Nigerian Musicians Who Rose To Fame & Fortune Through Social Media.

It is no longer breaking news that in our world today, becoming famous is not as hard as it might have been for folks, back in the days. We are currently in the social media age where everybody in the world is digitally connected. With the advent of this new age, the way people achieve fame or become famous has greatly changed.

Social media has brought about the rise of a new generation of stars or celebrities. Just about anyone can make themselves famous on social media with just a smartphone, internet connectivity and a social media website account like facebook, twitter, youtube, and the likes, all within the twinkle of an eye. It’s that easy! All over the world, new celebrities are continuously emerging in music, movies, comedy, fashion and so on.

In the music world for example, the likes of America’s Justin Bieber and a host of other successful music artistes, paved their way to fame and fortune when they had videos and photos of themselves, showcasing their unique talents, uploaded on social media, for the whole world to see .

Bringing things home, in Nigeria, the music industry has witnessed the rise of new artistes who began their journey to fame and fortune on social media. All they did was simply attract and maintain a huge following on their social media accounts by posting videos and photos of themselves showcasing their unique talents and the rest they say, is history. Examples of music artistes in Nigeria who rose to fame and fortune through the help of social media include… 

1. FALZ

Folarin Falana, better known by his stage name, ‘Falz’ or ‘Falz The Bahd Guy’, is a uniquely talented and versatile Nigerian rapper, singer, actor, comedian, human rights activist and lawyer. 

Falz, born October 27, 1990 (age 27), is the son of renowned lawyer and Nigerian human activist, Femi Falana and mother, Funmi Falana, who is also a renowned lawyer. He was born in Lagos State, South-Western Nigeria and is an alumnus of the University of Reading where he studied Law and graduated with an LLB honors degree. After graduating from the prestigious Nigeria Law School, Abuja, Falz was then called to the bar in 2012. 

His stage name, ‘Falz’ was coined from his surname, ‘Falana’, with ‘The Bahd Guy’ added to it to form - ‘Falz The Bahd Guy’. The ‘Bahd’ is actually an abbreviation for ‘Brilliant and Highly Distinct’. 

Falz garnered everyone’s attention with comedy skits on Instagram in which he played a comical character, speaking bad English with a deep Yoruba accent. Because of the freshness, uniqueness and relatability of his type of comedy, he was able to successfully win the hearts of many Nigerians.

He later started using his huge Instagram following to push his music career in rap. An example was when he created a competition called the “Ellobae Challenge” to push his ‘ellobae’ song – his latest musical attempt at the time and it quickly attracted a huge involvement from his many fans. He realized and harnessed the power of social media to kickstart his journey to fame and fortune. Click and watch below, a playlist of his popular comedy skits, uploaded on YouTube...

Falz, unlike what many people think, had been in the music industry since way back, doing rap, before becoming popular on instagram. He has been into music since his secondary school days where he formed a group called "The School Boys" with his friend before going professional in 2009

His skits were what helped pave the way for his music and helped him build a successful music career. He has since gone on to release many hit singles and albums. His recent album is titled, 'Stories That Touch' and has continued to receive so many positive reviews since its release.

2. ADEKUNLE GOLD

Adekunle Gold is another example of someone who realized and harnessed the power of social media early on to kickstart his journey to fame and fortune.

Adekunle Kosoko, better known by his stage name, Adekunle Gold is a Nigerian singer, song writer, graphic artist, brand developer, Ceramist and also a sculptor. He was born on the 28th of January, 1987 (age 30), in Lagos State. He rose to fame, not for his music at first, but for his photoshopping skills on Instagram. He was and still is quite creative with the popular photo design software called ‘photoshop’, that people dubbed him as the “photoshop king”. He could design creative pictures using photoshop. 

Some of his works include ones where he photoshopped himself into pictures of celebrities to give the illusion that he actually posed for the picture with them. He did it so well that if you hadn’t seen the original pictures, you wouldn’t have known the pictures were photoshopped. The photoshopped photos also had a comic feel to them which was a good selling point. People didn't waste time becoming huge fans.

Adekunle steadily continued to attract a huge following on social media, with people thinking that was all he had to offer. Little did they know that photoshopping pictures was just one out of his many talents. He blew people's minds away when he started to make effective use of his huge social media following, especially on instagram, to post short videos of himself doing covers of popular songs. People were astounded by his singing prowess and his following increased.

One of the many popular songs he covered and posted on Instgram was the one where he covered Olamide’s ‘Falilaketan’. It is a song off the Nigerian Rapper, Singer and Record Label Executive's ‘Street OT’ album. Olamide was so much Impressed by his cover that he commented under the post. It was not until months later that Olamide signed him on to his Record Label, 'YBNL' and his career kickstarted officially from there. Adekunle Gold has since then gone on to release many hit songs such as 'Sade', 'Pick Up', 'Orente' and an album titled, ‘GOLD’.

Adekunle Gold in his younger years formed a group called ‘The Bridge’ with a friend of his and they had been into music for quite a while. After dropping a few songs and couldn’t break into the music scene, they decided to separate and go solo.

Adekunle Gold's music is quite fresh and unique. He describes his genre of music as 'urban highlife'. He sings his songs in his native language, Yoruba, mixing it up with a little bit of English and Pidgin English. His songs sound evergreen and also have great lyrics that are mostly telling a story. It’s probably why both the young and old can’t get enough of his music. Checkout below, more of the photoshopped photos that made him popular on social media, especially Instagram.

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