Dear foreign media, please do your due diligence on African entertainment stories [Opinion]
Africa must be great and we need the right things in the right place.
Since her emergence in 2011, Tiwa Savage has been the most popular woman in Contemporary Nigerian pop music. [Instagram/TiwaSavage]
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Since then, the African/Nigerian music industry has descended into ridiculous levels of dysfunction. But currently, the labels are coming back with forms of investment and attention. ‘Afrobeats to the world’ has also seen Nigerian artists become global superstars with impressive chart successes, major collaborations and touring success.
Yet, foreign media has become more about sensationalism and blatant lies when it comes to covering Nigerian artists. Sometimes it feels like these foreign media platforms engage in these acts not to be left behind in the precious race to be seen as familiar with Africa. Other times, it just feels like the constant bludgeoning of journalism at the hands of PR.
Over the past two weeks, Billboard has engaged in a series of Africa-related articles. It started with the mega interview of Nigerian superstars, Tiwa Savage, Davido and Mr. Eazi. That coverage was as important as it was necessary. But since then, we’ve seen some very curious articles with cringe-worthy ‘insights.’
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The article about Sarz was filled with conjectures. The article about gatekeepers in the African music industry was just terrible by all accounts. Almost all the other articles were dripping with lies and terribly researched ‘truths’ that any African will debunk in two seconds. Nonetheless, the article on Nollywood and Soundtracks was good.
On April 24, 2020, Essence published a list of the top seven global Hip-Hop stars that we should know. Curiously, we saw Tiwa Savage - who is about as close to a rapper as my mother is close to being Angelina Jolie - on the list. Where are the real rappers? That's not even PR, it's terrible representation. The actual Hip-Hop artists are not even getting any spotlight.
About two years ago, Vogue published an article about Nigerian singer, Wavy The Creator on their website with a headline that intimated that she was the artist behind viral Nigerian dance, shaku shaku. The article was both laughable and cringe-worthy because shaku shaku was not even created in realms close to her existence and her song was terrible.
In December 2019, Fader published an article about how Nativeland was "The Go-To Platform" for African youths. If Nativeland is the go-to platform for African youths with its meagre attendance, then what is Rhythm Unplugged, Gidi Fest, Island/Mainland Block Party or Olamide Live in Concert? Heaven?
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Nativeland is not even known beyond Lagos Island and the elite class filled with IJGB - that's under 10% of Nigerian youths. People on Lagos Mainland don't even yearn for Nativeland. There are other articles about Burna Boy across the internet that nobody should even be reading.
In 2019, a piece on Nigerian rock/gothic kids was published in The New York Times and it basically argued that these kids were the first of their kind. After the Nigerian Civil War, South-Eastern Nigeria was bustling with psychedelic rock talent. Some of these acts like OFO Black Company were signed to foreign record deals.
We understand, some of these articles are placements from PR companies or paid bits of content, but it will not cost these media platforms anything to actually do some work and research. Journalism needs all the funding it can get, but it still remains a primary means of information dissemination. Thus, it must retain integrity.
As much as we need African artists to look good in media coverage, we don’t need them to be presented as something they’re not. We don’t need them to be presented as bigger than they actually are. Life has a way of unraveling myths when lies are used to obtain goodwill while the deserving, innocent ones suffer for it.
When an event or an artist is presented as bigger than then it/he/she is and the truth finally comes out, cynicism will become the order of the day from investors toward African phenomena.
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Entertainment is business and reputation is important. A lot of people in Nigerian entertainment are catfish and Africa will suffer the consequences if foreign media allows itself to further perpetuate propaganda.
Proper research costs nothing, and neither will employing African journalists to do these jobs. Africa has been good for the coverage from foreign media, but these loose ends need to be tightened. We need Africans to look good in foreign media, but we don’t need foreign media to help them lie about their achievements.
Pay African Journalists to do African Jobs! But that's the first step - the second step is verifying stories and great outlooks. The right people who are actually doing the work should get coverage, not the ones who look like it. Journalism is dying and PR is killing it.
This must also be done in music capitalist ventures
Perfection will forever be a myth, but we must at least try to tell the truth. If these lies continue, Africa will suffer for it. A lot of music capitalist ventures in Africa have failed so far because foreign media and foreign capitalists have accepted catfishing at face value. It's not enough to look good, you have to be good.
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The wrong people are getting the right jobs already because of these problems. As much as Africa has viability problems, foreign capitalists ventures buy themselves a one-way ticket to failure with poor due diligence. They need to understand that it's not enough to look good, people must have a track record.
Africa must be great and we need the right things in the right place.
This is not a Pulse Opinion, this is simply the opinion of Motolani Alake.
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