Coronarivus and the rise of e-concerts in Nigerian music

Since we are all stuck at home, Nigerian artists are getting creative. Instead of allowing a virus to stop them from reaching their fans, they are exploring the idea of e-concerts.

A few days ago, Pulse Nigeria went into the story of how coronavirus was affecting Nigerian music. Of course, the results were mixed albeit significantly negative.

On the one hand, music streaming numbers will inevitably spike for artists as people are stuck at home doing nothing. But on the other hand, scheduled shows have been cancelled on a major scale. The reasons is simple, public gathering is a friend of coronavirus - it aids the spread of the virus that's affected over 400,000 people across the world.

Davido - Green Light Riddim (Live Session) | Vevo Ctrl

But since we are all stuck at home, Nigerian artists are getting creative. Instead of waiting for a virus to stop them from reaching their fans, they are exploring the idea of e-concerts. While a concert is usually the performance of existing songs in front of a people, platforms like NPR Tiny Desk, Colors TV, Aktivated Sessions, Link Up TV, VEVOCtrl have changed the idea of concerts.

Burna Boy: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Instead of performing before a people, artists are put in front of a camera to perform their existing songs either to its beat or as backed up by a live band. The advantages of the types of performances are;

1. They're cheaper to organize and attend. A live concert requires you to purchase tickets and then board and Uber.
2. They're convenient for both artist and fans.
3. The performances will be smoother and less raucous.
4. Documentation of these performances are better.
5. Artists can make money off the content on YouTube.
6. Accessibility by fans across the world without the limitation of ticketing.

I hope you are keeping safe and physically distancing yourself. I will be having an acoustic concert on @YouTube Live, #stayhome and sing #withme on Sunday March 29th at 6pm WAT/GMT and 7pm CET. Subscribe and set your reminder on the link in bio! ❤️🦅

For these reasons and as coronavirus inhibits live performances, Asa and 2baba are looking into the idea of e-concerts. Asa's concert will hold on Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 6 pm while 2baba's e-concert holds on April 12, 2020.

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As these two artists have started, we are likely to see more e-concerts spring up in Nigeria. Of course, the disadvantage of e-concerts is that the raw experience of a live show will be missing.