My musical style is influenced by Nigerian cultural heritage ‘Chidinma’

 

Music is perhaps one of the best examples of this, with the recent explosion in the popularity of ‘Afro-pop Music’. Though it performs an important role in cultural exchange and encourages creativity that enriches the international art scene, the phenomenon can also cause problems. Many diverse forms of music may be homogenized with the goal of delivering a consistent product. In these situations, there is little place for certain musical practices that are vital to the process of performance and tradition in certain communities especially in Nigeria and Africa.

Many forms of performing arts are under threat today. As cultural practices become standardized, many traditional practices are abandoned. Even in cases where they become more popular, only certain expressions may benefit while others suffer.

Music, dance and theatre are often key features of cultural promotion intended to attract foreign music investors in Nigeria and regularly feature in the international music market. Although this may bring more visitors and increased revenue to a country or community and offer a window onto its culture, it may also result in the emergence of new ways of presenting the performing arts and culture, which have been altered for the music market.

African contemporary music, commonly called Afropop, is as diverse as the African continent itself. It encompasses more than 50 genres, which in turn convey an array of languages, cultures, histories, political movements and personal stories.

The public radio show Afropop Worldwide, along with its website Afropop.org is a leading source of information, commentary and criticism on African music around the world. So to put together a primer on Afropop, the executive producer Sean Barlow shared his picks for the top 10 most popular genres within Afropop music which includes: Afro-beats, Coupé-Décalé, Shaabi, Soukous, Mbalax, Tsapika, Kwaito, Tuareg blues, Reggea and Hippop.

However, when you start mentioning unique artiste in Nigeria that promotes our cultural heritage from the like of Yemi Alade, Phyno, Olamide, D’banj and offcourse Chidinma Ekile aka Miss kedike must be mentioned due to her audacity in promoting Nigeria culture via her songs and fashion style in her musical videos.

While promoting cultural heritage can contribute to reviving traditional performing arts and give a ‘market value’ to intangible cultural heritage, it can also have a distorting effect, as the performances are often reduced to show adapted highlights in order to meet market demands in other continents. Often, traditional music forms are turned into commodities in the name of entertainment, with the loss of important forms of community expression. In other cases, wider social or environmental factors may have a serious impact on performing traditional music. Quality sound production, for example, can deprive a community of good music to make traditional instruments used to perform music.

According to Chidinma Ekile, “I wear mostly African prints- Aso-oke, Ankara, anything that has African prints: because the style of my music is Nigerian, my dressing has to depict that I’m Nigerian so that is why I wear African prints” see kedike video, oh baby ft Flavour and jankoliko videos.

As a result, Chidinma has gotten so many accolades and nominations due to her massive and continuous promotion of Nigeria culture and heritage all over the world such as KORA Awards, NMVA, NEA, The Headies, City People Entertainment Awards, Channel O Music Video Awards, MTV Africa Music Awards.