Lai Mohammed advocates rich content in music

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has urged musicians to pay more attention to socially-relevant messages in their music. According to a release by the Special Adviser to the minister, Segun Adeyemi,  Alhaji Mohammed said this in his keynote speech at the Business Roundtable of the 2016 African Music Awards (AFRIMA) in […]

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has urged musicians to pay more attention to socially-relevant messages in their music.

According to a release by the Special Adviser to the minister, Segun Adeyemi,  Alhaji Mohammed said this in his keynote speech at the Business Roundtable of the 2016 African Music Awards (AFRIMA) in Lagos on Friday.

The minister, who spoke on ‘Championing Social Justice and Advocacy Through Music,’  said: “The whole country is listening, dancing and sending via all forms of social media, our music and videos, and our artists clearly have more influence and reach than our law enforcement agencies. As 9ice and 2 Baba boasted, they are the ones with street credibility.”

He said: “That for music to achieve the desired objective, it must have the right content to drive home the message, saying the works of foremost musicians in Africa, including Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Rex Lawson, Sonny Okosun, Victor Uwaifo, Dan Maraya Jos, Mamman Shatta, IK. Dairo and Ebenezer Obey continue to reverberate because of the message they contained.”

Mohammed said the legendary musicians all used music to fight social injustice or for advocacy, listing many examples, including ”Unknown Soldier” by Fela; ”Fire in Soweto” by Okosun and  ”Nigeria go survive” by Veno Marioghae.

Describing music as a powerful tool of communication, he said, the federal government will leverage on the power of music to promote the national re-orientation campaign tagged, ‘Change Begins With Me.’

”Because this campaign is about returning to those moral values that stood our country in good stead, a lot of that can be done through music. In order words, music is a powerful tool of advocacy. Good music has no tribe, no gender, no section, no religion,” he said.