We need more projects, albums, mixtapes and more

We need more of these in the industry. More content, is good content.

We currently have a drought in Nigerian mainstream music. Everyone is all about the ‘singles’ life, dropping a diverse range of songs with little thought given to a more wholesome experience for the fans.

The Nigerian music industry is slowly moving away from extensive projects and into the one-single model, where plenty of free singles get released into the industry space, with little or no thought going into the creation of a collection of music.  

                      

We have an artiste drop 5 singles in a year, with each single existing as a sole entity. With the advent of the internet and the improvement in technology helping to circumvent the traditional, labour-intensive, and poorly optimized systems. Everything can be created, branded and sold without leaving the computer. It’s that easy fam.

Charlie Puth, the singer who broke into mainstream music with his part on Wiz Khalifa’s ‘See you again’ was heralded as an instant star. But looking closely he has set himself up with two EPs. Drake is well known for his four studio albums, but he also has an EP, and five mixtapes. Olamide has no mixtape, but 5 studio albums. Phyno has none, M.I Abaga understands this, with 3 to his name.

          

The mixtape and EP culture is failing among pop mainstream acts. Very few EPs and mixtapes make the entry into the music industry. In the past 5 years only Ice Prince (“Trash Can EP”),M.I Abaga (“Illegal Music 3”) and Mr 2kay (“Count It All Joy”).

I have had conversations with numerous artistes from many genres, whose only defense of their inability to drop more work is that ‘the market is not structured like that’. What on earth does that mean? You can never have too much music out. In fact, it is wiser and more effective to have too much music, than to have none. Different types of releases – singles, albums, EPs, and mixtapes – all have their place in your music promotion strategy. But every music release should be an opportunity to build your fan base, and get your music into the right places.

Shout out to the independent artistes, and the young strugglers who are still on the comeup, looking for ways to break through. With very little to lose, and with no spotlight making them conform to certain radio-determined creative processes, they have come at us with the best of their works, You can find a healthy archive of these works on Pulse Mixtape section with a variety of genres.

The problem is, once they get mainstream success, they lose the basic reason of their struggle and their focus shifts from artistry as an intrinsic end in itself into the pursuit of lucre and pop relevance. Their hustling mindset is eroded gradually, and they slow down on music releases.

Nigeria needs more projects out from mainstream. More music needs to be recorded and released as a collective. That way, relevance is maintained, and the discography gets swollen. Some advantages of releasing a mixtape include.

 1) No creative pressure from the label .

2) Monetization through show money and merchandise .

 3) Stress free (album sales wise).

4) Bigger possibility for the project to reach a larger audience. Blogs, torrent sites, other people posting on streaming services etc.

We need more of these in the industry. More content, is good content.