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The Barbican Centre, London, came alive on October 6 with the music of Afrobeat maestro, Tony Allen, at a musical event held to commemorate his 70th birthday. Tagged ‘Tony Allen 70: Nigeria 50′, the evening also featured Seun Kuti and Keziah Jones alongside international stars like Jimi Tenor, Thandiswa, Pee Wee Ellis and Eska Mtungwazi.

Hailed by the event’s anchor as “The Lion of Lagos, whose music has touched our hearts and souls and feet,” Allen in the three-hour event proceeded to bring the mostly European crowd to its feet with his untamed Afrobeat rhythm in songs like ‘Too Many Prisoners’, ‘Ijo’, and ‘Pariwo’. The event also featured Raggae, Rap, Pop, Blues, with most of the acts accompanied by instrumentals from Allen and his 10-member band.

Reticent

The 70-year-old drummer in halting speech, beseeched the audience early on in the event, saying: “Bear with me tonight, I am not going to be talking, I am not a talker, I don’t know how to talk.” He then remarked, as if in sudden realisation that he had exhibited some oratory skill, “but I am talking now,” quickly promising that it would “be the last one” before he went about his beats with tacit dexterity.

Jimi Tenor performed two songs accompanied by Allen’s Afrobeat before Wunmi, performing Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s “Upside Down” brought the house down, more with her sensual and energetic African dance than with her impressive rendition of the tune.

Contrary to his earlier promise, however, Allen felt the need to address the audience one more time. He said to them, in apparent bafflement, “There is a problem; the problem is that you are sitting down. I don’t know how you are managing that, it must be painful.” And with this, the crowd, most of whom had been gyrating discreetly on their seats, needed no further urging to commence an all out boogie.

Nigerian Flavour

It was not apparent the sheer force of the Nigerians (or perhaps Africans) within the audience until Keziah Jones sauntered onstage to perform ‘Lagos Versus New York’, a musical examination – characterised by a series of taut strums of his guitar – which focused on differences and similarities between the two cities hailed for their unique characters. He followed this by the mellower and more philosophical ‘A Curious Kind of Subconscious’.

Towards the end of the show, when like me, many Nigerians, might have been contemplating the possibility of Seun Kuti doing a “no show”, he sprung on the audience announcing that he was there to celebrate the birthday of the man whom he fondly called “Uncle Tony”. He drew the line however at celebrating Nigeria. “Nigeria, and 16 other countries gained independence in the same year; it is a time for reflection, not celebration,” he declared with the kind of open frankness that his father had exhibited during his life and musical career.

Fela Reincarnates

In his matching, body-fitting shirt and trousers, Seun Kuti, described by the Barbican as “The charismatic youngest son of Fela and a rising star of contemporary Afrobeat”, recreated the awesome presence of his father. Serenaded by the instrumental version of his father’s songs, ‘Seun Kuti declared, “I am representing one of Tony’s old friends. Due to unforeseen circumstances, he didn’t make it – I’m talking about Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.”

He then proceeded to sing with exacting replication, Fela’s ‘Shuffering and Shmiling’ and ‘Kolomentality’ while the audience danced and sang along with him. If anyone had expected Seun to sing any of his own tunes, they were disappointed, because after his renditions of the songs – two of his father’s more popular ones – he bowed to the audience and exited the stage.

NEXT caught up with Seun Kuti after the event; and he explained that, “I did not want to play my own music because I wanted to remove myself from it. This is about Tony Allen and Fela. The songs I played are two of those he worked with Fela on.”

Seun Kuti, who had last performed at the Barbican in May 2008, however said that London will not be experiencing his Afrobeat in 2010. “Not till next year, I want to stay and enjoy Nigeria for a while,” he said, while expressing his anticipation for this year’s edition of ‘Felabration’, which was scheduled to begin on October 11, a mere days after the Barbican concert.

Celebration

It was the audience’s turn to sing as the crowd rendered a birthday song to Tony Allen. The star studded evening ended with a song aptly titled ‘Celebration’. It was performed by Tony Allen and most of the featured international artistes, who joined him on stage for a final bow to the audience, who with their unaffected appreciation for Afrobeat, affirmed Allen’s statement that “Music has only one language.”

The 2009 movie, ‘The Reader’ never aired on cinema screens in Nigeria. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was initially not aired, but soon made it to Nigerian screens when it became too difficult to ignore as a worldwide hit. About the same time, I was watching those movies at Odeon Cinemas, outside the country. I can guarantee that Nigerians would have missed an excellent film had ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ passed us by. I’m sure that ‘The Reader’ was even better than Slumdog, but it was ‘Slumdog’ that won more awards. What I can guarantee though is that Nigerians missed out on an excellent movie in ‘The Reader’. It was that good!

Fast forward to summer 2010, and as a film lover, I had gone to the Lagos cinemas, Genesis and Silverbird, to entertain myself. The most prominent movies I have been served with in the last few months are ‘The A-Team’, ‘Grown Ups’, ‘The Karate Kid’, ‘The Last Airbender’, ‘Ije’ and ‘Salt’. There are some others that I refused to watch such as ‘Toy Story 3′. Taking a look at Odeon’s website, there is a lot more choice. Which leads me to wonder what the problem is. Could it be that our cinema operators don’t get to pay for the rights to show these movies?

Small range

If that is the case, then I really don’t have a problem with them showing us a smaller selection of movies than what audiences in the UK enjoy. Two reasons; first, we do not have a serious movie going culture here yet, regardless of what people may say.

The truth is that most people in this country still see cinema-going as a big Sunday event, and prefer to buy their movies from the Alaba Brothers at the road sides. Going to the movies is still largely seen as something for young people, and anyone of my father or my uncles would more than likely balk at the thought of going to the movies. Again, movies are a good avenue for people to mix, but in a highly stratified society like ours…

The second reason why I don’t mind the smaller selection of movies is that I know for a fact that Odeon, again as an example, is a huge chain with millions of pounds behind them. They can afford to take the potential losses that would occur if they invest in showing a movie that tanks at the Box Office. I can only imagine how much was lost by such chains when they showed the Bennifa movie, ‘Gigli’. It is understandable to some extent that the Silverbird Group as an example would not have the kind of disposable cash that they must have lost on ‘Kajola’, for example.

However, given these constraints, especially that of cost, it behoves the movie selectors to make the best possible choice of movies. For instance, I think that Salt was a bad movie. But the sheer expectation that greeted its release means that it could not be ignored as a movie, and had to be shown. Then again, a lot of people who watched it in the cinema thought that it was a fine film. So, that difference of opinion is more than enough to justify its selection. However, one movie that annoyed just about everyone that saw it, was ‘The A-Team.’ Sitting in the theatre watching it, I actually noticed my IQ drop a few percentage points. That movie was DAFT!

Stereotypes

A few years ago, a Caucasian friend of mine, on listening to my taste in music, asked how I felt when people automatically assumed that I loved rap music because I am black. A poignant question, considering that my preferred music types are soft rock, opera, and Igbo Christian tunes. It is the same problem that faces our cinema culture.

You see, I began this by talking about the fact that Kate Winslet’s movie ‘The Reader’ was not aired in Nigerian cinemas. Same way, I was also informed that the cinema this way never showed ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ and ‘Milk’. These were solid movies, all of them. But yet, the same cinemas had no problems showing ‘The Dark Knight’ (I have no issues with that great movie), ‘Iron Man’, ‘Get Smart’ (?), ‘Speed Racer’ and ‘Wanted’. Now, ‘Wanted’ was one silly movie, let’s not even begin to talk about ‘Get Smart’ (very ironic, considering the title)!

What I have a problem with is our own movie selectors type-casting us. Nigerians are not a set of people who only love octane action dramas that are high on blowing up cars and one person beating up 30 bigger people, or surviving multiple plane crashes. There is a significant number of us who want to go to the movies and take something away from the experience whilst being entertained at the same time.

Agents’ selection

I did a little bit of digging. A Silverbird source who didn’t want to be named, explained that the cinema does not get the movies directly from Hollywood studios, but through an agent, and they have to take what is given to them. My source further explained that the studios and their licenced agents have conducted market surveys for the kind of movies supposedly preferred by people in different parts of the world, and it is based on those surveys that they push certain kinds of movies in our direction. The source cited ‘No Country For Old Men’ as an example: while it did extremely well in Europe and America, it was a loss for movie theatres in this part of the world.

But personally, I wouldn’t judge on just that one experience because I see people buying serious stuff from hawkers on the streets. Which is why I disagree not a little, and think there’s a bit of stereotyping at play here; but they pull the financial strings and make the important decisions, which is a little painful for me.

So far, all the reviews I have read about Ben Affleck’s ‘The Town’ are very positive; and the movie has topped $15million at the box office. But there is no mention of it being shown in our cinemas.

Art lecturer and critic, Kunle Filani, admits to being “struck” by the closeness of Mavua Lessor’s works to those of renowned Ghanaian painter, Ablade Glover. Despite this, the lecturer agrees that Lessor has grown into his own on his journey of self-assertion, as evident in his latest exhibition, ‘Bond Across’.

The sixth solo by the artist renowned for his use of impasto, a technique that gives paintings a thick, almost three dimensional texture, ‘Bonds Across’ opened at Terra Kulture, Tiamiyu Savage, Victoria Island, Lagos, on October 9. It featured 63 works from the Auchi Polytechnic alumnus.

The body of works, according to Lessor, ponders on art as a connector of humanity.

“I spread [them] out and tried to find a connection between the works and how they relate to life. I saw this universal appeal that goes across all human occupation. It doesn’t matter what vocation you have; we all go through the same experiences, so that inspired the title.

“Part of the success of art is about experimenting. When you use a particular medium for a long time, boredom sets in, so you begin to look for new media to use. It’s not about the audience now, it’s about self-satisfaction. That is why it is important to start looking for new medium to work with,” Lessor says.

The painter, who also believes that using a new medium does not change one’s style, sheds more light on his experimentations.

“I tried materials like enamel, which artists don’t normally use, which is something interesting in my works. There is also a new technique I apply in some of my works called drip crease, where I allow the colours to drip down the canvas. As time goes on, I hope to perfect this new style.”

Lessor uses his paint brush to discuss the challenges of living in a city like Lagos, in works like ‘25 Litres’, which depicts the long queues seen at filling stations during fuel scarcity. He also addresses the lack of water in some parts of the city, with ‘Water Vendor’; and the daily struggle for survival (‘Scavengers’ and ‘Battling Poverty’).

The renewal projects being undertaken by the Lagos State government are not left out in his painterly exercise, as seen in works like ‘Before Fashola’, where he gives the viewer the old Oshodi. The Fashola administration’s drive to further develop the city is depicted in ‘Mega City’.

Lessor documents the everyday life of Lagosians and peculiarities of the city with pieces like the ‘Everyday’ series, ‘Highest Bidder’, and ‘Human Habitat’. ‘The Sun Waters and the Settlers’ that depicts the high population through scenic views of the city’s skylines and rooftops, is also included.

The artist becomes a social advocate in ‘Abusing the Girl Child’, ‘Educating the Girl Child’, and ‘Abuse of Innocence’.

