Nollywood Soundtracks Still Live In Our Memories

There is a kind of memory that lives behind your eyelids in a melody, a note that, once heard, summons a film, a moment, a laughter, a sigh. Nollywood soundtracks have crafted those memories in Nigeria for decades, not as separate ornaments but as embedded souls. You didn’t just watch the films; we sang, hummed, shared, and remixed them in bedrooms, taxi ranks, and barbershops. Songs became the frame through which a story entered your life.

Back then, filmmakers worked under squeezed budgets and brutal timelines. Music had to deliver emotional freight instantly. Out of that pressure came improvisational brilliance. Stanley Okorie crafted refrains that became shorthand for heartbreak or comedy. He was not alone. Comedic actors didn’t just act; they also performed songs aligned with their cinematic persona. Nkem Owoh, “Osuofia,” released “I Go Chop Your Dollar,” a comic and satirical extension of his screen identity. Mama G, Patience Ozokwor, recorded in character and full comedic irony her signature “National Moi Moi,” a campy anthem as spicy as the persona she inhabited on screen. These songs were cheap, quick, and wildly resonant. Audiences didn’t just laugh, they sang along. Driving home from a wedding or remembering a market scene, you’d hear those refrains repeat in your mind.

Other actors also incorporated music into their films, though with different shades. Funke Akindele’s Jenifa franchise didn’t spawn a pop album, but it consistently infused songs, singing, laughter, and verbal hooks that became as iconic as the character herself. The in-film performances, occasional jingles, playful musical riffs, seeded memes, Halloween costumes, and themed events sounded like a persona, not just a backdrop.

Soundtrack-making evolved as Nollywood matured, shifting from VCDs to cinemas and streaming. Some directors began commissioning full scores, thinking in themes, motifs, and atmospheric layering. Others took the shortcut of licensed Afrobeats, dropping a current hit into a climactic scene to borrow its cultural momentum. The two approaches craft different memories: composed music builds a world and recurring emotional recall; licensed singles tether the film directly to contemporary pop life.

But despite those changes, the engine of soundtrack-making never died. It reinvented itself and used different fuels. The Alaba market in Lagos, the legendary music distribution hub, continued to supply background beds and low-cost recordings for independent filmmakers. Cassette stalls and CD compilations from Alaba still moved into neighborhoods and bedrooms, underpinning small-scale projects that couldn’t afford composed scores. That low-end engine keeps the tradition alive for grassroots storytelling, even in the age of Spotify.

In 2025, a compelling example of music reclaiming storytelling visibility arrived with Kemi Adetiba’s To Kill a Monkey. The series premiered with a full soundtrack release curated by Oscar Heman-Ackah (Adetiba’s partner), with a lead single “Save Me” featuring 2Baba. This was music treated as a narrative event, not an accident. The single was pushed in the press, the soundtrack dropped on streaming services, and the music video circulated across TikTok, IG, and YouTube. Social media users remixed, danced, and spoke to it. The campaign positioned the music not as background, but as a companion identity. When music is mobilized like that, viewers aren’t just watching a film but also listening to its soul.

Meanwhile, TikTok emerged as a modern archivist. It didn’t just revive old clips; it recontextualized them. A mournful line from a forgotten market melodrama became the audio for a laugh or a show of nostalgia. The sound bed detached itself from the film and became a meme, a skit, a dance challenge. That happened to songs by Stanley Okorie, Osuofia, and Mama G. Suddenly, the melody wasn’t quiet in your parents’ taxi; it was trending on a teen’s phone. Platforms like TikTok propelled songs to new generations. The rediscovery is uneven; some songs go viral stripped of context, but the afterlife of the music becomes vibrant.

That virality has given composers and performers leverage. They’re demanding proper credit. They’re asking for names in opening and closing titles. They’re requesting that their music get listed on streaming platforms with full metadata. The better cases now do this: the soundtrack album gets posted, the composer and performer are visible, royalties start flowing. That’s longevity and justice. Someone who recorded a lament in a hotel room in 2006 can still collect when that clip is used in a TikTok skit in 2025. It’s technical, but essential, if music is storytelling’s echo.

It’s important to say, plainly: soundtrack-making did not stop. It adapted. It branched. Some films had the budget and ambition to produce cinema-grade scores and release full albums. Others couldn’t and leaned on licensing or Alaba-market beds. Television, the Africa Magic channels, and streaming platforms still show films where original soundtracks play. In those broadcasts, viewers hear themes embedded in the long-running storytelling tradition. The soundtrack lives in the TV themes, the characters’ leitmotifs, and the recurring musical jokes. It’s not absent; it’s shifting in form.

What gives the story continuity and hope is human persistence. Composers sketch motifs at dawn, directors ask for something that “feels Lagos,” actors sing for the camera, DJs remix, platforms archive, fans sing the songs at parties, and in funerals. Whenever a soundtrack becomes a wedding favorite or a TikTok trend, it operates like a storyteller’s magic. You don’t just recall the film, you feel it. You recall the character, the emotion. The best music does what the best films do: it names what you can’t say, then hands you the echo to carry.

Think of it this way: it was once the case that songs like National Moi Moi became shorthand for the Nana Mama archetype. It was once the case that Osuofia’s I Go Chop Your Dollar was a running joke and a social commentary rolled into one chorus. Today, the To Kill a Monkey soundtrack is a standalone work that carries the narrative energy of the series into headphones. And tomorrow, another song yet unheard may rise again. That continuum, cassettes, CDs, smartphones, streaming, TikTok, is not just technological history. It’s memory and identity.

It matters that we credit the voices when we remember. Not all actors sang, and it matters that we don’t claim they did. We keep Mama G, Osuofia, and Funke Akindele’s musical moments. We don’t invent Genevieve as a movie singer; we keep her out of that story because she didn’t sing for her films. We stay honest because the oddity and surprise of who performed what is part of the texture.

The future of Nollywood soundtracks will likely continue to be uneven. Some blockbusters and streaming series will release full albums, with cinematic scores that chart on Apple Music and circulate through dance covers. Others will use licensed material to cash in on trends. Alaba-market beds will persist, as they always have, for grassroots storytellers. TikTok will keep spinning memory loops: part comedic acceleration, part cultural archaeology. Composers will insist that their names be part of history, not just as “music by” but as the reason a story lives in song.

When I close my eyes, I still hear those refrains riding in the back of a cab. I might not remember what happened in that scene, but I recall the chorus. I recall the energy. That memory was built by necessity, improvised harmonies, voice, budget, and trust between filmmaker and composer. And it still lives, transformed, global, digital, but alive. Nollywood’s soundtracks are not footnotes. They are the unspoken lines we hum when we remember a story. And as long as creators keep making them and we keep listening, they will live long in our hearts.