Who would know more about hits, than the guy who’s made a living and a name spinning ‘em to the rest of us? Who’d know more about hits than the Cool DJ Jimmy Jatt? However you choose to define a hit, whatever your take is on making one, this is what Jimmy has to say about it all:
"There are two angles to look at it, a hit song could be a song that is widely accepted, that you know has massive acceptance, everybody is grooving to it. A hit song for me would be a great song, might not cut across to everybody at the time but you know its going to be played years later and you know its never gonna die. There are songs that were made 20yrs ago, they were not exactly platinum selling songs, but they are evergreen, they are never gonna die. That’s my own definition of a hit song.
I think in trying to do a hit song, you have to have the quality in mind. These days I think a lot of people take the shortcut they just want the hit of the moment. They get a hit and within the next six months its dead. I’d rather you do quality songs, that might not necessarily hit the roof right now, but it will guarantee you food on the table for a whole lifetime, that is 10yrs, 20yrs it will be there.
Like I always tell people music is meant for different purposes, you might want to score a hit at the dance floor, or you might just want to do a song that is inspirational, anytime people are down it gives them hope, it gives them something to look forward to. But it’s your own musical direction that determines what kind of work you’ll do to make a hit. It’s not the same thing that works for this artiste, that will work for the other one. If one kind of artist does a kind of music, his formula might differ from everyone else’s. Its not the same way someone who is playing adult contemporary songs would work for a hit that someone who’s playing reggae dancehall, or any other style would apply; it doesn’t work that way. There’s no laid down rule of what you should do to score a hit; you just have to check your direction.
For me the tempo doesn’t really matter, it doesn’t always have to be fast, I play music as low as 60 bpm (beats per minute) on to 140, 145 bpm.
A whole lot of Nigerian music are leaning in one direction. Maybe because a formula has worked with one person, so everybody is going that direction and I think they’re too monotonous.
I think one or two songs from M.I’s album might blow this year though. Yea, it’s rap music, but there’s a balance. It’s not so hard core and it’s not weak like some weak ass songs out there. There’s a song out there called ‘Alhaji’, I don’t know who sang it, it’s crap, but it might blow.
A whole lot of us complain about the type of music being churned out right now, but when its time to buy, do this people get up to go and buy the kind of music that they want if its on the shelf? That’s how you hear people selling 10,000, 20,000 copies in a country of how many millions of people, it cos people don’t get up to buy" HL
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