By Fumike A. Opokuaa
TORONTO, CANADA – Nigerian music has resonated within not just its international audience, but is also sweeping the continental borders of Africa. In an interview on TOF TV’s Close up with Jen Ashley, Bebe Cool , Uganda’s most distinguished Reggae artist, discusses what he views as show business and his thoughts on the oh-so dominant West African music industry.
With a fervent expression showing the passion he has for his industry, MOBO Awards & MTV MAMA Awards nominee says, “The East African industry is the most aggressive industry. The West African industry that is Nigeria and Ghana, they’ve got the numbers, they’ve got the hype, but right now, I can guarantee you that East Africa has what they call ‘showbiz’. We don’t care how many you are, what we do is show business.”
There seems to be a game of quantity vs. quality. But that cannot be the only reason why the whole world has been forced to acknowledge the Nigerian music industry. The truth is, and many of us can attest to this, one of the main reasons why Nigerian music been so widely successful is because they’ve managed to keep an authentic African sound, without falling completely prey to the sounds of the western world. They’ve managed to keep their cultural sounds as well as keeping up with the times, therefore contemporizing it. With their hard work ethic, and strive for quality, they have managed to get the attention of international community, thus moving up the ranks.
As for Uganda because of its turbulent political past, there was not really anytime to solidify their own sound, and settled for the trend of Ragga/Reggae music and dancehall in the 80s and 90s which is arguably the most popular genre of music in Uganda. It is not that they haven’t managed to create a new genre, for example there is the genre of Kidandali, which is a very popular genre in Uganda, but it’s not a universally accepted term as most refer to as Afrobeat, while others say it’s different because it has a sound that is Ragga based. Bebe Cool further confirms this fact and explains the circumstances of Uganda: “Uganda has seen battles and wars in the near future. Music in Uganda is the only thing that can take over the country and you forget the president, you forget politics, and you forget everything.”
The key component in solidifying an industry is having an identity, a stamp on all of your own, making it a brand known to the world so that no one can take it away from you. With that individual stamp, it will make it easy for all to recognize you and it’s a sure way to make yourself known, whether you’re making a business or whether you’re in the music industry. But just in any business, marketing is very important.
In this interview, multi- award winning musician Bebe Cool makes a valid point on how to create a solid music industry, in which the African music industry counterparts should take note of: “I like the fact that Nigerian music is crossing all over the world, which every country would want. But in Nigeria, they’re not playing Ugandan music more than Nigerian music. They could be playing, 1 or 2, 3 songs here and there, which is automatically okay, but they’re not doing it more than their own. Play the Nigerian music, but PRIORITIZE Ugandan. Why? Because everyone needs an identity. You need to support your own.”
A boost of moral is very important to make a business successful because as they say if you don’t believe in yourself who will? For instance, the Jamaican Reggae industry managed to cross-over internationally in under a decade, when Jamaica was only a population of 1,600000 people. Through its desire to be an entity, a new genre was born, and further turned into a lifestyle of the people.
Bebe Cool with a face of disconcertment ends his point by saying, “Like they say charity begins at home, so why would charity begin at Nigeria when I’m in Uganda? I wanna go proud to Nigeria and say ‘ Hey guys you know who I am, I’m Bebe Cool, yeah we know you…I don’t want to them to ask me who are you. They need to know you can’t crossover there just like that. There’s a guy called Bebe Cool. It’s crucial.”
Do you agree with this statement?
Here’s Jen Ashley interviewing Bebe Cool: