Good morning ladies and gentlemen, though, there are no ladies in the media.
All protocol observed. My job here today, I must say, is simple but difficult; difficult in the sense that it is one aspect of our job that we have ignored for too long. Simple because we have refused to look beyond our nose to see the positive side of the subject.
Having said so, I will break down this topic of telling positive African (music) stories from our own perspective into four segments viz: 1. Enjoyment 2. Job creation, 3. revenue generation and lastly image boosting. And I will also use Nigeria as a case study.
. Enjoyment
Enjoyment; yes, enjoyment that is the first function of entertainment, music inclusive and those involved in creating music/entertainment have done fantastically well in that direction. They have supplied Nigeria the entertainment that made them the happiest people in the globe. Like football, music, movie, comedy are that things that unite an average Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa. When they are in a concert venue listening to the likes of Davido, WizKid, Burna Boy, KWAM1, they not only forget where they hail from but also the fact that a dollar exchanges for almost for a thousand naira now. That is one of the positive contributions of creative people all over Africa.
Job creation
Aside the black gold (crude oil) and most recently the telecommunications industry (digital economy), the creative industry is next in line in provision of employment. Millions of young Nigerians are directly or indirectly engage in the industry.
Here, again, as at 2021, Statista. com said that ‘in 2021, motion picture and music recording accounted for roughly one percent of Nigeria’s GDP. However, despite the large contribution of the movie and music industry to the country’s GDP, telecommunications and information services held 12.2 percent of the country’s GDP, representing the most valuable sector in the creative, entertainment, and information industry. ‘
The industry has employed young Nigerians/Africans who ordinarily would have been roaming the streets searching for elusive white collar jobs even with enviable educational qualifications.
Revenue generation
In Sept 27 2023 edition of www. statista.com, ‘motion picture and music recording accounted for roughly 154 billion Nigerian Naira (NGN) (roughly 197.6 million U.S. dollars) of Nigeria’s GDP. ,’ This would have been more if entertainment industry, which largely remains in the informal sector is well organised by government, if the same government at all levels, have given serious fight against the hydra-headed problem of piracy/copyright abuse confronting the industry and very small percent of entertainment writers have also given serious thought to the issue.
Image boosting
This is the crux of the matter; here entertainment has done more than what billions of dollar PR contract could not have done.
Together with sports, it has nurtured and boosted the continent’s image beyond what the best PR professionals in the world would have done. For Nigeria in particular, it is the only good thing out of the country right from time immemorial. It is the only services we sell to the world.
I give you one example; n 1999, I was covering Femi Anikulapo-Kuti’s show in Paris, France and I at the backstage during a post show interview with artistes that featured in the concert. When it was my time to ask question and I introduced myself as a journalist from Nigeria, the next thing I heard from fellow French journalists was ‘ Fela”s country ! Okocha’s country.: That was few years after the World Cup held in France that led to Okocha signing for PSG. Then Obasanjo just took over as Nigeria’ president and non of the journalists, who were supposed to known, referred Nigeria as OBJ’s country or that of Buhari.
During that same tour I visited a big mall where records of very important musicians all over the world are sold, only Fela, Mariam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and Lucky Dube of South Africa, were sold there; Fela had about five racks displaying all his records under one imposing Nigeria flag and painted Nigerian colour of green and white to indicate the country he hails from so for all other artistes. I was so proud and I went there to take some pictures. I have taken time to relate this experience just to tell the positive image Nigeria can or gets from these creative people. Same for our Nollywood stars who are known all over the world like we know dollar, pounds and euros.
On a Final note
In spite of all that, how do we reward or appreciate them other than to use all the unprintable words like flotsams and jetsam to describe them; the government is no better. It arrested Fela severally on phantom charges of armed robbery, kidnapping and keeping Harlem just for being critical of them with his songs like Zombie, Expensive Shit, Teacher No Teach Me Nonsense, Beast of No Nation, Authority Stealing and so on.
Some western media are not left out in trying to put him down, instead of highlighting his creativity in playing the sax and keyboard. Even some of our entertainment writers joined them . We keep writing that he smokes weed and wears underwear in public as if the likes of Bob Marley did not smoke marijuana or that Micheal Jackson, their king of pop, did not die of drug overdose.
The time is now for us to begin to tell the positive story of our creative people from our own perspective, we should not continue to live in self denial or ‘colomentality’ like Fela sang. Let us tell the world that our own KSA can play the guitar better than Jim Hendrix, that Laolu Akins is a better drummer than Sly Dumber, that Okocha is as skillful as Messi in the round leather game that Segun Odegbami was a good number seven in his days that Ernest Okonkwo nicknamed him mathematical. I can go on and on but for time.
In conclusion
I want to counsel entertainment writers, if there is still any, not to wait for only weekends to file in entertainment stories; they should make it a daily affair, compete with political, business, crime and sports stories. Make sure that positive entertainment stories like how much music contributes to our GDP, how music helps in reducing unemployment in the continent/Nigeria should appear on the front page at least twice in a week. This was what I did in my reportorial days in Evening Times, Saturday Times, Sunday Times, Fame Weekly Magazine, Global Excellence Magazine and both Daily/Saturday Independent. Let us change the narrative, let us focus on the positive side, let us report it from our own perspective for if we keep doing things as it have been done by those before us, we get the same result they got in their days. Enough of crime, corruption and war stories for like the poor, they will always be with us like our Lord Jesus Christ said; in. the Holy Book.
California, a state in America, as we all know is the Seventh economy in the world. It’s rich resources is not from crude oil or ICT or agriculture/manufacturing but from the activities of creative people, mostly music and movie and this is because the government of the state of California and by extension America, do not see those musicians as ‘ never do well’. They are provided with enabling environment to do their job and in return, encouraged to contribute to the state’s and country’s GDP but that is not the case with Africa where we demarket them with all sorts of negativity lingos. Imagine how much Lagos State government would have raked in if the tax man had gone to the box office of the Portable/Charles Okocha celebrity boxing show to collect his tax from the revenue generated from the show. But that was not the case, we dismissed it as nothing while waiting for the monthly allocation from Abuja!
Gentle me, let us turn a new leaf for the only thing that is constant in the world, is CHANGE!
Thanks and Happy New Year.
