The Decline of Meaningful Messages in Modern Music

Music is said to be medicine for the soul because it hits the right cord in you each time you listen to one that is in line with the present state of happenings in society. I'm a lover of music and love to sing along with some of my favorite musicians. While music is amazing, it's unfortunate to see that some new musicians in the game have ruined it and put trash and meaningless stuff in their songs.

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Music in the past used to carry messages—not ordinarily messages but thoughtful and inspiring ones. As a way of lifting the soul, the likes of Fela sang with lyrics that shared the pain of the people, condemned corruption, and the like, and so did others like Ebenezer Obey, who sang with lyrics that got you thinking about life, how to deal with people's statements, and the like.

I can go on and on about each of these musicians and the beautiful messages their songs carry that are a delight to the souls of listeners, and these messages cut across all spheres of lives that are morally right, carrying messages of hope, love, pain, and the like. Unfortunately, the reverse is the case in our present day when it comes to my country, Nigeria. Though we still have reasonable musicians, those who thrive most and pull the most crowns are those who pass irrelevant messages.

Fast forward to the present day, and you'll notice a musician can decide to just speak a few words and shout or grumble words that have no sustain or meaning, and yet they're widely accepted by the general public. It's disheartening to see such plays out in our world today, and I can't help but wonder how we slipped off the right path in music.

We've come to see that the music of today promotes things that aren't morally right. For instance, the likes of musicians like Potable will encourage people to go into ritual in his songs, and yet you see people dancing to such. You also see others hailing popular fraudsters and singing with lyrics that see nothing bad in what those guys do.

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These are disheartening sights to behold and even listen to, and I can't help but wonder where we lose it. Imagine the lyrics of a song sexualizing women and even saying, Come to my bed and take this one. In the music being produced today, the private parts are no longer private, as you hear these musicians mention it like they normally do, forgetting that such music will be listened to by both adults and children.

Music has been used as a medium to pass messages across the world. Unfortunately, when these ridiculous lyrics fill out songs in the present day, I see why the moral uprightness of society keeps depreciating because music being produced now makes things that were not ideas then seem acceptable.

We can only hope things will get better. In the past, there used to be authorization to ban songs with odd or unimaginable messages, but now I can't help but wonder if such authorization is still in existence because all these songs are being aired on live TV programs without filtering their content, and that's why you can see musicians like Olamide sing about smoking and combining different chemicals and drugs together just to get high. I really hope things turn around for good and that we can go back to the good old days when music was still decent and carried reasonable messages, not ones where Aya Star put on a handkerchief as a skirt and women threw their bras at musicians on stage.

That's about all of my opinion on the current stage of music, and I used my country, Nigeria, as a case study. The writeup was inspired by the Hive Naija community prompt; check here for more information.