Juju music legend King Sunny Ade has charged young artistes to record songs that will last for decades.
The musician, who clocks 70 this year, also wants artistes to project the image of Nigeria and her culture instead of promoting vulgarity and nudity.
The veteran musician who has stayed relevant for more than four decades made the charge in an interview with a popular magazine during the week.
“I want young artistes of today to know that they are lucky,” he said. “In those days, no family wanted or allowed their children to do music. Today family members introduce their children to big artistes to put them through. Moreover, we don’t have many schools of music in Nigeria, yet we are still progressing.
“What I want them to do is to give a sense of belonging to the culture of Nigeria and Africa and sense of belonging to music of black people where
they have their roots.
“Nowadays, we see more of vulgar lyrics. It happened in those days but it was corrected. All they need to do is to do what the ears will hear and eyes will see that in 20 years, they will not be ashamed or regret anything. Nowadays, you see artistes go naked, dancers dance naked on stage and there is nothing one can do since the younger ones embrace
it and fans love it. It’s not in the African or Nigerian culture.”
Sunny Ade, while reacting to the problems in the industry, called for close monitoring as there are no direct answers.
“We all need to sit down and look inward to identify the problems. We need to check and re-check what the problems are. The only thing I can see clearly is piracy and we lack companies that can take care of the works of musicians. In Africa today, Nigerian music is leading. Our own music is really coming up.
If you listen to fuji, juju or any other traditional music, no matter how foreign, we make use of less English,” says King Sunny Ade.
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