What You Need to Know About the Art and Creative Industry in Nigeria
The Nigerian Art and Creative Industry is a breath of fresh air for a lot of Nigerians especially since it has created over one million jobs for the youths in the areas of filmmaking, animation, video productions, movies, and all forms of entertainment, including visual and performing arts, fashion design, ICT, and many more.
Over the years, it has grown steadily to become one of the best in its craft internationally thereby causing an ever increased economic impact as it pertains to creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Through art, fashion, food, music, movies, writing, dancing, and comedy, the country's treasures are continuously showcased to the world and the dependence on crude oil has reduced.
The fact has it that, the Nigerian music industry has been estimated to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.4 percent by 2021, with an estimated worth of about $73 million. As a result, the country's economy is now being diversified to support increased productivity in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, while harnessing the talents of young Nigerians in the art and creative industry to build up a more resilient economy capable of creating wealth and generating jobs for our ever-growing population.
Fela Anikulapo Kuti
The Nigerian Creative Economy can be traced back to the advent of Colonialism, before the very constitution of Nigeria as it is currently configured. Nok, Terra Cota 500BC – 200AD, and Benin Carvings proved to be both culturally and commercially viable both within and outside the shores of Nigeria. This, however evolved in silos of creativity, which in themselves were highly fragmented and have largely remained so.
The first time there was an organized gathering with a focus on the creative industries in Nigeria was in 1977, during the Festival of Arts & Culture or FESTAC celebration. Ever since then the industry has more or less evolved in a largely unstructured manner. The current explosion is ignited by an ongoing Renaissance, fueled by the quest for cultural identity, driven by a youthful population who are creatively inquisitive and sustained by the digital, technology, and telecoms revolution. Source: LawAllianz
The Arts and Creative Industry is very vibrant in Nigeria and has provided a positive and beneficial growth path for young Nigerians who seek to utilize their talents in creating products and services that offer value at home and abroad. It has created more opportunities for skillful youths, upcoming actors, and performing artists to earn a living, raise their standard of living by profiting from their passion, as well as aid the promotion of social development and improvement of the quality of life.
Fashion
What's not to love about Arts and Creativity in Nigeria? Is it the Music Industry having talent in several genres of music which include high life, afro beats, apala, juju, and fuji being aired on popular cable channels as Trace TV, Channel O, MTV Base Africa, Hip TV or the Fashion Industry with emerging and creative designs from some of the top African designers?
The Nigerian music industry has the best indigenous artists who have been globally recognized and are Grammy award nominees such as Fela Anikulakoputi, Sunny Ade, Fela Kuti, and recently Wizkid and Burna Boy. Other popular artists like Davido, Tiwa Savage, Sinach, amongst many others have their songs featured on top billboards internationally.
Arts and Crafts
The Fashion industry also has designs and creations made with local fabrics and materials like Ankara, tie and dye, adire, aso oke with embroidery for western designs, traditional wears, headgears like gele, jewelry like coral beads, precious stones, etc. We can also consider the different types of arts and crafts in the country having their various forms in textile, decorative, paper, woodcarving, sculpture, cloth weaving, painting, and fashion crafts.
Most of the local traditional arts and crafts made by Nigerians have been widely admired for their artistic heritage and sold in major metropolitan markets internationally. It has become a continuous source of livelihood for many Nigerians and this has encouraged more archaeologists to explore the ancient Nigerian arts and crafts.
Poetry is also one of the oldest forms of Art in the country having two giants of Nigerian literature (Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Niyi Osundare) who still write for a global audience.
Wole Soyinka became the first African laureate who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He was among the active poets of the1960s and 1970s who became the first to courageously stand and switch the focus of poetry towards pressing public and political issues. They were followed by a new cohort of politically aware poets who emerged in the 1980s and many others who have emerged in recent times.
Also, the Nigerian Film Industry is known as "Nollywood" is one of the most prolific film industries in the world and the second-largest movie industry globally after India's Bollywood. It has found a way to export the Nigerian culture mixing itself with contemporary culture while telling African stories to the world. A popular example is the movie "Ije" shot with a budget of $1,500,000. It premiered in Europe, USA and made about $100,000 in box office receipts alone. The movie shot on 35mmmade headways winning several awards which include Excellence in Filmmaking (Canada International Film Festival and Hawaii International Film Festival). Since then, a host of other films (Half of a Yellow Sun, Last Flight to Abuja, The Wedding Party, Living in Bondage, etc.) has taken this new route.
Despite, its prevailing challenges in its predominant years due to lack of funding and inadequate technical know-how, the arts and creative industry in Nigeria continues to bloom and keeps marching to the global limelight which is something to be proud of.
