2024. In our Afrobeats to the world movement, 2024 has been our most important year so far, in my opinion. Not because we had the most global hits, no. We didn’t. Also not because we turned many African acts into global superstars. We didn’t. It’s been our most important year because it was the year that taught us the most. As an industry, we have learnt many things, and the Western market has also learnt a lot about us.
We’ve had better years prior to 2024 in terms of success in the global market. 2024, we struggled. We didn’t have as many global hits and moments as we should, and we lost some parts of the genre to competitors from other markets. We tried to make global hits. Our creatives tried so hard to have viral TikTok songs and trendy moments. In doing so, we neglected the sauce that makes our music what it is. We lost our recipe for gbedu.
This would even be visible in the local market. When Apple Music Ng released it’s most streamed songs of 2024, only 5 of them were released in 2024. 15 songs were from 2023, which means that our local market also chose nostalgia over the content being made in real time. We neglected home, forgetting that home is what takes you to the rest of the world.
With time, it became clearer that the Nigerian music industry stopped crossing songs over when we started trying to cross songs over. All of our successful crossover records had one thing in common: They weren’t records designed to cross over. They were pure Nigerian records, made for a Nigerian audience, and that audience moved it beyond these shores.
Records like Ojuelegba, Calm Down, Ye, Understand, Soweto, Peru, Kulosa and the likes were made with serious Nigerian gbedu. The same gbedu the Western market loves us for. The rhythm and soul on our beats and deliveries.
The moment we began to priotize crossing over and made it an important part of the creative class, our success rate dropped. What we have now is a class of records designed for outsiders who have no inkling about the local market, but can’t connect to the original authenticity of why they fell in love in the first place.
They didn’t ask for hybrid music. They demanded our authenticity. They asked for our genuineness. For our creativity. Our vision. Our impeccable use of melodies, lyrics and production to express the human experience.
HEIS won because of this. It’s in every album of the year conversation simply because of this factor. In terms of writing, delivery, production and more, there’s a few albums that could take it to battle and have a chance of winning. HEIS won because it was Nigerian. It took us back to a time when we didn’t care about the BETs and the Grammys, to a time where going platinum in Canada wasn’t the reason why we made music.
We were propelled to a time when we made music because it made us feel like us. That’s why Ozeba is irresistible. That’s why you have to March Am when Rema says so. It’s also why Oblee is the song of the year, yeah.
In 2025, the biggest winners will be the people who come home and dwell there. Winning here resonates outside. Home is the channel for global success. Rema won at home to cross over. Asake did. Ayra Starr did. Nigeria is the best marketing strategy for crossing pop records, and those who realize it will reap the fruits of it.
