‘With bliss, Nigerian artistes go to the table angling for these collaborations in order to expand the reach of their songs and values but all too often, these international artistes just look at them like ‘Those rich kids from Africa.’ Often, they don’t share in their values and care even less about the songs; all they see is another transaction to just get paid and move on’ – Sesan Adeniji

The reason why there’s a word called freedom is because there’s a chance for all of us to someday choose to be free from physical, mental or ideological slavery. It doesn’t matter how far we have come or the pain we have endured. Our painstaking experiences should transform into knowledge that could trigger our freedom to a better world. So here is the question, looking at all the scenarios where Nigerian artistes have featured an international artiste on their
songs, is there any evidence to show that we are free from ideological slavery? Are the featured artistes in it for our values or they just see us as another transaction to get paid? The evidence over the years is somehow pointing towards the direction that Nigerian artistes are not getting a reasonable reward every time they feature these artistes? It’s time to understand this reality and adjust to be better.

 

It’s always newsworthy when our artistes luckily get their international performing idols to jump on their song just as we have seen in the remix to previous hit songs. For so long, Nigerian artistes have wished for such moment. With bliss, they go to the table angling for these collaborations in order to expand the reach of their songs and values but all too often, these international artistes just look at them like ‘Those rich kids from Africa.’ Often, they don’t share in their values and care even less about the songs; all they see is another transaction to just get paid and move on. Sometimes they simply want to tap into our sound to benefit their own self-interest at that moment. The evidence is reflected in scenarios around most of the collaborations. Instead of getting #closer, they’re far drifted. Hiding under the pretext of giving our artistes ambassadorial roles, they sometimes come to town just to sell their drinks and some other ideas. Should we stop all these collaborations, I say NO but I’m advising that we stay woke! Our artistes have worked so hard to attain millions of fans all over the world; they should not sell themselves cheaply or act desperate. If need be for these collaborations to even exist in the first place (often times most of these remixes don’t make sense), we should act more knowledgeable and ask for all that is necessary. If our music market and our artistes are as unique as the western world says they are, they should treat us like one and we should also act accordingly. #don’tbedesperate

– Sesan Adeniji

Culled from the latest edition of Mystreetz magazine( DJ Neptune edition)