The Comparisons in African Music
As the year draws to a close the conversations about favourite moments and highlights of the year is taking place amongst millions of people. That conversation unavoidably includes the best album of the year 2020.
The year that A Better Time has made us feel Twice As Tall, where Colours and Sounds Made in Lagos took us to Apollo. On Three, Warriors became Restless in lockdown, Celia took us to another Realm with the King of Love, and Empress all in a bid to Get Layd helped us Carpe Diem.
This week the powers that be have released their nominations for prestigious awards in the music industry and that has sparked a debate about who the best artist in Africa is; in doing, so fans have pitted artists against each other.
So the question “should we be comparing artists” came up?
How fans choose to draw comparisons between artists can affect their brand’s identity. Whilst there are pros to comparisons, like the fostering of healthy competition, there are also cons like being grouped into one world category.
Perhaps the larger conversation should be about genres within African music. Because every artist has a different sound, there are different musical metrics, and so comparisons don’t often make sense.
Whilst it may be useful in gauging artist performance against their direct competitors, it’s slightly harder to get an accurate measurement of how they are doing across the music industry in general, especially when done by fans who have no idea of the inner workings in the entertainment industry.
Identifying a competitor correctly is never more tricky than when it comes to music genres, especially with the hybrids of sounds that now exists. Where do one genre stop and another begin?
What’s more important, are the comparisons based on revenue, monthly streams, songs on the charts or popularity? Oftentimes it’s not, it’s more about how the artists themselves make people feel and sometimes how they relate to their music. How you compare musicians drastically influences what you see.
There are artists that we all love, that a lot of people may not even listen to; some may have never even heard of them. (For me it’s Lagbaja) But does that make him any less valuable to me? Absolutely not.
When Wizkid and Davido’s album (Made in Lagos and A Better Time) was released both were immediately compared to each other, some people even brought Burna’s Twice as Tall into the mix even though they weren’t the same type of music.
Comparisons of KPI’s like streams, ticket sales, revenue and even engagement are measurable and therefore acceptable, but anything beyond that undermines the value of each individual’s hard work and often discredits their abilities as musicians.
At the end of the day, you can love more than one artist; you don’t have to pit them against each other, there is more than enough space in the sky for all-stars to shine.
Lastly, stay up to date with all you need to know about African music at SOA, right here.
The Comparisons in African Music
