Incase you’ve not See the Video, Watch it HERE
I woke up this morning to the cheering news of the visual release of the smash hit single Ordinary People by producer extraordinaire Cobhams Asuquo, instantly there was a sparkle that erupted from the inside of me which signals the rain of true joy and happiness, my heart conceded and agreed that it’s just a great way to start the year.
Cobham is an inspiration any day anytime; to me he is the epitome and true definition of God’s mightiness, a physically impaired multi-instrumentalist, music producer, song writer, vocalist, music teacher, song arranger, life coach and much more, amazingly he’s best at what he does with little or no competition. The list of five top music producers in Nigeria is never complete without his name being mentioned or even topping the chart! This is a man who is totally blind and sees nothing in the real sense of things, rather his inner eyes can best be described as the eagle eyes which sees better, sharper and clearer, no wonder he never cease to bless us with great sounds in vocals and productions.
The song Ordinary People released as a single last year by his production company C.A.M.P {Cobhams Asuquo Music Productions} has received amazing reviews world over since it hit the internet, no meaningful and serious blog was left out from uploading the song on their sites for mobile download by fans and music lovers, it’s such a monumental sound which not only can be clasified as a hit but an evergreen. Cobham went in deep as usual in the song to depict a larger than life artistry and added a plus to prove his ingenuity and pure talent.
Since the breakaway of the internet as a major platform for music promotion, Nigerian artistes have since seen the need of going an extra mile in ‘’dossing’’ out singles consistently, this as a means to stay relevant in the game and ensure regular connection with fans and promoters, with the new trend an aggregate of 1,000 singles arguably hits the internet weekly from both the A list artistes and not so popular to the up and coming. With this massive in-flood of the internet weekly by the Nigerian artistes, the song Ordinary People with little or less PR and Hype gained an appreciable inroad into the playlists of Radio stations across Nigeria, fans and lovers of real music instantly got obsessed to it on first hearing and the yearnings for a video to this great song grew momentarily across board on the go.
Yippee! So finally the much loved motivational and inspirational song now has a video to complement and drive home the messages imbedded in it, what a heartfelt, but rather than heighten the super excitement bubbling in me upon hearing the news, the reverse was the case soon as I watched it. I was gruesomely devastated with the visual interpretation of a song which won the Best Recording of the Year at the recently concluded music award ceremony The Headies {Nigeria’s Grammys}. Ordinary People is arguably known to be one of the best materials released from this part of the world in 2014.
And to say that the song is way bigger than the video is stating the obvious, I believe real visual aggregators who have listened to the song and have been opportune to watch the video will second me on this that this video is never a match to the content and depth of the audio. It was a total charade.
Beyond picture clarity, costumes and properties, the storyboard of a visual interpretation of a work of art is of high significance especially for a musical video, and this must connote a strong theme that will align with the audio. The Ordinary People video can easily have a pass mark in terms of picture quality but many things went wrong with the settings of the project. Even if the Eric Haviv of Hugo Studios directed project is looking at gaining a premium international recognition for the song through the video by picking a location out of Nigeria, it did a more damage by omitting the picture of a real ordinary people from the video. The scenery of a typical ordinary people living in Agege, Ajegunle, Mafoluku, Alagbado, Shogunle, Ilasa, was conspicuously absent all through the 5mins 39secs rendition. Even though the idea is to aim international market as the case might be, I strongly believe that a true replica of what the audio of the song stood for should have been followed to the later as this will earn the song its rightful place as a true evergreen song. The insertion of clips of the typical everyday life of people living in the above mentioned locales in Lagos will easily portray the theme of the song and show that irrespective of where you come from, you can achieve whatever you set your mind on if you so believe.
As Nigeria battles with terrorism and insurgency, which seems to be an unending war, the director of the video could have capitalised on this to send strong signals to the rich and mighty across the country, who stack billions of naira and dollars in banks and undergrounds about how helpful they could be to the victims of insurgencies across Nigeria, this by depicting the level of abandonment and neglects the victims are being faced with as ordinary people who inspite of all these hard times still finds a reason to smile while cohabiting at the various unequipped settlements set up by government across the North East part of Nigeria.
No doubt, Nigerians and the world at large will continue to draw inspirations from Cobhams whom many believes made it to the top of his career even with his incapacitations; Ordinary People seems an expedition of Cobhams road to stardom which also mirrors the journey of many as they made it from Zero to Hero. It’s paramount that such project needs more than a regular video to actually complement its evergreen basement.
Written by:- Joda Afolabi, media analyst writes in from Lagos Nigeria.
Twitter:- @A1joda
Email:- afolabijoda@gmail.com
Phone:- 08056370149
