By Jane Adigwe/Taiye Baiyerohi
Lagos – Mr Sope Afolayan, a member of the Board of Directors, Hindsight Development Organisation, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), has cautioned musicians against influencing Nigerian youths with negative musical contents.
Afolayan told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) during a courtesy visit to the Lagos office of agency that most of the songs released by most contemporary Nigerian musicians were of poor and negative contents.
Their lyrics would always influence the youths negatively, he said.
He said that most of the songs were only conveying messages about money or get rich quick syndrome without hard work, going for drugs and sex.
He said these vices should not be the focus of the artistes but they should go for meaningful lyrical contents that would help change the society positively.
They should sing musical contents that would improve the individual’s morals and make them become better citizens, he said.
” It is important for us to state that as an organisation, we see that the some of the contents of contemporary musical lyrics are detrimental to nation building.
“Rather they tend to promote youths’ interests in drug addiction, sexual assault and escalated crime rate.
” We want these artistes to join in propagating sound values through their music because impacting new values in the minds of our youths must be the collective efforts of everyone.
” We must not all keep quiet, we are the solution and answers to these anomalies, knowing that evil prevails when the righteous keep quiet when vices happen.
“When we are silent as change agents, it means we are in total agreement with everything happening in the society,” he said.
Afolayan urged media organisations, television and radio stations as well as online bloggers to air more of the positive songs and discourage the negative ones.
” We all need songs that will motivate, and enlighten us as we all know that music is the food for the soul.
” We want media organisations to limit the rate at which those negative songs are played on their stations.
“This will bring a kind of caution to these artistes on the kind of songs they will like to release to the public,” he said.