Asake’s new album, Lungu Boy, vindicates what I wrote about music of Yoruba origin last year. Listening to a song like Fuji Vibe makes you want to move as if you understand what the singer is saying. And that is what the musicology of the Yoruba language does to the human spirit.
If you cannot translate it through words, you will nevertheless translate it via dance. I am not sure Afrobeats can thrive without using the Yoruba language as its basic foundation.
The thing about Yoruba is that I am not sure it is just a language. Because it speaks to you subliminally and instinctively and connects with your primal senses, which is why of all the languages and cultures of Black African enslaved people taken into the Americas, NONE has endured the enslavers’ effort to wipe them out like Yoruba.
Asake is the latest musical vessel winning the world over to the cause of Afrobeats, using the instrumentality of the deep native tongue of the Omoluabi Lukumi people.
Imagine having 5.8 million streams on Spotify on its first release day. This is phenomenal for an album largely composed in Yoruba! Numbers do not lie!
Nigeria will have a tough time competing with the West and East in science and technology. And even in physical endeavours, like athletics, our poor outing at the Paris Olympics indicates that we cannot rely on that route for our redemption as a people.
However, music and the arts are two areas where we have a comparative advantage and can be used to attain global dominance.
That is why I have previously said music of Yoruba origin should be studied as a course in Nigeria’s ivory towers, because it has the capacity to not only rapidly change Nigeria’s negative international image, but also to take our economy out of the doldrums by attracting music loving tourists to our nation, the way Rihanna has done in Barbados, and even in death, Bob Marley is doing for Jamaica.
For every decade of Nigeria’s existence as an independent nation, music of Yoruba origin has dominated our country, and now it is dominating the world.
* Bobby Benson dominated the 60s
* Abami Fela Kuti over dominated the 70s
* King Sunny Ade and Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey dominated the 80s with Fela
* Sir Shina Peters and King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall dominated the 90s.
* Paul Play Dario shared dominance with the Remedies, Plantashun Boiz, and Tuface Idibia in the 2000s
* D’Banj, the Koko Master, shared dominance with PSquare in the 2010s
* Davido, Wizkid, and Burna Boy (party Yoruba) dominate the here and now.
And now comes Asake, who, along with Olamide and Rema, is taking the arena on a thriller ride.
Their female artistes are not left out. Tiwa Savage, Yemi Alade, Ayra Starr, Asa, Tems, Simi, Teni, and Seyi Shay dominate locally and internationally with their girl power!
And Yoruba music transcends race and language. It resonates beyond those whose first language is not Yoruba. And, again, it is no coincidence that ALL Nigeria’s Grammy Award winners are either wholly or partly of Yoruba origin, including:
Sade Adu (1986), Babatunde Olatunji (1991), Sikiru Adepoju (1991) and Seal (1996), Burna Boy (2021), Wizkid (2021), Temilade Openiyi AKA Tems (2023).
The above are 100% Yoruba (if your father is Yoruba, the Yoruba consider you fully Yoruba).
And then Burna Boy (2021) is partly Yoruba.
How do they do it, that even where they sing wholly or partly in Yoruba, their music can crossover locally and internationally?
Christy Essien Igbokwe was quoted as saying she would not have made a breakthrough in the music industry without her anthem, Seun rere, which was performed entirely in Yoruba.
Throughout the Black world, no other ethnic group has been able to CONSISTENTLY break into the music industry internationally while singing wholly or partially in their native tongue. I am not saying that some others do not sing in their native tongues. I am saying that they have been unable to crossover internationally while singing in their native language. They do so by speaking English or some other colonial language.
Caribbean reggae artistes sing in English or patois. African American R’nB, Jazz, Soul and rap artistes sing in English. Black Brazilians crossover with Portuguese. Francophone artistes (with the exception of Manu Dibango) crossed over with French. South African artistes crossed over with English (except for Brenda Fassie and Mariam Makeba).
Even the world’s top Francophone female artiste (Angelique Kidjo) did not crossover internationally until she sang in Yoruba.
There is something about that language. And the musical genres introduced by the Yoruba can permanently put Nigeria on the world map for good.
And it is not just in music. Also, in theatre (theatre is stage plays, not movies), the first Nigerian theatre company to break into the global theatre scene, as far back as the 60s, was Herbert Ogunde’s theatre company. The only other Nigerian theatre company to have broken through internationally is Wole Soyinka’s theatrical company. Duro Ladipo made in roads, but he did not achieve Ogunbe level success.
Nigeria needs to rebrand quickly from our unfortunate and undeserved international reputation for corruption and scams. And the best way to rebrand a country or a corporation, is by projecting positive things about that entity that are ALREADY happening. Sadly, our government’s rebranding efforts focus on things they hope will happen.
So, again, I call on universities and research institutes to do thorough research into this phenomenon to identify what makes that sub-sector of the music industry so successful so that already established acts can use that knowledge to further crossover, and young upcoming acts can act on it to make inroads into the music industry globally.
Globally, music is a $5 trillion industry. Let us use what we have to corner at least 10% of that bottom line.
Reno Omokri
