Right from when CORA unveiled its plans to stage the first ever Hip Hip Conference in Lagos, many reasoned that the event would surely turn out to be a day for the hip generation. Another school of thougth believed that the conference would be the climax of the Great Music Debate that had been running for about four weeks in The Guardianlife. In fact, many expected a kind of showdown! The main Exhibition Hall of the National Theatre, Lagos, was filled with both young and old. Artistes, music promoters, label owners, art enthusiasts and music lovers turned out in their number to be part of the conference aimed at evaluating the Nigerian music industry. However, most of the top hip-hop artistes, were no where to be found; even when e-mails were officially sent to them, informing them of the programme. The event, which had a high number of enthusiasts of the music form anyway, is designed to be an agenda setting forum — creating a platform for dialogue for hip hop culture stakeholders — artists, producers and listeners. In spite of the seriousness of the event and because it was pop culture that was the subject of discourse, there was much fun and music and the usual glitz and glamour associated with this genre of music. Moderated by the youthful Tosyn Bucknor of Top Radio and Steve ‘Yaw’ Onu of Wazobia FM, but compered by Chris Ihidero of MADE magazine and lately Top FM too; the conference discussion opened with the CORA Secretary Toyin Akinosho, tracing the advent of the Hip Music and its pmacement in the contemporary popular culture of Nigeria. He questioned popular and often misconceived stereotypes and the use of the term “generation gap”, which is often thrown up as an excuse when youths and pop culture become the subject of discourse. He maintained that music transcends classes; and age has never been a barrier to the appreciation of any genre of music.
For sure, contribution from last Sunday event will provide material for scholars and journalists working in the field of youth culture and to aggregate a cross section of perspectives on the successes and failures of a fast growing industry from the leading proponents of the music genre in question. The event also featured heavy firework from a DJ’s turntables powered by the notable sound infrastructure providers, Z-Mirage; Soundcity, the leading music channel, gave full coverage of the conference, while the youth interractive cyber group, switchedonnaija.com handled the web dimension of the talks. There was also, the staging of Mi O Ni Choice, an illustrative dance-drama skit from the Crown Troupe of Africa led by the award winning Segun Adefila. T-Nice and other up-coming artistes on parade also thrilled the audience. Images: Courtesy: www.switchedonnaija.com
No comments:
Post a Comment