South-South is under-appreciated in Nigeria’s entertainment industry – Newton Arunaye

The South-South region of Nigeria has been hailed as the bedrock of Nigeria’s bubbling entertainment industry. This is a sentiment shared by media entrepreneur, Newton Arunaye popularly known as Chief Legit who also averred that region has been grossly under-appreciated for her contribution to the growth of the entertainment sector in the country.

In an interview with The Nation’s Newspaper, Newton who is the brain behind the popular South-South entertainment news and lifestyle platform Legit9ja suggested that there was an age-long imbalance in the Nigeria entertainment industry which has robbed other viable markets in the country of a chance to advance. He also added that talents from other regions are given less prominence than those from the west, even in cases when they are clearly more talented.

Speaking concretely about talents from the South-South, the award-winning media personality bragged that the region has proven to be the most creative region in Nigeria which has produced numerous front liners in all spheres of the industry including music, film, comedy and the arts.

To further buttress his opinion, Newton highlighted specific musicians from the South-South like Victor AD, Rema, Johnny Drille, Erigga, John NetworQ, T-West, Dr. Barz, Brenny Jones producers like popular hitmaker Killertunes and others who in recent years have risen up to reckoning shortly after they sojourned to the Lagos market.

He said; “I’m not trying to be tribalistic here but let’s look at the data, the biggest entertainers in Nigeria are either those who moved from the South-South to Lagos or are descents of the region and this speaks highly of the creativity that oozes from there.”

He also called on major national brands and local businesses in the region to beam their searchlights on the region and engage local talents and media platforms that will help them to reach their target audiences in other to maximise the visibility of their products or services.