Love Songs in Nigerian Gospel Music | Featured Artiste(s): Mista Seth, B.O.U.Q.U.I

I hope the title does not surprise you.  If it does, well, sit tight, a good explanation is forthcoming.
If you’re like me, a ‘budding’ romantic, then you’ve thought about LOVE, a lot.  Yes, budding not incurable because it has not reached the point of being a disease.  I did not think of myself as a romantic until recently.  No, I will not be gisting you about it.  It’s not even what you think gan-an!
We can agree that gospel music generally, pays rich homage to the vertical kind of love, i.e. the love of God. It is expressed in just about every language imaginable, and since Nigerian artistes no dey carry last, they have made their own varied contributions as well.  On the other side of music, secular musicians have put in perhaps the same (if not more) amount of energy to explore another kind of life: horizontal love.  No, not the love between a brother and sister. I mean, the love between a man and a woman.  This is where you pucker you lips for effect, and make kiss sounds.  Or you can just slurp your coke and pretend like you don’t know what I am talking about.
I have to admit that secular artistes have done a terrific job of writing music that aptly captures the range of emotions that two individuals in love experience.  These songs are played at weddings and other events all the time.  But, what about gospel artistes? Well, what about them? Just because they are committed to singing gospel music, does that mean they cannot sing love songs too?  I say NO!
One of my guiding philosophies in life is that the word of God (the Bible) is a manual for life.  That means that the word of God has answers to every single question you might have.  It might not be obvious, e.g. What school to attend, who to marry, etc, but studying and meditating on the word of God will give you direction, and invariably answers to many complicated questions.  I think love can be complicated sometimes and it definitely falls in the realm of questions that the word of God can answer.
If gospel musicians are singing about what they understand about the word of God, that will definitely include everyday life experiences.  Why not include the love between a man and a woman in the mix? It makes perfect sense to me.  And no, I don’t believe you are restricted to the Songs of Solomon, for that matter. If you as a christian man were toasting a woman, would you quote Songs of Solomon? I certainly hope NOT! I think the underlying issue is getting christians to be more romantic, and getting them to embrace romance as a positive thing.  Everything within reason, right?
If you as an artiste take that seriously, it’ll be reflected in your music.  I believe there are artful, tasteful and creative ways of expressing the love between a man and a woman in gospel music, without being crass or destroying your reputation as a gospel artiste.  I would love to see Nigerian gospel artistes explore this theme more often in their songs.
Question: Do you think gospel artistes should be singing about man-woman love and/or romance? Should they just stick to singing about the love of God ONLY? Share your thoughts!

Posted from NaijaGospel