I understand the concept of competition. It’s the activity or condition of striving to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others. For the most part, it’s a good thing developed by our natural desire to be the best in everything, relative to others.
In the Nigerian music scene, competition exists, and it’s fierce. It is cut along various lines, margins, divisions, within genres, and without the genre. Skip past all the love, partying, famzing and bonhomie that exists on the surface, at parties and Instagram, and you will find a ruthless and chaotic contest between various artistes and celebrities.
But the one between Wizkid and Davido is pure nonsense, fabricated by sensationalists, bad-belles, busybodies, cheap media scoundrels and mischievous misled fans. The competition between the both young stars are like all the others: impersonal.
The space within which Wizkid and Davido both exist is shared by a thousand others. When put down to the basics, they both are singers, as are a million other people. They seem to have found a winning formula to all their hard work and effort, and voila! They are are stars. Singing, swaggering celebrities whose means of livelihood is gotten from their work. They work hard at their craft, and it’ easy to see why fortune has smiled on them.
But even in the galaxy of stars, there is no true competition about them. They are looking to go one better than themselves, in the same way as they are constantly reinventing the wheel to take them past the young kid hustling around studios with a good song in his heart. It is not personal, or singled out. They just have a desire to stay ahead of the game and the industry.
The chief source of all this competition talk is the media. I hang my head in shame that I am a part of a group that abuses the power gotten from being channels of mass education. The media has never ceased to compare both of them, feeding the notion of unhealthy rivalry to the fans and gullible readers. Sure Wizkid and Davido are two young singers who exist around the same age group, and live an affluent life, but they are not parallels. They are different beings, who just desire to make music. But we’ve sold the concept of competition so much that we’ve been forced to buy and believe a lie.
Take for example the events of last week; The 2014 Channel O Africa Music Video Awards nominee list had been announced, and Davido who is having a stellar year got a record 5 mentions. Wizkid on his part got four mentions, but all in various collaborations with others. You could almost envisage Davido polishing his gold chains, ironing out his wears and enjoying an extra spring in his step when that was announced. Sure you could say he thought about Wizkid, but you can never be certain. But for most media platforms the headline read ‘Davido floors Wizkid again, grabs 5 Channel O Awards nominations’. It borders on wickedness.
Wizkid finally has finally given a form to his sophomore album. With the announcement and release of his album artwork and tracklist, people can now look forward to having a new compilation of music from the man. Davido has not followed suit. He is currently in some faraway country basking in his stardom. He won’t unsheath an album art and tracklist too to compete. He has no time for that, and so does Wizkid. They both exist in difeerent circles, and they d0 different things.
Whoever thinks they have a bitter rivalry is either misled, wicked, or just needs to find true joy in their life. Good luck with that.