Images from his memory of places visited or desires to visit, come to play in oil paintings, namely ‘Yellow Stone’ and ‘Memories of Arizona’. Some other works have themes that centre on motherhood, leadership, and beauty.

Born in Warri, Delta State, in 1960, Lessor obtained a Higher National Diploma in Painting from Auchi Polytechnic in 1986. He had his first solo exhibition in 1998 and has been having exhibitions biannually since.

Americans talk about everything at every opportunity. They talk during meals and sex. I once had an apartment below a young American couple who liked to make love and talk at the same time. Loudly. I was miserable whenever I had to leave the apartment to go to work, so entertaining.

Nigerians are simple people; the British taught us to keep mum during sex. That is what the missionary position is for. I don’t know why the British call it the missionary position; they should simply call it the (only) position since it is the (only) position they know about. Maybe the Americans invented the missionary position. They have names for everything because they talk a lot. The British are famously tight-lipped about everything. The story is told about the British couple enjoying their annual one round of sex in the missionary position when the woman began to squirm with enjoyment. The man is said to have stopped work and curtly declared: “Dear, you should not enjoy this!”

I love watching American TV food channels. They talk to food as if they are making love to it. They close their eyes as the food meets their palate and they make sensual noises as if they are climaxing and then the storytelling begins. By the time they are finished talking, the food is cold. Americans love to talk about their houses. If they like your house, they will talk about it all day.

If a Nigerian likes your house, you will not hear about if from the green-eyed monster. Bad belle jealousy will not let her say anything nice about your house. She will keep quiet, even if it kills her. Meanwhile, she will start memorising everything she likes in your house. The next time you visit her house, you will think you accidentally stepped into your own house. She would have faithfully reproduced everything in your house down to the bathroom towels. You will of course not say a word, even though you are dying to tell her how much you appreciate her perfidy. You are a Nigerian.

I have been loitering around Americans for many decades and I have mastered everything about them, down to their accent. So, let me offer a few tips for acculturating in Babylon.

Say you have a dinner date with an American lady at her house. This is an opportunity to show that you are not an ajepako half-human; you know – those pretend-people who brush their teeth with twigs and hold cutlery like mass murderers. Before you leave your house, brush your teeth vigorously with toothpaste, and buy breath mints because you are going to be talking. If she offers you breath mints, my brother please take it.

She will offer you wine. This is not palmwine. You can tell that it is not because unlike great palmwine, it tastes like pond water. She will offer you the wine and watch you intently like a white anthropologist watching a mountain gorilla. Do not simply swallow, make a face, and keep quiet. Worse, do not sip a large quantity and spit on her white carpet in honour of your wretched ancestors. Sip a little, close your eyes as if you are suffering from great sex, and then say something absolutely inane like: “This is a great well aged red. Fruity, bold, with a hint of nuttiness. Sensual, like you. You have great taste in wine!” Man, she will like that, an African who knows wine; you are getting some (sex!) tonight!

You are getting close to the bedroom for the ultimate test. But first, the food is coming. If the lady has cooked a meal for you, this is a good sign. She must really like you. Please do not wolf the food down like a ravenous subsistence farmer eager to go back to his yam tendrils. Be inquisitive. Ask questions.

Sometimes, the American, eager to impress you, will do some research about Nigerian food and cook you egusi. You are going to be miserable all night, but this is nice of her. Ask questions that show you really care: “Wow! This is sooo nice! Was it your idea to put chunks of carrots in the egusi sauce?” Please do not call it “soup”, bush man! If the rice is half-cooked, compliment her on her creativity. “I like the texture of the rice. The almonds and the peanuts give the rice a robust nutty feel.” Abeg do not say groundnuts! Drink some more red wine. You will need it.

If she offers you sex, whatever you do, don’t duplicate the only one sex scene in Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’. It lasted one minute and ended with the memorable line: “Even in those days, Okonkwo was a man of few words.” If you behave like Okonkwo, you are not coming back to her bedroom, unless to clean it. Make love for at least two minutes. And talk a lot of nonsense. Please. Oya go for it, tiger.

It was an outing of elders but the young were there to watch. It was quite a crowd at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Thursday, September 30 when `An Evening with The Masters`, a one-week exhibition featuring three eminent Nigerian artists and Ghanaian, Ablade Glover, opened.

The multi-talented Abayomi Barber (who didn’t make the opening because of a family wedding); initiator of the Harmattan workshops, Bruce Onobrakpeya; and former president, Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA), Kolade Oshinowo, were the three Nigerians in the exhibition.

About 40 works of the artists, some made as recently as 2010, were shown at the exhibition, the opening ceremony of which was graced by guests including Erelu Abiola Dosunmu, Azu Nwagbogu and others.

Disclosing the idea behind the exhibition, its organiser and founder of Terra Kulture, Bolanle Austen-Peters, explained that it was the outfit`s way of celebrating the progress of Nigerian art since Independence. “We think that the best way we can showcase what we have achieved in this area is to put together a couple of masters to showcase their works for our Independence anniversary.” She added that the quartet were selected because of their availability and exhibition space at the centre.

On the inclusion of the renowned Ghanaian art educator and painter, Austen- Peters disclosed that it was based on the excellent relationship Terra Kulture has with Glover. “He used to mentor artists for us. We used to have an exchange programme with the Ford Foundation and we used him as our base in Ghana. We`ve forged a very strong relationship at the very inception of Terra Kulture about seven years ago. That`s why – and we thought we should widen [the exhibition], not just Nigeria.”

