Article : Why Musicians Should Stop Featuring The Wrong Artists For The Right Reasons

D'banjThe Nigerian music industry has seen an unprecedented growth in recent years with many international artists now either using our Afrobeats/AfroPop for their songs or clamouring for Nigerian artists to feature on their tracks.
It’s a really good thing to see the vision our ancestors had for our music industry internationally, finally start coming to light. But here’s the problem, Nigerian musicians are so, so into going international that they forget “the Son of who they are” and “where they come from.”
We now have many Nigerian artists travelling overseas to feature top international acts (which is good, really good,) while forgetting to feature the many upcoming artists here in Nigeria.
I know there are so many upcoming artists to keep track of, but let’s remember that M.I’s “Talk About It” album was one that featured only upcoming artistes then like YQ, Wizkid, Pype, Eben, etc. And there is no doubt that M.I – in a way – helped all the artists he featured on Talk About It to get the standing they now enjoy in today’s industry.
Now that those said artists are big in the industry and there are also many big artists now, isn’t it time for them to feature upcoming acts as well? Yes, we agree that featuring the likes of Rick Ross, Trey Songz, Drake, T.I, Gucci Mane, Snoop Dogg, etc., are needed to put the industry on the global map, but it’s not fair if the upcoming acts do not get to have their voices heard nor get the same love shown to the now big artists when they were still upcoming, shown to them.
There is a saying that goes something like, “When you get to the top, you shouldn’t forget to send the elevator down to help others at the bottom”.

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