Stephen Uche
I’ve always respected Blaqbonez’s artistry because he’s remarkably intentional about it. It’s never been solely about music. His branding and the narrative he creates around every action are admirable which is why many consider him to be a creative genius.
His third studio album titled “Emeka Must Shine” is a statement project, a perilous one that could prove menacing to the trajectory of his career if all doesn’t go the way he’s planned in the engine room.
Like a lot of great artists, Blaqbonez took his fans along on his journey to stardom, creating different personalities to mark each stage of the voyage. His primary personality is Bad Boy Blaq, the unorthodox rebel who’s devoid of romantic emotions and slanders them anytime he senses it. This version of Blaqbonez gave us his breakthrough EP, ’Bad Boy Blaq’ as well as his debut and sophomore albums “Sex Over Love” and “Young Preacher” respectively. He also created Mr. Boombastic and Emeka The Stallion, the persona this album comes from.
Blaqbonez has inferred severally that he wants to play a more significant role in the fast-paced “Afrobeats to the World” movement and to do so, he needs to be more than just a Hip Hop artist. This realization is what motivated the creation of “Emeka Must Shine”.
Now, it’s completely understandable that he has big dreams and aspirations to one day shut down the infamous O2 Arena, sell-out shows in various countries, and have his music doing similar numbers as that of his colleagues, but one thing he’s missing out on is that he can’t do it by trying to compete with them because they simply will outshine him (pun intended).
My first take when I saw the album tracklist was why he’d chosen to feature as many people as he did, then I remembered how he’d been ranting on Twitter about how Nigerians don’t rate albums based on the quality but rather how many HIT songs they have in the album – which comes from the fact that despite winning the award for Best Rap Album at the 2022 Headies Awards show, he desired for his last album ‘Young Preacher’ to do reasonably better than it did – and then it made sense.
“Emeka Must Shine” is his attempt at appealing to a larger audience – which further validates the topic of his wanting to play a more vital role in the industry – but it’s a bit bleak in my opinion. It really doesn’t matter how good you are, manipulating your fans to be empathetic to your cause by getting them to shout your praises repeatedly would eventually become weary and undoubtedly affect the music.
This is not to say that the music is bad, no. Blaqbonez has always challenged himself time and time again, constantly demonstrating that he’s one of the best rappers in the game and this album is no further from that truth but that’s exactly what he should be focused on. Becoming one to succeed the seat former Chocolate City boss MI Abaga has left vacant rather than trying to compete with Nigerian pop stars like Rema, Asake, Fireboy, Omah Lay, etc because it might do more harm to him than good.
This was a risky move from him and if it doesn’t work out the way he’s imagined, it really won’t matter how much of a marketing genius he is or how good the music is, once the fans lose interest or just get tired of your antics, it would become really hard to regain it, especially with the loads of heavy competition on these streets.
I’m excited to see how this unfolds and what his next move will be, but for now “Emeka Must Shine”.
