So 2015 wasn’t particularly great in terms of music or more significant than say 2014 or 2013; yet it packed its own punches as well as black-eyes. Of course, the ideal of the music album is failing fast to the joy of the single. Consequent upon the information over-drive of our times, short attention spans as well as the lack of gatekeepers makes a free market of our rather disorganized music industry; singles have never been more superior to the album. The modus operandi of the album has changed from that of rigorous industry to retrospective gathering, perhaps this is the reason we are having more failed albums.
Bracket, Alive
For the incorrigible duo it is business as usual, in spite of the life-changing brush Vast had with cancer. Although this album alludes to the idea of being alive in its title, the music falls into familiar manholes. It set itself up to fail with the regular pitfalls of poor song writing and formulaic crooning. Bracket’s music does not sound any different from last year or the year before that. Their sound is almost archaic because the zeitgeist has moved beyond simplistic Makossa melodies.
Olamide, Eyan Mayweather
2014 was a good year for Olamide. In November 2013, he released his album Baddest Guy Ever Liveth, a classic. At the end of 2014, November precisely, he was back again with Street O.T, a cache of hits.
On April 1, 2015, like a rehearsed April fool trick, he dropped his duet album with Phyno, 2 Kings, which wasn’t quite impressive but made some impact. In November this year, like clockwork, he was back again with Eyan Mayweather, clearly making him the hardest working artist in the industry.
Like he said in a song on his sophomore album, YBNL, “you have got to love me for my ambition.” Eyan Mayweather was more ambition than accomplishment, with his better songs enjoying early parole as singles before they were yoked together into an album, which, without aspiring to being a classic, answers important questions about the possible directions of Nigerian pop music.
Skales, Man of the Year
Yes, his debut album took a long time in coming, but there is no special hell for first-time offenders. Skales had every reason (and all the time in the world) to release a cult classic, but instead his music betrayed the industry and his personal talent on the altar of survival. A popular musician clearly has no business beyond making popular music, but originality should still play an important role in any serious musician’s career. On Man of the Year, Brother Skales manages to sound like everybody but himself.
Oritsefemi
Oritsefemi, Money Stops Nonsense
In 2014, the “Mercies of the Lord” crooner released Double Wahala, which re-imagines genius Fela material, “Confusion Break Bone”. The result was a massive hit and many months later an album with an interesting acronym, MSN, appeared.
With just a handful of tepid hits and an impossibly successful wedding song—“Igbeyawo”—this album doesn’t do justice to the possibilities or potentials of the Ajegunle raga crooner. Oritsefemi, on many tracks, is busy chanting his single story: Sabada, Musical Taliban.
Reminisce, Baba Hafusa
Mr Remilekun Safaru, father of Hafusa and husband to her mother, released his third album to unprecedented social media acclaim. But despite the massive publicity this album enjoyed on Twitter, it failed to wield staying power.
The album, of course, has its moments, but it also lapses into its esoteric periods; moments when Reminisce dwells remarkably on his sexual prowess like the phallo-centric Lil Kesh.
With the exception of “Local Rappers”, a testimonial to the current zeitgeist of vernacular rap, this album can be discarded for his brilliant sophomore, Alaga Ibile.
Naeto C, Festival
One reviewer concluded in his review of this album that it is a “festival of inanities” and it is unbecoming that a veteran like Naeto C will endure such a fate. It is clear that his Day 1 is, by far, a better album but musicians must also take responsibility for whatever they dole out.
Festival is an agony list of about fifteen songs with uninspired rhymes, weak hooks and jejune beats. Naeto C sounds like all sorts of aspiring musicians and at some point, one is not sure if he has become a highlife musician.
This album might have been intended as a crossover experiment but it failed, woefully.
Wande Coal, Wanted
In less than three months of release, Wanted, Wande Coal’s long awaited six-year-coming sophomore album has become haunted, like a house. There is no sustaining or engaging conversation about the album and the eerie truth will be that Falz’s deadpan humour is taking the shape of reality.
With a catalog of new songs energized by beats from Maleek Berry, a few songs are outstanding. Wande Coal’s vocals remain outstanding but, like every pearl in the dung, his vocals are collateral damage to comatose lyrics. This music, beyond failing in its aspiration to be quality also fails to be memorable.