Glad to be back

It was a great return to Nigeria, however, for the soft spoken Ghanaian whom people kept approaching to greet and chat with. Though he disclosed that he shudders whenever the word `master` is used for him, Glover expressed gladness over his inclusion.

“It’s good, I met two friends I know already, Bruce Onobrakpeya and Kolade Oshinowo. They are long friends, I met Oshinowo in 1979 and Bruce in the early 80s. We`ve been connecting for some time. Since 1979, I haven`t seen [Oshinowo]. It`s a celebration. It is good to meet these artists I have known over the years.”

Laudable initiative

Oshinowo, former deputy Rector, Yaba College of Technology, also welcomed the exhibition. “I think we need to have more of this so that the younger ones at least will not only see the works, they will have the opportunity of meeting the artists. I think it`s a thing that is a bit lacking. I meet people and they say, ah thank God. I`ve read about you, now I`m seeing you physically so I think it`s a good thing that Terra Kulture has done in celebrating Nigeria at 50, they decided to showcase those they regard as masters.”

Oshinowo, who wouldn`t agree he is a master, said, “I`m still working, I`m still learning and the road is far. For any artist the road is far, you never quite get there. So long as you have the good health to work, you discover that you have a lot to say and if you look at artists over the ages, they work until they drop. Picasso worked until he dropped, all of them. And it`s not about money because these are very rich people, but because they believed they still had something to say which they had not said, so they will continue to produce works.”

The artist who will like government to provide a purpose-built gallery in Abuja for artists, also expressed happiness at seeing Glover whom he invited to Nigeria in 1979 as secretary of the SNA. “We wanted international flavour; we thought we should be exhibiting artists from outside of Nigeria and we invited him. We had crisis with Ghana but he was still able to come and that was his foray into the Nigerian art scene and I don`t think that he has regreted it. I think he has made more money from Nigeria than anywhere else. But he is a hardworking artist.”

50-year cycle

The duo, perhaps, were not as happy as Onobrakpeya whose old and recent works were included. He said of the works: “These are a few of the many experiments that have come out of me within the last 50 years. One work of mine inspires another one and so the continous growth. There were works that were done in 1980 here and there are others that were done few years ago. There is one that is painted just last year so it’s continous coming back 50 years back.

The artist also recalled the 1960 exhibition some say gave him his break.”50 years ago, as young artists, we showed our works in Bonny Camp. That was the trade fair then where they showed artworks. Now we are showing these works here, so really what we have done is that a cycle of 50 years has been completed and we are hoping that all of us, particularly you will see the next cycle of 50 years.”

‘Roforofo Fight – Painting to Fela’s Music’, an exhibition of drawing and sketches by Victor Ehikhamenor, opened on Tuesday, October 12, at the Life House, Victoria Island, Lagos. Art enthusiasts and Fela aficionados were on hand to see and enjoy this relatively new concept of painting. The exhibition was organised to coincide with activities marking Felabration, an annual celebration of the life and times of the late Afrobeat legend.

With Fela’s songs playing softly in the background, guests were taken on a tour of some of his ideologies as were portrayed in the works. All the paintings bore title names of Fela’s songs, with the artist also on hand to shed light on some of his works.

The Concept

“Roforofo Fight is one of Fela’s songs, and it basically describes people having a mud fight, not minding what they are wearing. In painting this work, I just took a go at it, so it was more like a Roforofo fight. Most of the paintings were done in semi darkness, so if you look at them, you will see that [they] were done in muted colours, although I use vibrant colours a lot in my works,” Ehikhamenor explained.

He added that although he is a huge Fela fan, this was actually the first time he would be consciously painting whilst listening to his music.

“His songs helped me capture the theme and ride on the wave of what he was thinking when he was composing the lyrics. It is kind of my own interpretation of Fela’s songs, with a little bent; and that has also helped to awaken my socio-political consciousness. My artworks are not just painting for art sake, but to make a statement.”

The works

A total of 18 paintings were on display. They include ‘Fire Dance’, ‘Unknown Soldier,’ ‘Movement of the People’, ‘Army Arrangement,’ and ‘International Thief Thief’..

Employing a heavily mixed medium as a basis for the works, Ehikhamenor made it easy for guests to have a better understanding of the story behind each work. In ‘Expensive Shit’ for instance, he mixed a lot of materials together to create an impression of dried excrement. He also placed a 50 kobo note on it, reflected the era of the song, when it was ‘big money’.

On the piece, ‘Lady’, Ehikhamenor, had this to say: “This was, for me, looking at two types of African ladies: the ones that are always doing ‘Iyanga’ saying, ‘don’t talk to me, I can’t oh’ – even when she’s married she tells you, ‘I can’t cook’. So, [Fela] was comparing the bourgeois woman and the typical African woman, and that was what I tried to achieve with this piece.”

The viewers

Having been exposed to Fela’s music in his teens, the artist showered eulogies on the late Abami Eda.

“I began listening to Fela since secondary school between ages 15-20 years of age. Initially, I did not like him because he will just keep playing the instrumentals. Not until I got into the university, when we celebrated his birthday, did I understand what he was saying. After I got involved in activism at school, I realised that the socio-political situation of the country was not normal. Then I became aware.”

For guests like Oluchi Ogwuegbu, who was thrilled by the concept behind the works, the declining level of art appreciation in the country still poses a huge challenge. “You tend to find the same set of people at exhibitions, book readings, and much more. Then you begin to wonder about other percentage of youth who would rather go watch a Dbanj perform on stage than come to see works of art,” she said.

