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The quartet of highlife great, Orlando Julius Ekemode (OJ); soulful folk singer, Jimi Solanke; folk and root stylist, Beautiful Nubia; and vocalist, Yinka Davies, will headline the first EniObanke Music Festival (EMUfest 2010) holding on Saturday, November 27.

The festival themed ‘Music as an Agent of Change – the reinvention of African folk music’ will include an early and late show. The first holds at the Amphitheatre, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife from 4pm to 8pm while the late show is at Delightsome Hotels and Resorts, Ring Road, Osogbo, from 10pm.

Up and coming acts including 2unde, AJ Sequential, Edaoto and Akin Akinola will also be part of the festival its initiator, Beautiful Nubia (Segun Akinlolu), described as “artist/fan-driven and sponsored festival.”

Nubia disclosed that two reasons inspired the festival at an interaction with journalists. He said the minor inspiration is to popularise his kind of music which takes its source from the people while late South African music icon, Miriam Makeba, is the major idea.

“I was in South Africa in 2000 and was the only artist from Nigeria nominated for that year’s KORA Awards. On the last day, I ran into Miriam Makeba and we talked for about two hours. What we talked about was how do you ensure unity on the African continent? She said we, in our youth, probably made a mistake because we didn’t know that to ensure unity on the African continent we have to market culture, we have to sell our culture across the continent. She said the tradition is that African artists will always go on tours of Europe or North America but not across Africa.

“While talking with Makeba, I was thinking if Nigeria could get it right, she should be the entertainment hub for this continent. I was in Malawi and Kenya recently and on the streets you will find Nigerian CDs but do we see their CDs in Nigeria? I have been thinking a lot about it, hearken to what she said and we are willing to start the movement here. We call it a festival but it’s a movement towards something and we are going to start to look at artists who speak for their people, who don’t just play music for the sake of money. Artists who don’t play music for the sake of fame; artists who take their craft very serious and who embody everything they speak about in their music.

“I have been on it for about six years now. I met Miriam Makeba in 2000 and I’ve been talking about this festival since 2004 but every time we will think about funds. We don’t have money, we don’t have the support.”

Though he still doesn’t have the support, he has decided to go ahead. He disclosed that the other headlining acts are fully committed while Unique FM in Ilesha, Osun State, R&A City Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos and others have been very supportive.

“We are doing this without money but with a lot of goodwill and it’s not because of me. It’s because there are still good people in this country who don’t want a dream to die. They are not very powerful and they are not very rich.”

Lack of money, he said, made him shelve the idea of bringing highlife maestro, Tunji Oyelana, the Lijadu Sisters, Blackman Akeeb Kareem and Osibisa, who had all agreed to participate in EMUfest 2010 from their bases in the UK and US. He added that the same problem made him remove Lagos and Ibadan which were hitherto included on the festival tour.

He promised that next year’s edition of the festival will be bigger and involve more Nigerian and international artists. “Next year, we want to expand this festival so it becomes the EniObanke International Music Festival because we are going to bring people from Ghana, Togo and Benin Republic; artists who are working in the folk and traditional music genre.”