BREAKING NEW GROUNDS FOR TRAP, DRILL AND RAP IN NIGERIA WITH HARRY CARTER

AFROBEATS COPIES THE RAP AND HIP-HOP SWAG.

It Is Never About The Song!

The Hip-hop culture in Nigeria is where it is because of some groundbreaking pioneers in the past and even present. We already have one here! HARRY gives insights on how to build a cult-like Hip-hop fan base. And how to rekindle the Hip-hop fire that has been scaled down by Afro-beats. There is so much talent and potentials in Nigeria. But just like Benin and Delta. The country is suffering from brain drain. The creatives are all alone struggling. There is a need for us to revamp the Rap Scene in Nigeria. HARRY exposes us to different working ideas that the music industry fails to recognize. We will present these facts raw and deep just as we got them from the lips of HARRY.

GRIX: What do you feel about rap and trap in Nigeria? Do you feel that there is a future for it? 

HARRY: There is a future for Trap and rap music in Nigeria. To me, there is. To me, Afro-beats might be old. But the afrobeats we know today is basically like ten years old. Wizkid’s earlier songs were more of Pop, Hip-hop. He was even a rapper. Afrobeat is catching up with the world. 

There is always a paradigm shift. And there is going to be a shift. A time would come for African Hip-hop. A time would come, something would just happen, and it would kick off. Hip-hop still remains the most influential genre in the world. Nigeria has one of the best Hip-hop artists in Africa. And even in the world. Nothing connects with you better than Hip-hop. It is a very malleable genre of music. It evolves very fast, and it is constantly changing. The only way for Hip-hop to thrive is to diversify the way it is in the country. We all know that Lagos is the home of Afrobeats. Last week, I was in Abuja, and the guys there don’t do Afro. It was all about Hip-hop and drill. Even on their radios, they played the tracks of people like YP, SK, and the rest. 

HARRY further explains that if we encourage geo-specific diversity in our music industry, we will experience exponential growth. A very good example is the USA. The actual United States of America this time. Each state has its own peculiar music, and we have states that can be a hybrid of all kinds of music. We have the cow-boy music of Texas, the Country music of Oklahoma, Punk Rock; Garage Rock of Cleaveland, we have electronic, Motown of Michigan, and we have New York, a blend of all kinds of music. You have an almost even distribution of talents, and everyone has a shot at fame. 

HARRY: If different cities specialize in different sounds, it is going to make Nigeria diverse. When you’re looking for a unique specific artiste, you’re going to be stretching your hands far to a different state. Not now where everybody is stretching their hands to Lagos. That means everyone is moving to Lagos. You can’t push the Nigerian music’s narrative if we don’t diversify it. People like Cavemen are doing highlife. Everything doesn’t have to be Afrobeat. Someone has to be doing R & B, and someone else has to be doing Hip-hop. The Nigerian Music audience is still evolving. People think that they are evolved, but that is not really the case. It wasn’t up to 2019. People were moving to streaming sites. The Music is still on the grassroots level. You may think that because our artist is getting grammy’s and the rest, your music has evolved. It is still on the grassroots level. If we start with diversifying. And people take more risk to sign artiste from different genre of music, there would be success. 

Now, HARRY is in his zone. The burning passion in his eyes wasn’t going to allow him to interrupt him. HARRY was in control. The best we could do was let him take us on this knowledgeable ride. 

HARRY: You can say you sign a hip-hop artiste, and you 

use 5 million to push that artiste, and you say, “Bro, it didn’t work out, I guess.” But you give the Afro artiste 15 million. How do you expect them to compete? People do not understand how to promote Hip-hop artists. You have to find ways and new methods to promote their music. Hip-hop artists have the strongest fan base. They are cult-like. 

When people follow a rapper, they respect a rapper way more than an Afro-singer. 

There is this respect they give them because they just look cooler. The style of dressing. The cool look. Only the Hip-hop artiste can take that risk. If you really want to dress like an Afro-inspired artiste, you’ll be wearing Ankara and the rest. The Afrobeat artiste are stealing the Hip-hop look. 

An Afro artiste will make a song if you fail to remain relevant by not dropping bangers. Then you’re gone.

Few examples come to mind here. Even some who started with rap and delved into Afro because of the money lost both along the way. You are only as good as your next song as an Afrobeat singer. This is why Afrobeat singers struggle to remain relevant. The fight for relevance is real.

HARRY: The Afro-beats fans are not dedicated to you. The minute you stop dropping Music that would make them dance, the fans are gone to the next singer. So if you want to market or Promote Hip-hop artiste, you have to think differently. Like Kendrick, who hasn’t dropped a track for a while. But when he comes out, the world embraces it.

We cannot agree less with these words. The Afro-beat audience is debauched by nature. We are always expecting the next big thing. The next break-out Star! After we’ve enjoyed the ‘next big thing’ for maybe three months. We get tired of it. Then the big names in the game would call us back to them with another sound. “Hello! I am here, don’t forget me.” 

GRIX: What do you think is the ideal way to promote a rap, drill, or Hip-hop artiste? 