Yvonne Ekwere, a TV personality, also shared her views of the exhibition. “I am amazed to see that [Ehikhamenor] has placed Obasanjo’s picture side by side Abiola; it goes to show that he is brave and innovative. I particularly like the ‘International Thief Thief’ painting because it tells the story of our present dispensation,” she said.

With the demands of a regular job as NEXT’s creative director, a smiling Ehikhamenor, assured that, “In spite of my job, it is fun for me to go back to the studio and do what I like. We have a new generation of collectors, so there is a new audience who I want to showcase my work to.”

‘Roforofo Fight – Painting to Fela’s Music’ is at Life House, Victoria Island, Lagos, until October 24.

The cultural centre of the Korean Embassy in Abuja has held a cultural gala night to celebrate Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee.

The September 29 event attracted members of the diplomatic corps and friends of Nigeria and Korea from the public and private sectors attended the night, the grand finale of a month-long of activities the Koreans put together to commemorate 30 years of bilateral relations with Nigeria.

The audience was treated to performances of Korean and Nigerian traditional folk theatre and dances at the occasion. The all male Korean troupe presented Samullori and Seoljanggu, folk percussion ensembles; Hallyangmu and Salpuri, folk dances and Korean traditional folk theatre. Nigeria, represented by the Federal Capital Territory cultural troupe, also put up a stunning dance drama.

An interesting piece on the night was Pangut, a total form of art that involves play and formation of various group dispositions; while the latter part is devoted to showcasing individual feats such as the sangshoe nori, seoljanggu nori, and sogo nori. Yeoldubal sangmo, where the dancer spins a very long ribbon; and sori gut, in which the performers sing folksongs – excited the audience.

Citing a Korean proverb, ‘Seeing once is better than hearing 100 times’, the Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism said, “Watching this type of performances is the most effective way of exchanging cultures. In the past, because of the great geographical distance, people of the two countries had few opportunities to satisfy their curiosity about each other. Now, we have a chance to actually see and feel the culture of the other side through exchanges of stage performances like this one and deepen understanding and friendship between our two nations.”

The Abuja Choral group also rendered a special performance on the evening. Another FCT based troupe, led by Kayode Aiyegbusi, an assistant Director at the Art Council, also performed in far away Seoul, for the same reasons as the Abuja event.

Speaking at the event, Chung Un-chan, a former Prime Minister of Korea who is in Nigeria as his country’s special envoy for Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee celebration observed that Korea and Nigeria have moved along same path of national development. “Even though there is a slight time gap, our two countries have been moving along similar course of national development since independence. We both achieved a peaceful change of administrations after an era of military-led governments and have been making progress in all sectors, including politics and the economy.”

A fictional name, ‘NIKOREA’ was also coined at the event during the cutting of a giant cake donated by the Embassy. Patrick Omo Otoro, an Abuja based compere asked the audience: “how shall we cut this cake – after the spelling of Nigeria or Korea?” The audience unanimously thundered ‘N-I-K-O-R-E-A!’

Uchenna Ikonne
could be described as a walking encyclopedia of some sort because of
his knowledge of the history of Nigerian music. Based in the United
States, he is a filmmaker by vocation and a lawyer by training, but his
consuming passion is Nigerian music. Ikonne is currently working on
reissuing a lot of Nigerian classic songs under his label, Comb &
Razor Sound. He shares his story with NEXT.

With your knowledge of Nigerian music classics, many would be shocked to realise that you are only 35 years old

That does often
take people by surprise. I’m primarily known as an online presence,
chiefly for my writing on my blog (http://combandrazor.blogspot.com),
so most people have no idea of my background, age, or appearance. They
generally expect me to be much older than I am because I’m writing
about Nigerian music and popular culture of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s;
and they’re often alarmed to learn that I’m in my 30s.

The funny thing
about it is that I have spent a lot of time interviewing musicians from
that era, and even when I’m sitting with them face-to-face, they still
forget how old I am. Like, we’ll be discussing some events that
happened immediately after the civil war, and they’ll say to me, “Shey,
you know that nightclub we used to go to in Port Harcourt… You remember
when so-and-so played there one Friday night like that in 1971. Were
you there that night?”

When stuff like
that happens, I’m not quite sure how to process it: do I take it as a
compliment that I appear so knowledgeable of the era that they forget I
wasn’t there? Or does it mean that hard life has aged me to the point
that men in their 50s and 60s can look at me and think I am their age
mate?

Do Nigerian youth know enough about Nigerian songs of old?

I would not even be
exaggerating if I said that many of our youth actually believe that the
Nigerian music industry started in 1998 or so. They realise that yes,
there must have been music in Nigeria “back in da dayz” – but they
think that maybe we only had a handful of artists: Fela, Osadebe, Sonny
Okosuns, Onyeka, maybe Evi-Edna, and a few other really popular names
like that. I am not playing!

I have had many
young people express this to me directly! But what’s curious is that a
lot of times, even Nigerians who are old enough to remember better have
completely forgotten most of the music of the past; cultural amnesia is
an epidemic in our society, and that’s a shame.

Tell us why you decided to embark on this task

If I didn’t do it,
who would? Well, the main thing I am working on right now is the Comb
& Razor Sound record label, which will be reissuing a lot of
classic music from Nigeria, as well as other countries in Africa and
South America.

I’m trying to make
it so that our releases are more like “publications”—big booklets full
of historical information, stories, and photographs with a CD attached
to them.

Because really,
people aren’t that interested in just buying CDs anymore and CDs are
too easily pirated, anyway. You have to give them the value for their
money. We’ll also be releasing the music on vinyl records, which
happens to be my preferred format.

You recently embarked on a trip to Nigeria to get more information; were there any challenges?

