The Nigerian Music Scene and the Role of Women as Video Vixens: All Hail the Queens?

The super talented Nigerian musician, Sir Shina Peters staged a career comeback into Nigerian music scene with his highly seductive fast tempo afro juju creation with such numbers like Ace, Shinamania and Dancing Time. This brand of music took the airwaves to another and made OAPs and music journalists to become the new wave celebrities at social scenes and bustling Lagos nightclubs, simply because everyone was caught in that frenzy Shinamania bug. Life and style magazines like Classique, Prime and Vintage People, then Fame and Encomiums acrually got their strides on with energetic dance culture of Afrojuju, as it really launcehd what you have today as celebrity journalists. Even the artiste in question would later admit he wrote that song in frustration, yet found his much sought after global acclaim as the music launched him on the world music category that was hitherto preserved for Fela Kuti, KSA, and Ebenezer Obey.

One interesting creative moment observed in the new found juju flavor then was the use of music video to power afro juju into the minds of music lovers. And it indeed worked the magic. The Ace album and subsequent ones were sold using the power of music video to drive them into the market. At whose expense? The mercurial grace of the video queens known today as video vixens. The video director, a super director of all time, Tunde Alabi Hundeyin known as Dudu creative ingenuity was tested and he delivered. The music video was plotted around seductive dancers who were also choreographers, one of them, who popularize the afro juju dance steps now deceased but it was electric and everybody went Shinamania!

Today, artistes, music companies, music aficionados have come to realize you can’t churn out songs without an accompany video to sell your creation, just as we now have urban music channels and digital platforms paying heavily for music videos. Nigeria leads the reawakening in Africa, hence, urban music channel Trace Urban renamed its African channel Trace Naija, the power of Nigeria leading the way.

Dead curious about the way our new crop of video producers and directors misinterpret the concept of having ladies and women to play their video scripts is something one needs to ponder about. This writer lives in a neighborhood where one of the high profile video directors is also a neighbor and the inflow of music A -listers shooting their videos within is unprecedented. I have come to realize music video market on its own is a large market. But women in modern day videos have been ridiculed to sex slaves, money gluttons spirit and tweaking machines.

Shina Peters videos will remain memorable not because the ladies and video vixens employed tweaked to the gallery, rather, they were well scripted to interpret the fast tempo dance steps that are still memorable in our minds today.

Feminists culture is being misinterpreted by pop culture and unfortunately, gender activists have refused to react to this crass disrepect of the woman, especially the African essence of woman that Fela celebrated in one of his songs entitled ‘Lady’

No doubt about it Nigerian music industry is growing rapidly with massive international appeal from curious observation couple with the current investors out bidding each other to stake their claims. Videos about this time, should represent our culture and promote the intelligence in African woman and not reduce the African beauties to mere tweaking machines 🎙