HARRY: First off, you have to grow their fan base. Hip-hop is like a struggle music. If you’re marketing Hip-hop, you have to find a way to connect to the audience deeper and grow the fan base. It is not all about circulating the music. There are songs that are more popular than the artiste. You have to promote the artiste and not the song. Someone like XXXtentacion. If you go to his Youtube page, you’re still going to see a comment fifty seconds ago. If you check his last Instagram post, you’ll find the same thing. Why? XXXtentacion was trying to help people come out of depression. He was singing music about his real self. Before he died, he was dishing out lots of love. Like he would pick up his phone and start talking. People know his origin from a violent lifestyle. They relate to his story personally because he has been depressed. We don’t know anything about most Hip-hop artiste today! I may like your music, but I may not like you. If people like you, it would sell more. It is never about the song. 

The song may be nice, it may blow up. You may drop a song, and it isn’t a banger like your previous track. This is what Wizkid realized early. Wizkid may be an Afro artiste, but he is very inspired by Hip-hop. He has that hip-hop feeling and was even a rapper. People worship him even when he drops a mid-song, but you people defend him. It is what they would do for a Hip-hop artiste. 

This is an obvious fact. Say something negative about Wizkid on Twitter. The FC gang would come for your head in the next five seconds. Wizkid has made us love him on a personal level. As it seems, if Machala records his breath as a track, people would still stream, and it might go platinum. 

HARRY continues… 

Wizkid told us his story. From the Ojuelegba track. The track resonated with people because we know his story. He started selling his personality as cool as calm. We know his origin and where he came from. Most Afro-artiste do not have a story. We don’t know what they are selling. They don’t have that cult-like fanbase because it wasn’t grown around them. It is always around the song. Mavin started to sell Rema’s personality. From the Teddy-bear the water gun and all. To properly market hip-hop artists, you have to go down to the very first thing, which is looking cool without being fake. They have to be very cool. If it is not the way you dress, maybe the way you talk, the way you handle it. 

Then you need to have a story. You have to sell yourself to them and not the song. This is about me and not the song all the time. If people focus on your song, it is always bad because a song is just a piece of you. You have thousands of music. If your brand fails, people won’t give a fuck about you. 

From the examples and the way, he articulates his sentences. we can know that HARRY is only spilling facts. 

GRIX: What do you think is the Ultimate record deal you deserve in terms of money and blown wise? 

HARRY: I would like to deal with a very well-established or growing company, but they have their shit together. In terms of money, I would say 100 million and above. 

The royalties and proceeds would be properly shared. They wouldn’t be the sole owners of my music. I know they are putting in a lot of money, but I would love to own my music too. 

I know what you’re thinking. 100 million. Is this guy nuts? How many record signing deals in Nigeria amount to that on one individual? But we fail to recognize that the higher the input, the greater the chance of success (With the right management). If Thinking Big was a person, it would be HARRY Carter. 

GRIX: What is it exactly that makes a song blow? 

HARRY: Planning and Luck. Planning strategy and Luck. Planning starts from the very writing of the song. If you’re writing a song to blow. There is a format, a template we have to follow. The Chorus, verse, the chorus. To make it standard. Not too long and not too short. Even the way you place the tones on Higher or lower notes. Getting your team together and even the quality of the mix. Although, there is a place for marketing also. Then pray and Hope. Because you can do all of these things and not be Lucky. 

Your guess is as good as everyone else. We know the pattern. There is a formula to it. Make the Chorus short and catchy as possible. The Lamba must hit hard. But all of these still rests on the shoulders of luck and, let us say, some unseen forces. Some call it God. Some call it Grace. We’ve all experienced instances where a simple freestyle would bring an artiste to the limelight just for him to release a track and go back to his village. Music, like art is very perceptive.

GRIX: What do you do to get into your creative zone? 

HARRY: I could exercise, take a break. Like right now, what I am doing now is drawing. 

He shows us his sketchbook. And the drawings are impressive. Reminds us of Adekunle Gold’s sketch of the Headies award, which he uploaded sometime ago. The illustrations were not abstract. They were faces of real-imagined people. One was a young lad with long twisted locks. Even the style in his drawing screamed hip-hop. Surprisingly, he knew how to use the shadow and light technique (an elite skill meant for the artistically inclined few). 

GRIX: Most of your tracks have been void of collaborations recently. Why? 

HARRY: I am working on some Collabs, but collabs are tricky because some artists are like Snakes. An artiste may be talented and have a huge fan base, but that doesn’t mean it would favor you. Artistes are like snakes. I am working with good people. There is more Afro because of the people I am working with, just like the one I did with Dumone (Baby). But the ones that are just me. .

He laughs and smiles. 

It is okay to be selective about artists you can work with. And it is only right for you to recognize what you want to achieve with each track. Baby is the only track with a feature on his EP, and it is the only Afro track. Features are very calculative for someone like HARRY. This is why I guess he kept saying artist are like snakes. HARRY must have received a bite of venom from these snakes. 

GRIX: Should we be expecting a track from you anytime soon? 

HARRY: I might not be dropping an EP, But I’ll dropping capsules. Like two songs. I don’t know when I’ll drop my next song. I am still going through the folders to see the one that would bang.