Born to a veteran music entrepreneur, 11-year old Fatiah (Phatiah) Kanyinsola Ojediran is in love with Afropop music, though she detests its misuse and the display of immorality by too many commercial Afropop artistes in the bustling Nigerian music industry.
So, she is blazing a brand-new trail for herself in the youthful subgenre.
Watching her dad, Mr. Abiodun Ojediran, over the years as he mentored and managed and promoted several music artistes to fame and fortune under his prestigious record label – Climax Records, Fatiah whose stage name is spelt and pronounced Phatiah has paid close attention to her dad’s trade to gain unfiltered and unfettered mentorship for her budding craftsmanship.
Endowed with a refined upbringing from the United Kingdom where she was born on August 26, 2008, Phatiah has grown continuously with her increasing exposure to the heart of the Nigerian music industry under her dad’s tutelage.
She has been developing her personality and music talents into skills to project her passion of entertaining and inspiring youths to excellence while advocating for their quality education and upbringing.
However, Phatiah detests the lewd and ludicrous lyrics and the obscene pictures that typify lots of the songs and music videos dominating the contemporary mainstream music industry in Nigeria.
Reflecting her distaste for the ill trend, she subconsciously developed a streak for the “conscious music” subgenre: the timeless class of music that laces conscience-pricking lyrics and choruses that arouse self-consciousness all around soothing instrumentals and danceable beats which sometimes may not be so danceable.
Nigerian-French singer, songwriter and recording artiste, Asa, the “Fire on the Mountain” crooner; Omawumi Magbele of “If You Ask Me” fame; Beautiful Nubia with his surprisingly popular danceable and undanceable folksongs, and even our former music starlet Benita Okojie with her vernacular hit songs among others, are Nigerian epitomes of our indigenous conscious music among several others.
Quite distinctively though, Phatiah’s revival of the conscious music sub in Nigeria arises with an innovative blend of drumbeats, the danceable African percussion speciality, short but strong verses of motivational lyrics, memorable melodic chorus and soothingly melodious tunes. All these and more together spice her songs in readily danceable singles, finely blended for children’s occasions and kiddies’ parties, miles away from those that are played for listening pleasure only, undanceable, and good when not for dancing.
With two earlier singles – “Education” and “Love Is All We Need”, her third and recently released single “Leaders of Tomorrow” is already consolidating and illuminating her niche of the “conscious Afropop” in the Nigerian music field.
Commenting about the new single, Phatiah said, “I made ‘Leaders of Tomorrow’ with the aim to draw public attention in a world-class standard to the challenges that children face in this part of the world, especially in a standard that meets the objectives of the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF)”.
And quite evidently, her world-class standard is meeting the objectives of other stakeholders too including the Governments, corporate organisations, top concert promoters and top music acts.
