The music industry always repeats itself. Nothing is ever new, nothing changes.
Music industry
specialists love to think that everything that happens right now is
unique in its own way. We believe that what is popping at the moment, is
the first and best of its kind, and there has never been another.
And
you can’t blame them. The music industry in Nigeria and all its
structures is built for ‘now’. Everything revolves around who and what
is trending at the moment. The culture is fickle, and celebrates heroes
in the present, while creating villains too. People can shift from hero
to villain with just one tweet or Instagram post.
That’s
why Davido can be everyone’s darling today when his song ‘If’ is
blasted on speakers, and tomorrow, becomes a villain if he the moment a
girl attacks him with allegations of a babymama. He will soon reverse to
hero status again, when he drops another song, and gets people
screaming ‘100 billion for the G-Wagon oh’.
Everything happens in the moment.
Members of Major Lazer (Diplo and Walshy Fire) with Burna Boy and Davido.
But
if you take a step back from all that energy, bright lights and
celebrity consumerism, and gain perspective of the game, you would
discover that the music industry is a just one huge cycle, which goes
round and round. The systems are the same, the principles on which it
operates never changes, and the actions of everyone fit into a
repetitive pattern of actions and reactions.
The only thing that changes are specifics. It’s generally just history undeniably repeating itself.
No,
it will not be exactly the same actions, not every part will be the
same. History will not literally repeat itself. However the earth will
continue to rotate around the sun and people will cause conflicts that
are either worldwide or between two human beings. History repeating
itself is unavoidable. The nature of mankind has always been the same
and always will be, the only differences in it are the timeline and
technology, which change the way we manifest this nature.
In
the music industry things go round. Artists will continue to beef each
other over market share, bruised egos, money and women. They will come
from nothing, hustle and become something. They will spend some time at
the top of the food chain, and after a while, are swallowed, chewed and
spit out by the industry. It never changes.
Eras come and go. Once upon a time Tony Tetuila, Eedris Abdulkareem, Olu Maintain, were all the hottest artists on the block. Where are they now? Today we have Wizkid, Davido, Tekno
and a couple of other egos. In a few years, they will be cycled out of
those positions by nature, and we will have younger and newer artists
leading the culture.
Record labels will
always fight with their signed artists. Whether it’s Vector vs YSG,
Brymo vs Chocolate City, Wizkid vs EME, or Harrysong vs Five Star; there
will always be squabbles over contracts. Legal battle lines will be
drawn crossed and erased. People will rant on various platforms, and
fans will take sides.
New dances will come and go. We once had Alanta, we had Skelewu, Shoki, and Sekem. Tomorrow, we just might have ‘Fufu’
as a dance move, and even that will lose its relevance and go back. But
at one point or another, there will be a new dance ruling the culture.
Artists
will always dump their managers, and leave them flapping in the wind
with their egos and dicks in their hands. People will dupe upcoming
acts, women will offer sex for industry favors, great movements will
rise and fall. Friends will become foes, and foes will become friends.
Interests will align and realign. Many people will point out ‘the next
big thing’, and fans will be hooked, and unhook themselves.
Even
I, Joey Akan, will be gone. But the patterns and systems that rule the
game, will ensure that a thousand others will walk where we have all
walked.
The music industry always repeats
itself. Just as you will come back to Pulse to read more from where
this came from. We all are turning in the great wheel of the culture.
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