Naija Music

I've always been a "local chic" as far as music is concerned - way before it was cool to listen to and prefer local artistes over western artistes, I had a tape of songs of Felix "Loverboy" Lebarty, Bright "Sound Boy" Chimezie and some guy whom I can't remember his name (Ovesi, help me here - the "rapapapa bay-bey" chap??), all recorded from the radio and endlessly danced to in my room. I just loved the local accents and speak being put into lyrics and melodies that were a unique blend of "naija" and western music.
Now, with the explosion of the Nigerian music scene, you can only imagine the orgasmic nature of my enjoyment of the vast range and eclectic mix of lyrics, melodies and songs that our budding artistes have produced. I am particularly fond of D'Banj's punchy, raunchy, in-your-face lyrics and style, 9ice's unapologetic "local-ness", Sonny Nneji's beautifully melodious voice rendering words like "ikebe" so sweetly in song, you forget it is actually a fairly lewd pidgin term and P-Square's distinctly igbo accents blended so beautifully with regular and pidgin english and eloquent igbo - all three languages flowing fluidly and languidly into each other, a seamless mesh of poetry.
I have spent the last hour and a half watching local Naija artistes' music videos and I am still partial to the local boys and girls - those that sounded like their Western counterparts quite annoyed me, I must confess. Big deal, you say? It is when you consider that it's about 2AM my time!
So, here goes: My name is Feyi and I am a 9ja-musicaholic. Only, I am not in Rehab, but in a wonderful world of my addiction!

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