The number one
challenge is always the relative inaccessibility of the information.
It’s not like you can just walk into a library or something and
comfortably find information. You have to dig for it. And frankly, not
a lot of people have the stamina or resourcefulness to do that.

I remember when I first started telling people in Nigeria that I am looking for old records and stuff like that.

They told me, “You
can’t find that kind of thing in Nigeria today.” My reply was “No, you
mean YOU can’t find it… I can!” And they would say “Ha! You won’t see
that sort of thing in the market o!” The market? Are you kidding? Who
is looking at the market? To find this stuff, you need to go ‘under’
the market! For months on end I would be rummaging through dark and
filthy storage spaces, day in and day out. Getting sinus infections
from the dust and mould… digging through urine-soaked garbage and
getting bitten by rats. And in the end, when I show all the material
I’ve gathered, people always ask “How did you find this stuff?” as if
I’m a magician. But really, it’s all right here under our noses!

Security was also a
major challenge. Undertaking the project required me to traverse the
breadth of the country several times over, and navigating the terrain
while trying to stay ahead of the kidnapping epidemic in the East.
Well, let’s say it required a good deal of gumption and creativity.

The challenge I
feel defeated me, though, was the complete unavailability of a lot of
the material. I’m actually a filmmaker by vocation, and my original
intention had been to make a documentary film about Nigerian musicians.

Unfortunately, I
couldn’t get enough period footage to create a sufficiently dynamic
documentary because of a lot of the tapes of musical performances
recorded for television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s were either dubbed
over or thrown away. So, unfortunately, I had to put that project aside.

Any collaborations with record labels in Nigeria for more information?

No, not really. For
one thing, most of the big record labels from Nigeria’s golden age of
music – EMI, Phillips, Decca/Afrodisia, and the like – they don’t exist
anymore. And many of them even discarded or destroyed most of their
records, master tapes, artwork, videos, and documentation.

Record keeping is almost non-existent in Nigeria. Why do you think this is so?

It’s probably a
controversial view, but I think that we as Africans have a peculiar
relationship to the concept of antiquity. We joke about “African time”
and what-not, but I really do believe that the African perception of
time is a bit more… fluid than it is in the West. We tend to live
primarily in the present, and even our concept of “the present” is very
elastic.

I once read about
an anthropologist who was looking for artefacts in a certain African
country, and he was presented with a carved wooden mask representing an
ancient fertility god. He asked the indigenes if the mask was
“authentic” – by which he meant: “does this particular mask actually
date back to an ancient era of this land? Is it an antique?” And the
people told him, “Of course it’s authentic” – by which they meant:
“Yes, it was made here, and it still represents this particular
fertility god who we still worship.”

Whether or not the
mask is old was unimportant to them: all that matters is whether the
mask did its job as the avatar for the god. It wouldn’t make a
difference to them if the mask was carved 3000 years ago or yesterday.
And if there was a mask from thousands of years ago representing a god
that they no longer worshipped, then they would have no qualms with
burning it or throwing it away because it served no useful purpose for
them in “the present.”

So it is with us in
Nigeria. We’re fixated upon how utilitarian things are to us in “the
present,” and “the present” trumps everything.

That’s why you have
television stations erasing the only copies of classic TV shows like
‘The Village Headmaster’ so they can use the tapes to record today’s
music videos. It’s why record companies hired contractors to cart away
and destroy entire libraries of master tapes of Nigerian music from the
1940s to the 1980s, so they’d have room for the music of the 1990s.
‘The present’ is all that exists for us.

When will your releases hit the market?

The first of these
publications will probably be released in the US and Europe at the end
of November. I’m not sure exactly when it will come to Nigeria, but
obviously it will find its way here. It’s a musical chronicle of the
years of Nigeria’s Second Republic (1979-83) and covers a lot of the
notable developments of that era: the increased professionalisation of
the Nigerian music industry with the rise of high-tech independent
labels like Phondisk and Tabansi, the rise of solo singers as the old
bands died, the emergence of more women in the music scene, and so on.

The next one will
probably be out in December, and it will focus on the venerable
Semi-Colon Rock Group of Umuahia. Then in early 2011, we’ll have
something concentrating on music from Cross River and Akwa Ibom States
and then a spotlight on Benin-style highlife, and lots of other stuff
in the pipeline.

Is royalty payment a big issue for you?

It is a big deal to
me. A BIG deal. You see, one thing that a lot of people don’t know is
that most Nigerian musicians of years past never made any money off the
sales of their records. I mean, ask someone like Onyeka Onwenu if she
ever made even one naira from record sales. There’s no way I can in
good conscience perpetuate that kind of exploitation of our artists and
so, it’s of the utmost importance to me that the original artists are
paid, even if it’s not a huge amount of money.

CDs actually are
not selling as much as they were ten years ago, so nobody is getting
rich off selling discs. But one thing we’re working on is developing
ways to licence the music for use in films, television, adverts,
ringtones, and other applications, and hopefully we can make some
decent money for the artists that way, because some of them really,
really need it.

What do you hope to achieve with this project?

I’d love to tell
you that I hope to become a millionaire from it, but I’m much too
realistic to even fool myself with that, let alone fool you. If, as a
result of my efforts, Nigeria’s rich heritage of popular culture
becomes fully recognised and celebrated, and I get to see our national
artistic legends reap some of the money and kudos they deserve, I think
I’d call myself a happy man.

And if I’m able to
even make a few pennies from it myself to stay afloat and continue
doing what I do, that would be a bonus, because this is really
expensive work and I fund it pretty much completely out of my own
pocket.

What’s next after this?

