You simply CANNOT forget it; the memory is too scary to forget that easily! I am too sure you all remember when the average Nigerian video shamefully consisted of a rather morose and rigid artiste standing in front of a big screen which served as the background and scene of the entire video.
If you are lucky, you might see a change of clothes or two and even more still, the changing screen which goes from a picture of the sky, forest or worse still, aquatic life of fishes which has absolutely NOTHING to do with the song! How mind-numbing that was! There was this lack of effort or energy, the directors were so apathetic towards the quality of the video they produced. It was more of a drab necessity than an aim to actually entertain, let alone the chance to rake in profits through the market strategy that is synonymous with music videos. Imaginative skills were perhaps locked away somewhere or maybe the constant brain drain the country experiences was to blame. For whatever reason, then Nigerian videos were a big zero!
But today? Mehn...na die o! Everybody must be on MTV Base!
Never mind the fact that you are listening to gibberish as long as that video is tight, nothing do you. I think for the artistes the rationale is that if you concentrate hard enough on the content of a video, your audience would not notice the whack lines you are dropping! (Banky W, in Capable Remix, what the hell were you going on about when you thought of a weak stuff like: “I wanna be your boy like Charley” ??!! No. You just cannot expect people to ignore that).
Okay. Maybe that was too harsh. Thus, I must give kudos to the positive evolution of most Nigerian videos. This change has heralded a pattern in music videos. It sends a message that all hope is not lost. If you ask me, it kinda makes up for most of our Nollywood disasters! At least as long as the likes of Jim Iyke, Genevieve Nnaji, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Desmond Elliot take serious steps to restrict their mediocrity to the movie industry and try to control the urge to burst into music just to validate their existence (though they’re here already). We do not need their “skills” overflowing and diluting the progress of our newly spruced-up naija videos.
Therefore, E411 would like to give two thumbs up to a few videos:
• Baraje – Ruggedman (now don’t act like he didn’t start the trend)
• The Finest – Knighthouse ft Saucekid, Teeto and Mo’cheddah
• Shayo – Bigiano
• You are not the girl – Darey Art Alade
• M.I – Safe (he played it safe)
Now, we just don’t rate videos without critically appraising them so the videos listed above have earned our positive acknowledgement. Well done! However, you must watch your back and buckle up ‘cuz if you mess up...you WILL also feature on our list of music video meltdowns!
Till the hottest gist comes up (which is very soon), i’m out!
Darkchild for E411
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