IS BIG BROTHER NAIJA A PRODUCTIVE PLATFORM FOR EMERGING MUSIC TALENT?

 

It's another season of the biggest reality TV show in Africa, Big Brother Naija!. Millions of people are always glued to their TV set analyzing the housemates, choosing a fave, vocalizing their thoughts on social media and entertaining themselves. BBN airs in 48 other African countries besides Nigeria, to an average audience of 309 million viewers, huge right?

With this massive viewership, in just one week, BBN will give anyone an incredible publicity that cannot be gotten through advertising in months. Little wonder why about 30 thousand people strive to get a slot into the show every season in order to showcase their talent to the world especially those interested in showbiz.

In the past seven seasons, about 26 housemates have graced the Big Brother Naija show with the aim of promoting their musical talent. To mention a few, ex-housemates like  Efe, White money, Bisola, Avala, Marvis, Laycon, Tricky Tee, Coco Ice, Uriel, Veeiye, J-Paul, Teddy A, Niyi,  Ella, Rico Swavey, Sensei Michael etc pursed their misical talent pre and post BBN. The latest addition to this list is Bryann and Eloswag.  Unfortunately, how many of these ex-housemates have been successful in their music career? .

BBN is a platform that exposes these housemates to millions of people all over Africa but ironically, none of the past BBN housemates who goes to the house to promote their music have been successful. Even three of the housemates who are winners and had large fan bases couldn't successful promote their music post BBN. Should we then say that BB Naija isn't a fertile ground to grow one's music career? To be honest, this question is difficult to answer because Laycon's considerable success in the music industry is an exception.

These factors can be said to be responsible for the low success rate of ex BBN housemates in the music industry.

1.      Fan's high expectations: For some ex-housemates like Efe and Debby rise  fans had high expectations of their music and weren't ready to take anything less that the standard they set for themselves in the house. Unfortunately, they were unable to keep up with it hence their music career went for it.

2.      Fake Fans: Majority of viewers are Big Brother's fans not the housemate's. Why do I say this? . During the show fans stand with their favorites through out the show both in right and wrong situations. Some even become violent but this energy isn't transferred to boosting their careers it only ends with the show. When the next season comes they move on to the next interesting housemate.

3.  Bad music: Most of the ex-housemates have been incapable of making decent music that will really interest the audience. Laycon could stand out because he sang good music.

4.      Biased mindset: there is some kind of bias surrounding BBN ex-housemates that they got undeserved sudden fame they didn't work for so anything they do is mostly criticized.

To conclude, BBN is a great platform to promote ones talent not excluding musical talent. However, housemates who want to promote their music through this route need to have a unique talent different from what people are used to, a great personality and lots of hard work to back it up so as to standout.