The Artistic and Marketing Sense in Releasing 2 Albums at a time
Inside: The Tussle for Afrobeats Crown
Those who said that the hardest thing to do is to start certainly knew what they were saying. Starting AfroDives was one of the toughest steps I’ve had to take in a long time but being here is a very good feeling and even though we are barely a week old, with about 30 community members, we can certainly hit the century mark before four weeks pass by. Tell a friend to tell a friend.
Another person who would certainly be feeling fly because of his recent projects is Brymo. The singer released his 8th studio album, or should I say albums, given that it’s 2-in-1.
As expected, the album has generated a lot of praise and fuss alike from ‘lovers of conscious music’, as stated on Twitterverse. Lover of conscious music or not, it is hard to deny, much less denigrate Brymo’s talent and art – striking, sticky and soul-searching.
From an artistic point of view, Olawale Olofooro’s 9th personal music project, 9 album (Esan and Harmattan & Winter) which was released on the 9th day of the 9th month, makes a lot of sense. He did an impressive bi-lingual bisection of the album. Esan was purely in Yoruba while Harmattan and Winter was solely in English, each with 9 tracks and parallel ideas. You can’t but applaud such astounding artistic parallelism.
From marketing and commercial perspectives, a double-barrel album shot wouldn’t be the best idea. First, the current industry trends in line with the ever-dwindling human attention span favour reduced playtime and fewer songs. I mean it’s hardly surprising that EPs have become popular.
The industry leaders in terms of commercialism hardly have 18-track albums again. 10, 11 tracks with videos for more than half of the songs and aggressive marketing on a handful.
But Brymo will tell you that he’s never after the commercial success. And that’s the only bane to his craft over the years, ever since his fall-out with Chocolate City.
The Tussle for Afrobeats Crown
Wizkid is on a tour. Burna Boy also is. From Newcastle through London to the United States, the sound of the two Grammy-winning Afrobeats champions continues to set the pace and place African music on unprecedented pedestals.
Wizkid’s Made in Lagos Deluxe Edition is doing wonders on charts and got Justin Bieber volunteering for a remix of Essence while Burna Boy was the person American rapper, Jon Bellion, went to for his first single in two years.
It’s a tussle of superiority that will go on for a while and our music is better for it.
On current form, who will you crown the Afrobeats king?