托德:阿比德米,你來(lái)自尼日利亞。你能介紹一下尼日利亞樂(lè)壇嗎?
Abidemi: Yes. Nigeria is just amazing now in terms of music and even in the past we've had and we still do have great music, great musicians. We love to party just as much as we love to eat, there's nothing that Nigerians loves more than parties. We love to have a good time. So of course, music plays an important role in that. One of the music that we have now is like fusion. A mix of old traditional Nigerian music and instruments with more Western Hip Hop, R&B kind of sound and even reggae and Jamaican music and some Spanish too mixing with it.
阿比德米:可以。尼日利亞的音樂(lè)非常精彩,尼日利亞以前有偉大的音樂(lè)和音樂(lè)家,當(dāng)然現(xiàn)在也是如此。我們喜歡派對(duì),就像我們喜歡美食一樣。沒(méi)有比派對(duì)更讓尼日利亞人喜歡的了。我們喜歡享受美好時(shí)光。當(dāng)然,音樂(lè)在這當(dāng)中發(fā)揮著重要的作用?,F(xiàn)在尼日利亞盛行的其中一種音樂(lè)形式是合成音樂(lè)。就是將尼日利亞傳統(tǒng)音樂(lè)和樂(lè)器與西方的嘻哈音樂(lè)、R&B音樂(lè)、甚至是雷鬼樂(lè)、牙買加音樂(lè)和西班牙音樂(lè)混合在一起。
Todd: Oh wow, that sounds like a nice mix.
托德:哇哦,聽(tīng)起來(lái)是種不錯(cuò)的混合。
Abidemi: It is actually and because we love to dance as well, it's something that you can move your body to, you can dance to, and also some ballads as well, that makes people think. In the past, Nigerian artists were either they sang traditional songs which they sang in the languages that we had in Nigeria or they sang in English for the most part because we do have many languages. So if you want to reach a wider audience, you needed to sing in English. But these days the interesting thing is many people are mixing.
阿比德米:沒(méi)錯(cuò),因?yàn)槲覀円蚕矚g跳舞,所以這種音樂(lè)可以讓身體跟隨節(jié)奏舞動(dòng),當(dāng)然也可以混合民謠樂(lè)。以前,尼日利亞音樂(lè)家或者用尼日利亞的各種語(yǔ)言演唱傳統(tǒng)歌曲,或者在大多數(shù)情況下用英語(yǔ)演唱歌曲,因?yàn)槲覀冇泻芏喾N語(yǔ)言。如果你想擴(kuò)大聽(tīng)眾群,那就需要用英語(yǔ)演唱。不過(guò)最近許多人開(kāi)始混合使用語(yǔ)言。
Todd: Oh, nice.
托德:哦,不錯(cuò)。
Abidemi: They will sing a little bit in English as well as in their ... mostly in their native language which makes for very interesting mixes because then people that do understand that language, it attracts them to it. And it becomes more our own thing in our own country.
阿比德米:歌詞里會(huì)有一些英語(yǔ),不過(guò)大部分都是母語(yǔ),這會(huì)創(chuàng)造出非常有意思的混合,人們?cè)诶斫饬烁柙~以后,就會(huì)被歌曲所吸引。這成為了我們國(guó)家獨(dú)有的特色。Todd: So what are the languages that are mixed with English?托德:通常會(huì)將哪些語(yǔ)言和英語(yǔ)混合使用?
Abidemi: For example in my region, I speak Yoruba, so Yoruba, they use a lot of Yoruba. They use Igbo language too, it's from the southeastern part of Nigeria. And there's also Pidgin, Pidgin is a kind of ... it's Nigerian English or ... I know in other parts of west Africa they use Pidgin as well. But it's more like slangy English, I would say. So there's a mixture of that. So the music becomes more Africanized, Nigerianized, if that's a word. So it makes it much more our own thing and people enjoy it. Yeah, and it's really good. So new artists now, they're doing that and one of the results of that is it's more accessible actually to people that are not Nigerians. So a lot of people download Nigerian music from YouTube. For example, there's D'Banj. He's an artist that's gone over to the United States and he sings with Kanye.
阿比德米:我家鄉(xiāng)說(shuō)約魯巴語(yǔ),所以歌詞里會(huì)使用很多約魯巴語(yǔ)。當(dāng)然也會(huì)使用伊格博語(yǔ),這是尼日利亞?wèn)|南部地區(qū)使用的一種語(yǔ)言。另外還有皮欽語(yǔ),這相當(dāng)于尼日利亞式英語(yǔ),我知道西非一些地區(qū)也使用皮欽語(yǔ)。這種語(yǔ)言更像是充滿俚語(yǔ)的英語(yǔ)。人們會(huì)混合使用語(yǔ)言。這樣音樂(lè)就會(huì)更加非洲化和尼日利亞化。這使音樂(lè)充滿了尼日利亞色彩,所以人們很喜歡。當(dāng)然這樣做也很好?,F(xiàn)在的一些新晉音樂(lè)人都會(huì)這么做,這種做法的其中一個(gè)結(jié)果就是使音樂(lè)更易被尼日利亞以外的人所接受。有許多人在優(yōu)兔網(wǎng)上下載尼日利亞音樂(lè)。比如D'Banj這名音樂(lè)人,他打入了美國(guó)市場(chǎng),而且和坎耶合作了歌曲。
Todd: Oh, wow!
托德:哇哦!
Abidemi: Yeah, and some big top Hip Hop artist in the United States. There was a guy who they used one of his songs in one of the American — Black American movies in the States as well.
阿比德米:對(duì),他還和一些美國(guó)頂級(jí)嘻哈音樂(lè)人進(jìn)行了合作。一部美國(guó)黑人電影使用了另一名尼日利亞音樂(lè)人的歌曲。
Todd: Oh, cool!
托德:真酷!
Abidemi: And he got a lot of exposure through that. So our artist are, yeah, they become more more famous it seems like. And they're leading other areas of Africa too.
阿比德米:這名音樂(lè)人也因此增加了曝光率。可以說(shuō),我們國(guó)家的音樂(lè)人現(xiàn)在越來(lái)越出名。他們領(lǐng)先于非洲其他地區(qū)的音樂(lè)人。
Todd: Well I'll be sure to put some YouTube clips up with the interview so people can check it out.
托德:我一定會(huì)把優(yōu)兔網(wǎng)上的視頻片段和這段采訪一起放到網(wǎng)站上,這樣人們就能欣賞音樂(lè)了。
Abidemi: Please do.
阿比德米:請(qǐng)這么做吧。