As an ‘old man’, I really don’t follow the Headies or popular music so people like Olamide, Lil Kesh and Reekado whatever are just names I hear from my kids or whenever I visit Blogs. But the high level of indiscipline showed by this Olamide young man cannot go without my comment.
First let me say that the Nigerian music industry has come of age and I personally believe that if it continues at this pace would sufficiently replace Oil as our major revenue earner. I congratulate all its points men, the talents and the money men including sponsors who have walked tirelessly to get the industry to this stage.
But with what I have read and seen on TV about what happened at the Headies leaves me with so much pain. That someone who you think does not deserve the trophy won does not give you the effrontery to pull a ‘kanye’. By the way what is a ‘kanye’? You now did not stop at that you went into a tirade on Twitter throwing carelessly and stupidly all sort of vulgar virtupurations on all your perceived enemies and ended up with the alleged destruction of the green room.
You see this kind of behavior is very toutish to say the least and does not tell well of this Olamide fellow. There are more gentlemanly ways of registering your protests that would be more damaging to the organizers. A letter to sponsors would have held them in the jugular. I hear Olamide is ‘big’ whatever that means, then he should have relied on his weight to ‘kill’ the Headies. A letter to sponsors stating your disgust and informing them that you are launching a media campaign against their brand for supporting injustice would have gone a long way in redressing whatever injustice you have seen.
But no, you had to fall back to the ‘agbero’ tactics of smashing everything insight and in bad English abuse and curse everybody and everything insight. By blaming Don Jazzy for mentioning your name only shows the height of your cowardice. You went on your tirade without mentioning names, what is that? But Don Jazzy knowing like millions of Nigerians who and what you were referring to took you by your scrawny neck and handled the situation and yes if the car was your problem come and get it.
As an Investment Banker with a bias for the creative industry, I have seen your type flash for three years max and go back into the poverty and darkness you came from. So buying your protege a 2015 Range Rover from proceeds of one single or endorsement without putting down a sustainable plan for securing that artiste future only amounts to fishing in the Sahara Desert.
That Don Jazzy has not allegedly bought a car for his kids does not mean that he is not putting in structures in place to secure their future. I have just designed the Creative Industry Fund which aims at working with Industry People to invest some of these their monies wisely so that when the so called Hits stop coming they can continue to live their lifestyles without having to rush to the public to beg for money to treat Malaria after driving their 2015 Range Rover when the going was good.
I have reached out to a lot of industry honchos and the kind of feedback I have gotten from serious labels have been encouraging. But frivolous labels who prefer the flash of the moment, doing the Kanye and driving 2015 Range have simply just rebuffed the idea leaving themselves exposed to the vagaries of planlessness.
What this episode shows is that there is a high level of illiteracy and non education in the industry and I am concerned. The music industry is great and it’s growing defying all negative economic indices that we are facing in Nigeria today and if people like Olamide who are expected to be the leading lights can have this kind of warped sense of thinking then the industry will be short circuited.
Let me at this juncture say a word to the organizers of the Headies. I have never met with the main man but I have had an opportunity to speak with him on the phone and he came across like someone who knew what he was on about. But the truth is that the kinds of controversy this award show generates annually leaves one with a massive doubt as to his integrity and capacity. If he had lived above board this would not have happened at best it would have been muted.
The Silverbird group have been organizing beauty pageants for years specially in a field where there is a lot of subjectivity but we hardly hear of this kinds of allegation. How difficult is it to organize a music award with the public voting? Why do we have to be faced with so much cry of injustice every year? There is no smoke without fire, are these people selling these awards? is it true that Don Jazzy was called to leave the Ali Baba show to come since his person would soon be announced winner? If this is true, then shame to the organizers.
My grouse will definitely go to the sponsors who also do not limit themselves to a high level of integrity when choosing projects to sponsor. You see wishy washy events getting a high level of sponsorships when serious projects cry. I have personally been involved in a theatre production where we begged a beverage company for sponsorship and were dribbled and humiliated and eventually turned down claiming no funds only for them to now go and sponsor a run down comedy show. What I found out was that they took back half of the amount sponsored as kickback, got half the tickets as complimentary and the Promoter now did not have enough money to put up the kind of show he needed to put on.
So you see where the Headies is having these problems. I suspect the whole thing from its organisation to the sponsorship all reeks of corruption hence the annual fight all culminating in Olamide doing ‘the Kanye.’
To Don Jazzy I am on your side expect you have been implicated in paying for this award, your continued dignified silence is golden. Do not come down to the mud pit that is Olamide and his cohorts and yes if you have been attacked or feel disrespected whether your name is mentioned or not you owe it to yourself and family to defend your honour. If you want to fight, fight. No need of fighting kurukere fight by making strong allegations without mentioning names , that is cowardice.
Finally, the greatest losers in all these is Headies and their sponsors for spoiling and ruining an otherwise wonderful festive period with this tragedy of a show. Shame.
*********************************************************************************Joseph Edgar is an investment banker who writes as a hobby. He comments on trending issues in Nigeria and around the globe from a satirical point of view. He blogs at josephedgarng.blogspot.com
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