Flavour’s album release strategy

First things first. The weirdpart about Flavour’s new album is that many people don’t know he has an album. There are millions of Nigerians who don’t know that the foremost contemporary Highlife artist has a new body of work titled “Ijele The Traveler.”

The project is mostly amazing. It’s his fifth studio project coming, coming through after 2014’s “Thankful”. The new album has been reviewed by Pulse, scoring high marks and revealing a keeping with his ‘Igbo Culture’ exportation. Simply put, it’s beautiful music that deserves to be listened by everyone.

Songs such as ‘Virtuous Woman’ is a lovers delight, and can satisfy all the hopeless romantics that Nigeria possesses in abundance. There’s also the Reggaeton ‘Baby na Yoka’ which has an instantly recognizable sound that would rock any party. For Trap lovers, ‘Body calling’ is your turn-up material.

But all of these might fail to hit the spot on the head due to one thing: A weird roll-out.

play

We all know how a classic album roll-out is. There’s an industry standard formula to rolling out big projects. It was created over years of tweaking and tuning, to give projects the best possible chance of being distribution, purchase and publicity. It starts with singles coming out, PR events executed, media tours held to promote the album and announce to the public why they should bother with this new project. Then comes the album release, concerts and more singles drawn out of it. There’s also merchandise and promotional souvenirs.

Check out all the major projects released by artists, they obey this rule. Any other variation to this would be a desire to remix it a little. But it works, and that’s why it exists.

But for Flavour, it’s a different set of rules. His release for this project follows an interesting timeline. There was an announcement alright. HipTV stumbled upon Flavour, handed him a microphone, and asked him some questsions, and that’s when he blurted it out.

“My album is coming out in two months, this is the first time I am saying it, you just caught me off guard," Flavour said, speaking to HipTV.

He was caught off-guard, and that’s when he told Nigeria of a very crucial decision.

play Flavour.
(Instagram)

That was the only piece of information heard of it until June 26, 2017, a day before the project dropped. The art came out, the album art came out, and the next day we have a new album “Ijele The Traveller.” In 2014, when he dropped “Thankful,” it was almost a similar strategy, only this time, he told the media that he had sold 1 million copies in 5 days.

How neat.

The result of this is that a huge population of people are unaware that there’s a project coming. Neither do they understand the story behind the art, nor why they should interact with it on a personal level. No artist should pour their lives into a project, and not market it to the best of their ability. Especially for a full-length project.

But it’s Flavour. He is an enigma.

play Flavour's ''Ijele'' album tracklist
(2niteflavour (Instagram))

Who understands Flavour’s music business strategy in Nigeria? Who would say they have a grasp on the way the artist goes about his work? Who can point to a time when the singer is ripe for an album? Anticipation is not in his dictionary. One moment you are sleeping. The next moment you are awake, and there’s a video of a new song, with Flavour shirtless, and a beautiful video vixen just strolling around the block in panties and bra. White panties and bra.

But nevertheless, he is still a great artist who has achieved abundantly, and has transitioned into being one of a few acts to be both celebrated as a recording and performing artist across the African continent and beyond.

All he needs right now to capitalize on the media and the promotional opportunities that they represent. And everything would flow more smoothly. Ideally, every one should be listening to his new project. But a weird album release is preventing it from getting in the faces of more people.

“Ijele The Traveler” album needs to travel some more.