Original, Americanized/westernized

In a while i'd be leaving the cold of here and heading for the scorching heat of naija for a rockful xmas. I intend to keep blogging as I hope to get unlimited Internet access by God's grace. Anyway I love listening to all types of music and Nigerian music tops the list once a while. I had an argument with a friend of mine about the originality of the Nigerian music out there now. I must say the Nigerian Music industry has grown and developed in the past few years and her complaints were most of them were not original in the sense that they were copying the west in terms of music and music videos. Now I would try and be an advocate for both sides and y'all be my judge to decide the case.

Original

Or so

Being original, we could say we need to keep our culture our heritage. We need to be proud of who we are and stop copying the west on everything they do. Our Music must showcase we are Nigerians ...we are Africans. We have been brainwashed to think that parts of our culture might be "fetish". But this is only done to discredit what the west does not understand. We need to be proud of who we are and no matter what type of culture we have, it needs to be portrayed in all we do. How else can we show that we are not inferior to others if we don't portray our own and be original with what we have. 

I mean...if i want to listen to hip-hop, rap, pop, r&B etc, I would stick to the Americans because it is theirs and they know how to do it well well. We need to coin our own and let the world know. The jamaicans have their reggae, trinidad has their soca music, 

why can't we coin ours?

Westernized

Then again we could also argue in favor of the westernized music in that every other thing of our lives are mimicked around the western culture. I mean we live in an interdependent globalized world.

Language, 

We all speak some form of a western language. our native languages are not part of our national language

food, 

Well, we have incorporated a lot of westernized food in our cuisine

wedding

white wedding dresses, some ceremonies and the works are definitely not part of our culture, so does that mean we are not original or in touch with out culture

Movies

We all follow American movies, music, politics, everything

Clothes

Well our casual clothes are very much westernized.

So if we have 98% of our daily life surrounded with western culture, why cant music be part of it to. If i listen toamerican rap music and american hip hop all day, when i want to rap my own.... (garbage in garbage out).

Personally, ... I would listen to any kind of music as long as it is good (vocals, lyrics, beats/musicality) Americanized or original. As long as they are not using Beyonce's beats or Lil Wayne's hooks im ok with it. I guess it is easier to do what you know. A lot of people do not listen to the traditional music anymore and even when they have music awards in Nigeria, fuji, apala, afro juju, juju etc are all left out of the categories. So where do you want these average artiste to dig out their Africaness or Nigerianess from??

First video Rugeddy Baba ft. 9ice

Second Video Dj jimmy jatt ft. Blaise, Sasha (my high school hommie), Bouquoi, Kemistry.