2016 has no new breakout star in Nigerian music

2015 was awesome for Nigerian music industry in terms of new entrants into mainstream music holding their own.

In January 2015, Kiss Daniel was already putting daylight between himself and the underground with the success of his ‘Woju’ single. He would later go on to cement the year, certified as a hit-making machine, and a beast of a talent. Last year also saw the elevation of Korede Bello from a wide-eyed Mavin Records hopeful, to a star. ‘Godwin’ made him win in his career.

Then there was Cynthia Morgan who is yet to make a wack song. Although she failed to churn out more general pop hits, she found some joy in genre specificity. Her songs ‘German Juice’, and ‘Simati Niya’, were cool singles within the dancehall community. The former went one better and picked up an award at the Headies 2015, for its brilliance.

But in 2016, the stars have dried up. There has been no Kiss Daniel, Patoranking, Cynthia Morgan, nor Korede Bello making the movement to the limelight. There has been no one. A case can be made for Humblesmith but he is yet to prove that he is not a horse with one trick. All of his follow-up singles to ‘Osinachi’ are yet to be accepted.

A quick look through the underground scene will through up some good candidates who sparked, and showed flashes of brilliance, but failed to fully grow into stars.

A number of factors are responsible for this huge dearth of new stars. The talent pool in Nigeria is huge. Take time out to visit underground events, to scout fine talent. By heaven, there’s just an avalanche of them in every corner.

But why is there no one crossing over into stardom?

The problem lies in promotion. In music, Promotion is the most expensive and crucial part of the music business. A good song can get made, and released, but without getting people to listen to it on a large scale, and repeatedly, the single underperforms, leaving it a waste of good effort.

This promotion at its best levels is extremely expensive and it has become more costly with the economy of the nation going into recession. Media in Nigeria has blown up across all channels of it. Online, TV, radio and other facets have exploded in the last decade, resulting in more access to information and connectivity for everyone. But what has been a blessing to the populace, is a bit of a curse to promoters and their talents.

Previously, you just had to worry about SoundCity TV and Nigezie for video releases. Right now, you have to consider Trace TV, MTV Base, HipTV, and many more. Each station has its payola to cover, resulting in more expenses. The same can be said of the digital space, and the radio scene.

One popular young talent, who was tipped to become a force this year on condition of anonymity revealed to me that funding was a huge problem for him due to the economic recession.

“The economy is bad. There is no money anywhere,” he says. “This recession hs made my investors broke, and they have been reluctant to release funding to finance my project.”

In January 2016, former Chocolate City artiste, Kahli Abdu chronicled his frustrations in the Nigerian music scene via twitter, but the height of it lay in the request of a promoter, who billed him N800, 000 (about $3,700) for the promotion of his new single ‘Festival’.

That’s the sad reality on ground. The price of promotion in this country continues to hit the roof, with a select few being able to afford it. I have read promotion plans and put together some myself, and trust me, nothing goes below the N600k and N800k mark. That’s how capital intensive, the market has become.

Nobody rocks with talent anymore. Everybody wants money. New acts can’t afford to pay that cash, hence, they get relegated.

While a lack of funding has affected the emergence of new stars, it is not the only reason. The Nigerian music industry is touch one to crack, and with the penetration of the internet in the country, people generally possess shorter attention spans, and so would find it difficult to follow the story of unknown acts.

The year is in its final quarter, and hopefully, there can still be one breakout star who would go on to wow audiences across the country with next-level music. Hopefully.