OST Not Found

The decline of original soundtracks in Nollywood and how to revive them

Introduction

Cinema, like all other forms of storytelling, is emotional at its core. Yes, it requires meaningful shots that compound into well-crafted scenes and demands that these scenes add up to form a cohesive narrative that constitutes an emotional rollercoaster, but this effect can be significantly enhanced through music. Unfortunately, we have neglected this nugget. Unlike in old Nollywood films, which were mostly filmed in Enugu, contemporary Bollywood flicks do not masterfully make use of recorded music as a storytelling tool and largely neglect the use of original soundtracks to suggest the mood/tone of the film through sound. This error needs correction or our films can as well just be referred to as footage.

Afrobeats as Antidote 

The other day I was arguing with a friend that Nollywood—or the new Nollywood, at least—undermines the power of original soundtracks in enhancing the overall feel of a film. I can’t remember if she advocated for the fusion of afrobeat with Nollywood—a kind of collaboration of both industries, which wouldn’t be that far-fetched—but I do remember countering such an opinion or route. 

Afrobeats, the dominant Nigerian sound, has taken off globally. We have artistes selling out arenas, breaking streaming records, winning Grammys—basically changing the music landscape on a global scale. Even the folks at the frontier of other Afrobeats sub genres are hitting it big; some have gone as far as having their songs featured in Hollywood films and British series like Top Boy and Sex Education. 

It would follow then, logically, to infuse Afrobeats, especially the mega-hits, into Nollywood films. However, that would be a huge mistake. 

Afrobeats as a genre is up-tempo, which limits it to being used in gregarious scenes that involve dancing or some form of gyration. Although a few afrobeat songs have sad lyrics that camouflage behind the up-tempo sound, at its core, afrobeat expresses joy, or, escapism.

In the context of cinema, this is limiting and is a very small—not to undermine the vastness of the genre—way to solve a big, big problem. The allure of leaning towards a Bollywood-style cohesion is tempting. Indian music is in many ways inseparable from their culture or their films. All three—film, music, culture—blend in a way that replicates so seamlessly nearly nowhere else on earth. You can’t imagine a Bollywood or Tollywood film without the over-the-top songs and breathless dancing. They have perfected this over decades, despite ridicule and praise.

From this, it is easy to deduce that elsewhere, the fusion of the dominant music sound and the ambitions of the film industry make a formidable pair, yielding incomparable success. Wrong. To avoid getting carried away in the stream of allure, this is worth noting: We have no such equivalent. Nigerian culture, as multifarious as it is, hasn’t yet been reduced or distilled into essential tropes which our movies have crystallized over time. The essence of Nigerian storytelling is still something of a myth. This explains, to an extent, why we lean heavily on Hollywood tropes, which we actually fail to xerox properly. Without one—distilling Nigerian society into familiar characters and plot lines—you can’t have the other—trying to fuse Afrobeats and Nollywood. It’s a futile endeavor. It’ll make more sense to occasionally feature an Afrobeats track in a pivotal scene that warrants the music than to attempt  an amalgamation of two industries both still in the process of developing separate, concrete identities. So should Nollywood abandon the OST route completely?Or what solution do I proffer?

Ballad, Concerto & Disco

We live in a different world from what the late ’90s and early 2010s offered us. There are multiple global streaming sites producing world-class shows right now. Popular Independent studios like A24 are releasing art-house blockbusters at a rate that even well-established studios can’t keep up with. In short, we are bombarded by excellent films, mostly from the West, Europe and Asia—mostly Korea. Tollywood is a worthy mention, too, seeing that RRR did make a tidal wave last year when it was in cinemas. People are more exposed now than ever to films which are as immersive and deep as they are weird. 

These films come with scores made by professionally trained musicians specifically for the films. Unless the director wants to take the same route as Wong Kar-Wai or Quentin Tarantino, both of whom use already written songs in a clever way. And unlike in Old Nollywood where the songs, from being a little too on the nose, spoiled the plot for the movie itself or not, anyone who prefers the OST route should be prepared to budget for the music as they do for costumes and set design. Because ballads, concertos and discos are as expensive a they are invaluable.

These factors contribute to why Nollywood seems so far behind: we are comparing the films to a global standard. This trickles down into my next point about OSTs in Nigerian films: we need songs from multiple genres, not just Afrobeats.

The major problem is most Nigerians are already exposed to music in these genres done by professional musicians with flawless execution. The lyrics, the vocals, the song structure themselves are impeccable. This is what Nollywood would have to be competing with. So if we’re going to have ballads, concertos and discos, we need to do it at the same level as the rest of he world. We’re past the point of asking Nigerians to support our film industry; there is a thin line between support and rewarding mediocrity.

While it might sound ludicrous, at first, to ask that we expand our musical landscape to accommodate and express a wider cinematic lexicon, it is not because other genres are impossible to hack, rather the fault lies elsewhere. It lies in our lack of quality assurance. Nigeria, culturally speaking, has a problem with excellence: we love to make excuses for our shortcomings and decorate our fumbles with far-fetched fables. Thus, if we want to get to the level where we’re having OST awards, to people shazaming songs and scores from our movies, or random professionals playing these songs from our movies in public spaces as buckets or everyday folks requesting for them in karaoke bars, then we’ll need better stories that inspire better music made my professionals. Otherwise we can maintain our practice of using songs without paying attention to copyright, wallowing in mediocrity, and squandering our potential.