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| Over the past three years, Nigerian creatives of all kind have made it off viral content. |
While the freestyle he delivered in the video was very organic, brilliant and authentic, with memories of a particular pouting ‘cameraman,’ licking his lips as Picazo delivered bars upon bars permanently etched in the minds of Nigerians who watched the video, Twitter went mad.
Within 24 hours, influential Nigerians like Bizzle Osikoya, co-founder of management company, The Plug NG began asking and researching who the talented MC was.
Within days of that rap freestyle dropping, he signed to street king, Olamide Badoo’s record label, YBNL Records alongside his fellow freestyle rapper, Yomi Blaize and they dropped a joint album with Olamide titled, YBNL Family Mafia – Picazo now has a sleeper hit, “Macaroni” under his belt.
The best part is that Nigerians were more surprised at the number of following he had already garnered as a viral rap freestyle videos maker across Twitter and Instragram even before that one viral video.
Yet, the mainstream never knew about him, but it took only one video, posted by one random person for him to get his moment. Lesson one, never stop creating the content that leads your engagement.
Lesson Two: always bring the heat
Fast forward earlier today, a friend sent me a video of a #DoubleHomicide freestyle session. For nuance, #DoubleHomicide is a viral freestyle trend, created off a song of the same name, from LadiPoe’s debut album, Talk About Poe. The song featured rapper, Ghost, one-half of Hip-Hop supergroup, Show Dem Camp.
Back to the freestyle video. The video was made by a certain Eva Johnson (Tweets @missevajohnson) and it was straight fire - bar after bar, and even when she started singing.
Her technique blew my mind mostly because, myself and that friend who sent me the video went to Law school with said Ms. Eva Johnson. If anybody had told me she could make music, I’d have thrown a plate of decimated fish from a fish pepper soup at them, after first dipping it in Isolo erosion.
Back then, she was the very bold and cute group leader of group six at Lagos campus – I wasn’t just impressed, I was blown away and practically wanted pull her out from my laptop’s screen and buy her a plate of boli and groundnut.
The most surprising part is that it wasn’t a one-off either. I was even more surprised that she had released an album last year – if my superior found out that I missed someone’s album despite my brainless boastful tendencies that I knew every album dropping, he’d have laughed at me like I just got curved by a woman out of my league.
Point is, someone like me and other people might not have known her at this point without that video.
Creatives, never stop creating viral content
Apparently, it’s no news that the world continues to gravitate toward visual content than even audio or written content. Thus, while it can be frustrating for a creative or even a writer that they are not getting needed props for their work, despite the retweets and whatnot, they should never stop creating viral content.
They should never let the lack of attention make them weary. Yes, it is hard to find fuel to go on, and self-motivate, but it’s important that creatives make themselves their own standard, opponent and who to impress during those trying phases.
It takes is one chance for your life to change and for you to get your dreams – you don’t want to be lagging on low quality nonsense when the right person sees your work.
It’s social media, you never know who might be watching. Mayorkun was also discovered through a social media viral video and signed to Davido’s DMW record label where he was playing the piano and singing. Dolapo Shawarma became an overnight sensation because someone posted him online.
Equally, the famous ‘Corporate Guy’ keke driver around Surulere, Lagos is making good money because he stuck with what he knows. The #WeAreNigerianCreatives hashtag has helped a lot of people and those it hasn’t helped should know their time is coming.
While it might seem cliché to say you should never stop creating, you need to realize that true talent will always get its chance in the spotlight. Thus, think of why you’re doing what you’re doing and if you love it, not just for the money and fame, but for the satisfaction of doing what you love.
That requires knowing that you have the talent and that you’re in the right space, even without props
This one is hard, especially when you’re getting no feedback from people who matter. While people with little or not talent have made it, they’re the exception, not the rule and those things don’t happen to everybody – you can’t hitch your wagon to an exception.
Recently, Pulse wrote about the rules of blowing up in the industry which Ruggedman churned out on the first track, “9ja Hip-Hop,” off his classic sophomore studio album, Ruggedy Baba. Rule one was, “You have to be sure you have the talent in you.”
Distiguishing between the thin line between talent and obsession is very hard, but you must know, so you don’t make mistakes.
That said, sometimes, what you need is passion and a clear plan to make yourself the best possible like Cristiano Ronaldo did.
Sometimes, passion drives what talent drives. What should you then do, if you love it; be the best version of yourself and never stop creating the viral content. While everybody won’t make it off viral content, viral content aids development and put you out there.
In This Story: #DoubleHomicide #Nigerian #ViralContent
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