Article by; Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria
I do not like to compare two different generational workpieces. Human beings have involved since creation and while they keeping involving, the things they did in the past will change. Things they did and the things they produce will also change because their taste will also change.
It is getting tiring hearing people to compare the music of yesterday and the music of today. People saying that the quality of music has waned in the region in this generation I would not say the quality of music has waned but I would say the consumers of music have changed or have diversified, hence musicians have also adapted to these changing needs of the consumers.
In the past, producers and channels for the distribution of music were limited. These limitations censored the creativity of artists and also limited the content that consumers were privy to. We now have a diversified consumer of music. So music is done to satisfy these broad needs. We have music for the heart, music for soul and music for feet. Whichever your preference is you go in for it.
People might argue that musicians of today do not have rich lyrics but that is not true. We have equally good lyrical composers in this generation but because we have a great number of musicians now as compared to yesterday musicians including producers and unlimited distribution channels we turn to listen to a lot of music. This turn of the event has made people judge all of them saying they do not produce good music again.
Musicians of today have all the opportunity to produce and distribute their creative work because of the rise of technology and the internet. Today, a musician can sit in his room and produce a song using the latest gadget and technology. After production, he or she can distribute it in his room using microblogging sites and reach a large audience outside his jurisdiction.
The difference between these generations is that creative work was censored in the past because of the monopoly. Producers and distribution channels were limited and this created a monopoly. Producers had a say in what kind of music artiste came out with and distribution channels dictated to the audience what kind of music they consumed.
So in the past, we had only one genre of music and that was dictated by the power players in the industry. The music industry at that time was just like the journalism sphere.
We all have our opinion but in the exercise of our opinion let us not downplay the work of great artists here who are doing their best to entertain us.
