Ah, music! Everybody loves music as to their tastes and preferences, even the devil was said to be the one time choir leader in heaven while pastors preach the easiest way to God’s heart is through praise and worship. Personally, my favorite genres are pop and rnb.

For the upcoming artiste, music goes from a past time hobby to a full time struggle. It’s no longer about enjoying your music, it’s about making people enjoy it too. In school, I see a lot of aspiring upcoming artistes, you can tell by their flocking around local recording studios, trying to fill your phone with their songs and the crowd they move with – DJs and fellow upcoming artistes.

As a fellow aspirer, though mine is in the line of writing, I can relate with their struggles, hopes and dreams to ‘blow’ one day, “if Wizkid can, so can we” and I couldn’t agree any less.

Nevertheless, in Nigeria, making a hit song that will be your springboard into limelight is not much of a challenge if you follow the rules. “What are the rules?”  you ask, well it’s the same rules every other successful music artiste has followed and today that’s what I’m going to share with you.

Fasten your seat belts honey, take a sip of coke, relax back and here we go?

1. First things first, you’ve got to have the talent and the passion.
   Make sure you have a good voice at least, studio auto tune can do the rest for you. You already know your genre, if you are singing love songs or songs about heartbreaks, or rapping about life in the streets or fighting political corruption with your lyrics or clubbing and popping 10 bottles of American Honey and Moet. We can move on now.
2. Next, you’ve got to choose your style.
   

   
   The DNA twins decided to come in a pair looking like P-square juniors, Davido loves white tops, Wizkidshaves part of his brows and does the gold chain thing, Tiwa Savageis a Diva, so is Yemi Alade and Simikeeps it simple as always. Not to forget the unique ones like Falz who thrive in music with a nice mix of comedy. So choose your style, and let’s move on to the next rule.

3. Bring something new to the table.  
   The easiest to do is a dance move just like the originators of Makosa, Atlanta and Shoki. Silento did it with watch me whip (nene), so with enough craze and imagination, you can do it too. You can also stand out with a hairstyle, blend of colors or fashion sense. Just make it original and new. You can take something that is already there and improve on it, there is no law against that.
4. Now you need a catchy stage name to make sure people don’t forget you.
   If you are lucky enough to have friends who have taken it upon themselves to give you a cool nickname (most of us do), then you are good to go. If not, I’ll advise you create a commitee, sit for a round table discussion /meeting and brainstorm for a cool nickname that will also do for a stage name. Lucky you if your parents named you something that’s fancy like Cynthia Morgan or Goldy, you can just use your real name.
5. Now you’ve got your beat and you are making a song. Make sure to use pidgin and either yoruba or Igbo.
   There’s no need to argue this one. Just do it. Except you can break the norm and come through with something that works without using much of either just like Jidenna did in Classic Man. 
6. Your chorus should be catchy, emphasis on catchy. 
   It’s what will make the song sell because people like catchy. I’m not a fan of most Nigerian male artistes but I made exceptions for some of their songs because of the catchy lines. I fell for Kiss Daniel’s Jumbowhen I heard the lines “your father is black belt…your mother is violent…“. It doesn’t always have to make sense, Ycee did it with Omo Alhaji and Timaya gets away with it all the time.
7. If you can’t do it yourself, then kidnap someone who’s already there. Having a popular god fatherin the industry can not be overemphasized,
   

   like in the case of Lil Kesh who was polished, introduced and initiated into stardom by Olamide. So list of people you can kidnap include Don Jazzy, Waje and Frank Edwards. 

8. Just pay for a good song writer, producer and director.
   

   If you have the money, then it’s even waaay easier to blow. Employ the writing services of Simi or Darey, get Don Jazzy to produce it and let Clarence Peters shoot it. If you don’t have money now, locate the nearest osusu in your community and join them. Chikena.

Just as far as you do all of these and stay far away from image tarnishing controversies, you’ll be fine and well on your way to stardom. May we all make it. Cheers to your success.