Veteran musician says regular music concerts will grow the industry quicker

A musician, Adegoke Odukoya, a.k.a. Ade Bantu”, the Founder of Afropolitan Vibes, says staging of musical concerts regularly will help the music industry to grow quicker.

“It will bring out the best in musicians because they will see those that are good and learn one or two things from them and go to improve on it.”
Odukoya, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos on Saturday that the industry would be better when stakeholders cultivate the attitude of staging musical concerts every time.

He said that, “Nigerian artistes needed to be daring by putting money together to promote themselves so as to improve on their acts.“Nigerian artistes have to use good music to bring about change in the society.

“ The music scene has to impart on people and it has to be used to redefine societal change.“Very few musicians have summoned the courage to address social ills and advocate for change with music.

“We need to do more in the area of promotion of music and make it viable to benefit all stakeholders”, he said.Odukoya, however, said that Nigerian artistes have a kind of self censorship that prevents them from moving farther.

“Nigerias music is still mostly for entertainment purposes and not for corrections in the society.“Nigerian musicians are too concerned about keeping up good relationship with cooperate bodies and wealthy patrons than speaking about ills in the society.

“It is just a minute few that speak about conflicts in the country, they avoid being in a bad book of people”, he said.“Artistes are scared of being blacklisted for speaking the truth.

“They need to stand for something. They must understand that creativity is all about taking risks, being open to life and being sincere to oneself”, he said.

He argued that playing safe is no guarantee for financial security or artistic longevity.He said that ultimately, there would be a time they would look back at their career and be proud of what they did over time.

NAN reports that Odukoya is a Nigerian-German musician, his father being Nigerian and his mother German.He is a singer, rapper, songwriter, producer and activist.His Afropolitan Vibes holds in Nigeria at Freedom Park in Lagos every month.