Well, I don’t like
to look like I’m this guy who is stuck in the past, because despite my
interest in history, I’m very much on the cutting edge of culture! I
want to sign some contemporary artists to Comb & Razor Sound; I’m
just looking for artists who are really unique. What I would really
love is to find a really cool, young Nigerian hard rock/funk band.

Also, this whole
music thing is really a side track that I stumbled into over the past
two or three years and it has taken me away from my work as a
filmmaker, so I’d like to get back to making movies soon.

To that effect, I have some film projects I’m developing. I haven’t
completely given up on the documentary either. I’m also working on a
book on the history of Nigerian filmmaking, and a cartoon series for
Nigerian TV.

The 12th Lagos Book
and Art Festival, with the theme, ‘Literacy and the Notion of Freedom’,
will berth between November 11 and 14 at the exhibition hall of the
National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos. Organised by the Committee for
Relevant Art (CORA), this year’s edition is also dedicated to the
celebration of author Chinua Achebe at 80. The 2010 LABAF is marked
with a number of events which underscore its theme.

The festival opens
on November 11 with a Business Forum for publishers to discuss some of
the challenges they face in the publishing industry. Also intended to
be a networking session to allow publishers to interact with one
another, the forum will take place at the Eko Hotel and Suites,
Victoria Island, Lagos.

The main events and
attractions are scheduled to hold at the National Theatre; and some of
these include; festival colloquiums with a varying number of themes,
readings, reviews and discussions centred on books. Among the featured
books are: ‘You Must Set Forth At Dawn’ by Wole Soyinka, ‘Just Before
Dawn’ by Kole Omotosho, ‘In-Dependence’ by Sarah Ladipo Manyika, ‘In My
Father’s Countr’y’ by Adewale Maja-Pearce and many others.

For children

One of the features
of the festival is the focus on children and children’s literature. The
Kiddies’ segment includes a performance of ‘My Malaria Story’ in words,
pictures and dance at the National theatre on November 12. This event
will be supported by CATE in collaboration with AMMREN and Café
Scientifique Nigeria.

Another event
discussing children’s literature is ‘Talking Books With CATE’ which
will hold on the November 13. Also programmed are: ‘You, Too, can
write!’ is a roundtable discussion on ‘The Land of Kalamandahoo’, a
book for six to ten-year-olds by Ruby Igwe; and ‘The Missing Clock’- a
book for nine to thirteen-year-olds, by Mai Nasara (Adeleke Adeyemi). A
workshop for kids (five years and under), titled ‘Green Creativity
Workshops’ taking place on November 13 – will also be of interest to
children and their parents. There will be a presentation of works from
the workshop on November 14.

Lagos 2060

The festival will
be a forum for looking at the role of books in economic empowerment and
the financial dynamics of book publishing from the author’s
perspective. This will be the topic of consideration by a panel of on
November 13. Relevant books include: ‘The Outlier,’ by Malcolm
Gladwell; ‘Minding Your Business’ By Leke Alder; ‘17 Secrets of High
Flying Students’, by Fela Durotoye. A musical interlude on the day will
be followed by a discussion segment tagged ‘Writers Angst’, where four
young authors discuss the pains and joys of writing. Another set of
discussants will consider the topic, ‘What will be the fate of Lagos
100 years after independence?’ They will also look at the future of the
mega-city and its continued role in inspiring, infuriating and
enchanting writers across generations, taking a cue from the Lagos:
2060 Project by DADA books. Rounding off festival activities on
November 13 will be a festival birthday organised in honour of the
likes of Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, Patrick Doyle and Dele Momodu – all of whom
turned 50 this year. The party also commemorates the milestones of the
following: Odia Ofeimun, Eddie Aderinokun, Segun Olusola, Fred
Agbeyegbe, Mabel Segun and Chinua Achebe.

The festival
culminates in a panel discussion on the presence or absence of folklore
influences in the literature and film of our time. Books to be looked
at, include: ‘The Adventures of a Sugarcane Man’ (Femi Osofisan’s
adaptation of Fagunwa’s Ireke Onibudo); ‘Praying Mantis’ by Andre
Brink; ‘The Hidden Star’ by Sello K Duiker and Ahmadou Koroumah’s
‘Allah Is Not Obliged’. The festival play is ‘Killing Swamp’ by Onukaba
Adinoyi Ojo, which will commemorate 15 Years of the death of Ken
Saro-Wiwa.

Some of the other
books to be showcased during the festival colloquium are Ike Okonta’s
‘When Citizens Revolt’, Wale Okediran’s ‘Tenants of the House’, Eghosa
Imasuen’s ‘To Saint Patrick’ and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Half of a
Yellow Sun’.

CORA has removed Peter Enahoro’s autobiography, ‘Then Spoke The
Thunder’, from the festival list because it is not available in
Nigeria. “We need to get every book selected for the festival into the
hands of would-be-discussants so we can have a robust debate around
them,” said Jahman Anikulapo, CORA’s chair of Programmes.

Uchenna Ikonne
could be described as a walking encyclopedia of some sort because of
his knowledge of the history of Nigerian music. Based in the United
States, he is a filmmaker by vocation and a lawyer by training, but his
consuming passion is Nigerian music. Ikonne is currently working on
reissuing a lot of Nigerian classic songs under his label, Comb &
Razor Sound. He shares his story with NEXT.

With your knowledge of Nigerian music classics, many would be shocked to realise that you are only 35 years old

That does often
take people by surprise. I’m primarily known as an online presence,
chiefly for my writing on my blog (http://combandrazor.blogspot.com),
so most people have no idea of my background, age, or appearance. They
generally expect me to be much older than I am because I’m writing
about Nigerian music and popular culture of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s;
and they’re often alarmed to learn that I’m in my 30s.

