Chinedu Okolo better known by his stage name Flavour N’abania or simply Flavour who is a songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist had an interview, an interesting one with Ebuka that got African excited.
The Enugu State native, a proud Igbo man opened up about a lot of stuff, about his coming up in the music industry and getting reeled in at a very tender age of 13-years to music and playing in a band.
That’s how he came to be a multi-instrumentalist performer.
The musician got paid 3.5 million Naira for his studio album ‘N’Abania’ and got paid 200,000 Naira for his first show way before he released his hit record ‘Nwa Baby (Ashawo Remix)’ that helped him blow up in the entire African continent.
Flavour is truly a pan African who appreciates all genres of music across Africa despite him doing highlife music, he appreciates the Makossa, Bongo Music and can’t seem to wrap his head around the reason why Nigeria media is only focused on playing one genre of music, Afrobeats.
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Flavour wants Diamond Platnumz to get played in Nigeria as much as every other Afrobeats musician gets to get played in Nigeria.
The ‘Baby Na Yoka’ hitmaker also wants Fally Ipupa played as well and for Africa to stop putting every genre inside the Afrobeats box.
Flavour who stays in his own mansion in Ikoyo had this to say about the current state in Nigerian media perpetuating Afrobeats genre alone since all he wants is diversity by the Nigerian media:
“My style is highlife, R&B, and contemporary jazz all mixed together like it’s a flavor, that’s my sound like it’s a mixture of everything but you can hear that highlife sound in it. I try to blend it.
Why I’m stuck with highlife is cause I want to be original, I wanna remembered for something and also adding culture to my sound is another thing.
I want you whenever you hear my sound, you can say “oh its Igbo, it’s coming from somewhere.
The moment you hear my sound, you’ll know where I’m from, I try to keep it that way because highlife is an original sound. It’s an African sound.
That’s why it gets to me when the media here in Nigeria try to portray one particular sound.
I think we’re limiting ourselves because Africa is so blessed, there are so many genres that need to be out there, it’s not just Afrobeats.
And guess what it’s not just a Nigerian thing, I’m talking about Africa. Okay, why don’t I get to hear a lot of Diamond Platnumz here? why don’t I get to hear a lot of Fally Ipupa? their sound is not Afrobeats, Diamond he has his Bongo sound you know, Fally Ipupa he has his Makosa, Lingala and he sings in his language, Diamond same.
Whenever you hear them, all you think about is East Africa. When you hear Fally Ipupa you think about the Central Africa, Congo you think about his country you understand?
So when you hear my sound, think about the eastern part of Nigeria, that’s the pride, that’s my pride but that shouldn’t limit me or the way you see, so I think media, we need to celebrate all we have, let’s not just everything.
Why are there no awards that you can see “best highlife song”, “best fuji”, “best bongo”, in Africa? why is everything Afrobeats? we’re limiting ourselves, I’m not saying Afrobeats is not great, it’s great it’s a big sound.”
