Nigerian Rap Music Is Dead!

Nigerian Rap Music Is Dead! by AfroHypeMedia: 4:18pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbgAYSnE4NI The state of Hiphop/rap music in 2022 to many is considered bad and it needs to be addressed. So I pose the question, is the Nigerian rap music dead? As a teenager in Nigeria 10 years ago, the majority of music Influence at the time was American Hip Hop with the likes of Lil Wayne, Kanye West, Rick Ross and Eminem as role models to kids in Nigeria. After Americans themselves, Nigeria became highest American hip hop-consuming nation. Even those who rapped or sang had to fuse Hip-Hop with native language. Prime examples are artists like Tolu & Olu Maintain, Dat Nigga Raw now known Mr. Raw etc. There were even Nigerian rappers that used English, Pidgin English with their native languages. We had artist likes of Remedies, Plantashun Boiz, Eldee etc Ajegunle Style vs Nigeria Hip Hop The first style to challenge Hiphop was ‘Ajegunle Style’ with artists like African China, Daddy Showkey, Original Stereoman etc. Oritsefemi was also one of the artist from this style but most people think his style is entirely local. Introduction Of Street Culture Everything was going very well with hip hop and Rap until the introduction of ‘9ice’. “Gongo Aso” an album by 9ice released in 2007 with street culture was well received by the music industry and fans loved it. While 9ice was holding it down for the street. A rapper, Dagrin shot into the light with a classic sophomore effort titled “C.E.O.” with full force in 2009. Unfortunately, Dagrin didn’t see the greater impact of his efforts as he died a year after he became a commercial success in a car accident. Dagrin was the one who brought the street culture rap onto the music scene. His efforts paved way for the likes of Olamide, Phyno, Reminisce etc. Olamide took over from where Dagrin with songs like ‘Eni Duro’, ‘Omo To Shan’, ‘Shakiti Bobo’ (with dance steps that won over many young music fans). He introduced many rappers like Lil Kesh, Victoh, Chinko Ekun and even the likes of Adekunle Gold, Portable and Asake. The effect of the Street Culture affected Nigerian rappers to the extent of switching from rappers to singers or even go to break from music scene. Rapper Yung6ix also expressed frustration with what Nigerian rap music became with this tweet that reads: ‘When I wanna listen to African rap I play Yung6ix and SA rappers wtf is going on with the Nigerian Rappers? Wake up’ Yung6ix is not alone in this, Terry Tha Rapman also expressed a similar worry. ‘I kinda get where he’s coming from. I’ve been stressing this for long, when I said ‘rap is dead ’ in Nigeria I didn’t mean nobody is rapping. I meant we (being the fans,media and promoters) stopped supporting rap music as it should be at a point’. He continued on 'Now would you blame rappers for fine tuning their style? Rappers hardly get the airplay/support as our pop counterparts so after years we started adapting. I still believe there’s hope. We are far from the days of Trybesmen, 2shotz, Ruggedman, Modenine and when MI dropped Talk About It and MI2. We need more rap concerts to promote hip-hop culture. The few ones I’ve been to were not encouraging’. Afro beat A genre of music taking Africa by storm is afrobeat, nailing the coffin to casket of Rap. The afrobeat, a force to be reckoned with, has the likes of Wizkid, Davido, Burna Boy, kizz Daniel, Tiwa Savage, Bella Shmurda repping the music genre. The afrobeats, not only limited to Nigeria, has conquered every part of Africa, giving rap music less space to thrive. Kids in Africa all wish to become Wizkid and Davido. According to Terry Tha Rapman, rap is not enjoying the same attention as afrobeat, no radio play, less people wanna see a rap artist on stage, all these are not encouraging to rap artists. This has forced a lot of promising rap artist to drop rapping and moved on to singing. Without showing the same love to rap music, the situation is not going to change. Rap is not dead, Nigeria just abandoned it. I hope you all enjoyed the video. Please, don't forget to like, comment and subscribe for more. See you guys, soon. My channel https://youtube.com/c/AFROHYPEMEDIA