disaster.
The time is ripe for a massive re-orientation of values and comprehensive rehabilitation of psyche for the Nigerian people, old and young, Christian and Muslim, Pastor and Imam, women and even children. It will be more effective to grow a new breed of Nigerians without greed, than allowing the greed to grow and setting up machinery to catch them. Both would work to save the situation, but the former will have a more lasting effect on our polity.
This is a call to the music ambassadors of the new generation, from Tuface Idibia, to D’banj, Asa, Banky W, 9ice and the rest of the players. On your shoulders lies great responsibility. Yours are the voices that are heard on the loudspeakers blaring from DJ’s shops on our streets; yours are the voices heard from every bus stop around Nigeria. In the commercial buses as well as private cars, on the radio as well as the television, in the banking halls as well as the hotel rooms around our nation. Yours are the voices that sink deep into the souls of Nigerians, a people who love their indigenous music with a rare passion. Yours are the voices that shape the thought pattern of the new generation of Nigerians. You are the ones who changed the social landscape of Nigeria and put in new parlances on the lips of the Nigerian people, you are the ones that coined “Nothing dey happen” “No long thing” “File” “That is the koko” and a host of other slangs that have become a deep seated part of the Nigerian parlance today. In you lies the great opportunity to change the thinking pattern of this generation, to change the behavioral pattern and thereby the actions of our youths. You have the opportunity to shape a new mentality and instill a sense of godliness, nationalism and honesty in the youths of today. We can change Nigeria; we can make this country far better than this. If only we can change our orientation and thought pattern, a lot of things that are improperly done now can begin to change for the better. This country needs a difference; your voices could be and could make that difference.
To all the proponents of the New Nigeria; to everyone who believes this nation has the potential for a better future; to everyone who shares my belief that we can change Nigeria positively with our own hands and create a New Nigeria that will be the envy of the world whilst giving glory to God; we have a big task at hand. We must leave the corners and crevices of our homes where we only complain and whine; we must emerge from our different cubicles, and step out to create a voice that will change Nigeria. The New Nigeria is a country of New Nigerians and there are no two ways about it. God is not going to kill every Nigerian living now to start a new life of new humans in Nigeria. He is going to use us to propagate the message of change across the length and breadth of our nation. We will speak, and God will confirm His word. We must flood every medium of communication that goes around this country with the message of hope and righteous living. We must correct the misguided slander that says Nigeria can never be great again. We must insist on what is right and the possibilities of living right even under the tight conditions that the corrupt Nigeria puts us. We have a voice, we have talents, we have men, and above all we have the blessings of the almighty God. In one Obama lay the change to world history, in us lies the seed of change that will burn like a wildfire around Nigeria, burning off the chaffs that have impoverished us for so long and refining the gold that has been erstwhile buried in the mud across our land.
God bless the dream called ‘The New Nigeria’.
