THE RISE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN NAIJA

Since the resurgence of Nigerian music in the late 90s, the industry has created all sorts of sound, mostly by infusing the old (traditional) with the new (Hip-Hop, R&B, Pop, etc) and with the rise of such Pan-African music channels such as Channel O, MTV Base & Trace Urban (now better known as Trace Naija), African musicians have been exchanging sounds and continually being influenced by each other as they collaborate across the continent. 

Most recently, EDM (Electronic Dance Music) has risen to be the world’s most predominant music genre overtaking Hip Hop as the sound of the youth and in Hip Hop, Trap Music has taken over as the predominant sub-genre. And while African music is on the rise internationally, you may ask where does that leave Afro-beat or its present descendant, Afro-Pop? Just to be clear, Afro-beat is quite different from Afro-pop, while any music made in the latter can be said to be of the former, not all the former is of the latter. 

And while Electronic music is quite popular now, it wasn’t always the case. In the 90s, most of it was quite cheesy and tended to come from Europe. A lot of the most interesting Electronic music was being made in the sub-genre of House and Techno and interestingly from America* (House first grew out of the Detroit scene). Flash-forward to a decade or so and European DJs who were conquering Ibiza decided to take over America by infusing their electronic sounds with urban sounds of America and thus reinvigorating the genre (as a side-note, rapper/producer P. Diddy saw this invasion coming long before most people did and so did Will.I.AM of the Black Eyed Peas who capitalized on it right as the takeover began). 

Likewise, Afro-pop (that genre that was coined to describe African music that infuses any and everything) was catching up too. While House music was a staple in South Africa and perhaps to some lesser extent in East Africa, it didn’t take long for Naija to catch up to both its South African and European/American counterparts.

While Afro-pop is still (unfortunately, as some might argue) the reigning genre out of Naija, a few Afro-Electronic producers and stars have risen from the country. One such example is Benie Macaulay and his cohort Tomi Thomas whose song Parolz is a fusion of Afro-beat and South African House**. Surprisingly this song hasn’t gotten quite the same attention as its Afro-beat counterparts on the charts... or the clubs, but all great genres start slow and small. Hopefully the Afro-Electronic sounds of Naija don’t go mainstream quick and burn fast as Garage music did in the U.K.

*With such music acts as C&C Music factory, Snap & Robin S, whose hit song Show Me Love would later be turned into a Hip Hop hit for Kid Ink by D.J Mustard. The same D.J Mustard will turn a slowed down instrumentation of Snap’s Rhythm Is A Dancer into an R&B hit for singer Jeremih.

**Another Electronic song to check out is Amnesia from Distrikt Matter who is primarily an R&B singer, but tried his hand at production on this one, most likely using Garage Band.