Illbliss Covers MYSTREETZ MAGAZINE With The Caption ‘THE ILL-BO PHENOMENON’

The Journey Of Igbo Artistes to Mainstream in the Nigerian Music Industry. ‘The Nigerian state has always been a potpourri of different tribes and cultures which also reflects in its music that comes in diverse languages and sound but as diverse as things are, the general perception is that you are either an artiste who’s Yoruba (the west), Igbo (South, East or South-south…) or Hausa from the northern region. No matter how easy it is to be argued, this ideology is still the bedrock for the presidential seat in Nigeria.   The Nigerian music industry have a record of several great Igbo Highlife musicians but a lot of them could not break into mainstream. The musical exploits of Oliver De Coque, Sir Warrior, Oriental Brothers, Okonkwo Adigwe, Zeal Onyia, E.C Arinze, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, Bright Chimezie, Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson e.t.c are huge but despite this, all of them only recorded regional success with the exception of Victor Uwaifo with his Joromi hit song and Nico Mbarga with Sweet Mother. They could not conquer the language barrier and by so doing, could not have a share in the Lagos music market which is the major market to go mainstream. The fact that most of these artistes are based in the eastern part of Nigeria, also halted their appeal to the mainstream audience.