Music video director, Paul Gambit, has said that using scantily dressed ladies in music videos is due to their appeal to the audience. This is coming as many Nigerians complain of the common use of semi-nude ladies in music videos shown on television.

According to Gambit who has directed videos for Yemi Alade, Dija, Cobhams and others, the use of ‘half-naked’ girls ‘depends on the songs’ and it is not in every kind of video.

“If you look at our foreign counterparts, it’s the same thing,” Gambit said.

“It’s even worse. At the end of the day, it’s about the numbers. If you look at conscious music, for example, you don’t get as many hits on YouTube as much as you get for others. Even on Instagram, if a girl is covering her head and everything, check her likes, maybe like 50 or 20.

But the moment she exposes one part of her body, you’ll just see 1,000 likes. So, that’s the reality we live in these days. It’s not like anybody wants to do that. But at the end of that, it’s kind of business if you look at it from a different angle. We’re just trying to appeal to people.

At the end of the day, those people that are saying, ‘why are these people exposing themselves, they’re the same people that behind closed doors are looking at these things. They go behind closed doors in the dead of the night like 12 am, 1 am in the morning. They are the ones going through and sending DMs to these people. We know how these things go now.

“So, basically, it’s about the numbers not that anybody is trying to cause issues in the society. It’s not as if we started it in Nigeria. You look at the Nicki Minaj video, see what they do. In fact, I don’t think we’ve gotten to that level fully here like that.

For me, I think it’s about the numbers, just trying to appeal, trying to make sure you’re depicting a visual that is close to what the person is talking about lyrically. That’s how I feel.”