THE DEATH OF R&B

Nigerian music industry is one of the fastest growing in world,lots of cash has been pumped into it and the biggest stars in world have one time or the other visited and performed on our soil. One genre of music feeling the downturn of this development is Rhythm &Blues . R&B crooners were the pioneers of the now big money spinning hip-hop music industry . The likes of DizzyK Falola,Alex O,Chris Okotie and her beautiful sister, Felix Liberty,Onyeka Onwenu,Christie E.Egbokwe,Bongo Zikwe, and others. The advancement in telecommunication technology was the perfect avenue for influx of foreign music,they were cheap and better than our local music until recently when our local production took upon itself to compete with the international market.
Now came the millennium artist,young groupies of foreign artist came into the scene. They mixed the contents of foreign music with our local content,thus,heralding the new school in music entertainment.
Most of this new artist started off with the Rap genre which was copied from the ever popular rap culture of United States. Inability to deliver rap music the exact way it's been done in western world brought an abrupt end to the genre's popularity. Effort to revive the scene brought about the introduction of music reality shows which primary aim is to discover and nurture new R&B acts.
The biggest break in our music entertainment scene was the introduction of vernacular to all the genres of songs. This made it flexible and easier for artist to express themselves properly and even caught the attention of outside world. This development was latter realized to be the final nail on R&B's coffin. R&B and Rap music are the dominant genre in Nigeria, until the introduction of "shanteshante",permit me to borrow that word from TerryG. TerryG came out with the "shanteshante" genre,a type of music that generates its strong hold from beats,laid with explicit vocals in vernacular . This genre can be described as a "lazy man" genre. One needs no God given talent to sing now,thanks to beat makers that supplies the beats to the highest bidder,and all that is left is for the act to chant in his/her mother tongue and Penguin English over the beats. A tract is made,it's as easy as that.
Notable acts that had their roots in Rap music and Especially those one in R&B school have all adopted this genre. Versatile R&B crooners like Iyanya, BankyW ,Goldie,Essence and many more acts,have dropped traditional R&B music,to embrace the "shanteshante" trend. The Rap genre suffered more brain drain,the list of acts that have converted to "shanteshante" is endless. Acts likeReminisce,Skales,Shank,IdrisAbdulkareem,DrSid,Kswitch,Jahbless, and the list goes on. All this acts been smiling to the bank ever since they changed to the new genre. The survival of R&B is rested on Dakolo and CapitalFEMI, two feather weights in the industry, making the future not too bright for the genre. While Vector is the only one championing the Rap scene,no disrespect to illbliss. With the Ghana styled "azonto" in vogue,the future of Shanteshante is now hanging on a thin rope.