Why it’s harder for a fallen Nigerian artiste to rise back up

The Holy Grail in the music industry for musicians, and every other person involved in the process of creation, distribution, and marketing is to ‘blow’ an artiste.

‘Blowing’ in the contextual sense means that the artiste and his music break free from the grueling and finance-guzzling underground scene, and surge into mainstream awareness and recognition. This blowing’ is enabled mostly by a single which has become a hit song. In 2014, Patoranking came through with his Álubarika' single, Kiss Daniel hit the big time with ‘Woju’, and the next year, YCee has become a force with ‘Jagaban’. These singles paved the way for them to blow.

‘Blowing’ is a hard job. Every artiste that becomes an instant celebrity has been in the doldrums for over 5 years. ‘Blowing’ just brings them to your consiciousness. Did you know that Reekado Banks was called Spicy before his encounter with Don Jazzy?

In many ways, ‘Blowing’ is easy. Getting a hit song is a product of time, chance, promotion, and talent. The real work lies in staying at the top. Check out a long list of one-hit wonders. Slyde, AY.com, Klever Jay. MP, Flowssick, and many others. They got a hit song, but didn’t sustain it.

Many times an artiste does have an extended run in the limelight. One, two, three years roll by, and everyone is happy. But as all circles come and go, the artiste begins to lose his touch on the scene, either from natural causes, poor decisions, ill-luck, scandals, or just plain old jazz. (That’s a thing in Africa.)  He slides away from public consciousness, and his songs lose their flavor.

A year goes by, another floats away, and the artiste becomes distant memory, and fades. But for some reason, he gets a spark in his career. Perhaps he gets an epiphany, and injection of cash, or finds a new team. He begins a new campaign to get back to the top.

But this time it’s different. Nothing works. He discovers that it is harder to get back up, or attract public attention. Why?