2016 will have more beefs in Nigerian music

What a year this has been for Nigerian entertainment. From the moment we got to welcome the New Year, to this very moment, the Nigerian industry has been consumed by beef.

From veteran artiste (Don Jazzy) vs pop genius (Olamide), Battle rapper (Vector) vs one hit wonder (YCEE), musician wannabe (Tunde Ednut) vs producer (Shizzi), Dancehall-singer-patois-queen (Cynthia Morgan) vs pop star (Davido), and underachieving talent (Dammy Krane) vs rockstar (Wizkid), there has been happiness for the neutral fan, a just cause for the music fanatics, and plenty of words from the critics.

As with many disputes, there have been prices to pay. Twitter punishes with pure venom, memes, analytical curses, dark humor, and flat-out disrespect. Also, we have had curses given, legal documents exchanged, interviews granted, secrets leaked, and here’s the best, blood spilled.

Someone give us an Oscar already! This 2016 script, with all its plot twists, and turns is worthy of the highest recognition. Nigerian celebrities have had to spill blood. Nothing, in the history of rivalry and acrimony in the Nigerian art sector, or more specifically, showbiz, can beat the image below.

The image shows Dammy Krane. The super talented underachiever, aggressor, and underdog, who has had enough of the pilfering of his intellectual property, which he happened to record in the houses of ‘thieves and snakes’ of the music industry. It shows him wounded and bleeding. He sounded the alarm, alerted the world to his unfair treatment by Wizkid, threatened to give the Starboy the ‘street treatment’, and claimed to have been raised by two densely populated Lagos slums ‘Surulere and Oshodi’’.

For all his troubles, he got wounded physically by the Wizkid, who had a killer aim with a glass cup at Club Quilox. Dammy Krane bled for music, Dammy Krane the naïve, is our modern music martyr. He stood up to the system ruled by the money-chasing pop stars and bled for glory. Let the papacy canonize him; , the patron saint of musicians.

Then here’s another one below. As swiftly, as the fight happened, public peace was achieved immediately, thereby bringing in anger from many Nigerians. Why go to war if you cannot sustain animosity, and achieve the victory of some sort?

While we were still basking in the joy of Wizkid and Krane’s indiscretions, Tunde Ednut was slowly becoming a star in music. Here he was flying in cloud 9, after releasing a song titled ‘Kosowo’, getting the video out, and pumping promotional money into it. After a good day’s work, he was about to kick back, have a beer and chill until HKN’s  Shizzi, shot his plane off the sky.

Why? He allegedly ‘stole’ the composition of the song from Shizzi, and released it. Painfully for him, Shizzi has no Twitter-finger. He is classier than that. All he had to do was get his Lawyers to earn their fee, and the case is headed to court.

Thanks, Shizzi. You honorable man.

Tunde Ednut is yet to respond to the claims. There’s no use admitting in public that you committed a crime. Denying is no option, as Shizzi has already moved to release his version of the song.

LISTEN: Tunde Ednut - 'Kosowo'

WATCH: 'Kosowo' video

2016 is still in its first month, but it has thrown more drama than the past two years put together. We as a country have grown bolder and more daring. Entertainers have long held their beef in their hearts, and this year, the façade of happiness that have long stripped the industry of its needed realism can no longer hold.

The beef and excitement have been unleashed, and as it has always been, nobody wants to be left out of all these media posturing, intensive coverage, and publicity. Nigerian artistes have been known to embrace every trend. From the basics of their art such as a beat pattern or instrumentation, to less crucial aspects such as fashion statements or shoutout styles, we tend to copy the trend. Beef is on the rise, and trust Nigeria, we will all get some sort of it this year.

There will be more beef this year. We are evolving as a people, and right now, public expression is the ‘ín’ thing. 2016 is the year of Nigeria’s beefpocalypse and Beefmargeddon.