The funny thing
about it is that I have spent a lot of time interviewing musicians from
that era, and even when I’m sitting with them face-to-face, they still
forget how old I am. Like, we’ll be discussing some events that
happened immediately after the civil war, and they’ll say to me, “Shey,
you know that nightclub we used to go to in Port Harcourt… You remember
when so-and-so played there one Friday night like that in 1971. Were
you there that night?”

When stuff like
that happens, I’m not quite sure how to process it: do I take it as a
compliment that I appear so knowledgeable of the era that they forget I
wasn’t there? Or does it mean that hard life has aged me to the point
that men in their 50s and 60s can look at me and think I am their age
mate?

Do Nigerian youth know enough about Nigerian songs of old?

I would not even be
exaggerating if I said that many of our youth actually believe that the
Nigerian music industry started in 1998 or so. They realise that yes,
there must have been music in Nigeria “back in da dayz” – but they
think that maybe we only had a handful of artists: Fela, Osadebe, Sonny
Okosuns, Onyeka, maybe Evi-Edna, and a few other really popular names
like that. I am not playing!

I have had many
young people express this to me directly! But what’s curious is that a
lot of times, even Nigerians who are old enough to remember better have
completely forgotten most of the music of the past; cultural amnesia is
an epidemic in our society, and that’s a shame.

Tell us why you decided to embark on this task

If I didn’t do it,
who would? Well, the main thing I am working on right now is the Comb
& Razor Sound record label, which will be reissuing a lot of
classic music from Nigeria, as well as other countries in Africa and
South America.

I’m trying to make
it so that our releases are more like “publications”—big booklets full
of historical information, stories, and photographs with a CD attached
to them.

Because really,
people aren’t that interested in just buying CDs anymore and CDs are
too easily pirated, anyway. You have to give them the value for their
money. We’ll also be releasing the music on vinyl records, which
happens to be my preferred format.

You recently embarked on a trip to Nigeria to get more information; were there any challenges?

The number one
challenge is always the relative inaccessibility of the information.
It’s not like you can just walk into a library or something and
comfortably find information. You have to dig for it. And frankly, not
a lot of people have the stamina or resourcefulness to do that.

I remember when I first started telling people in Nigeria that I am looking for old records and stuff like that.

They told me, “You
can’t find that kind of thing in Nigeria today.” My reply was “No, you
mean YOU can’t find it… I can!” And they would say “Ha! You won’t see
that sort of thing in the market o!” The market? Are you kidding? Who
is looking at the market? To find this stuff, you need to go ‘under’
the market! For months on end I would be rummaging through dark and
filthy storage spaces, day in and day out. Getting sinus infections
from the dust and mould… digging through urine-soaked garbage and
getting bitten by rats. And in the end, when I show all the material
I’ve gathered, people always ask “How did you find this stuff?” as if
I’m a magician. But really, it’s all right here under our noses!

Security was also a
major challenge. Undertaking the project required me to traverse the
breadth of the country several times over, and navigating the terrain
while trying to stay ahead of the kidnapping epidemic in the East.
Well, let’s say it required a good deal of gumption and creativity.

The challenge I
feel defeated me, though, was the complete unavailability of a lot of
the material. I’m actually a filmmaker by vocation, and my original
intention had been to make a documentary film about Nigerian musicians.

Unfortunately, I
couldn’t get enough period footage to create a sufficiently dynamic
documentary because of a lot of the tapes of musical performances
recorded for television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s were either dubbed
over or thrown away. So, unfortunately, I had to put that project aside.

Any collaborations with record labels in Nigeria for more information?

No, not really. For
one thing, most of the big record labels from Nigeria’s golden age of
music – EMI, Phillips, Decca/Afrodisia, and the like – they don’t exist
anymore. And many of them even discarded or destroyed most of their
records, master tapes, artwork, videos, and documentation.

Record keeping is almost non-existent in Nigeria. Why do you think this is so?

It’s probably a
controversial view, but I think that we as Africans have a peculiar
relationship to the concept of antiquity. We joke about “African time”
and what-not, but I really do believe that the African perception of
time is a bit more… fluid than it is in the West. We tend to live
primarily in the present, and even our concept of “the present” is very
elastic.

I once read about
an anthropologist who was looking for artefacts in a certain African
country, and he was presented with a carved wooden mask representing an
ancient fertility god. He asked the indigenes if the mask was
“authentic” – by which he meant: “does this particular mask actually
date back to an ancient era of this land? Is it an antique?” And the
people told him, “Of course it’s authentic” – by which they meant:
“Yes, it was made here, and it still represents this particular
fertility god who we still worship.”

Whether or not the
mask is old was unimportant to them: all that matters is whether the
mask did its job as the avatar for the god. It wouldn’t make a
difference to them if the mask was carved 3000 years ago or yesterday.
And if there was a mask from thousands of years ago representing a god
that they no longer worshipped, then they would have no qualms with
burning it or throwing it away because it served no useful purpose for
them in “the present.”

So it is with us in
Nigeria. We’re fixated upon how utilitarian things are to us in “the
present,” and “the present” trumps everything.

That’s why you have
television stations erasing the only copies of classic TV shows like
‘The Village Headmaster’ so they can use the tapes to record today’s
music videos. It’s why record companies hired contractors to cart away
and destroy entire libraries of master tapes of Nigerian music from the
1940s to the 1980s, so they’d have room for the music of the 1990s.
‘The present’ is all that exists for us.

When will your releases hit the market?

The first of these
publications will probably be released in the US and Europe at the end
of November. I’m not sure exactly when it will come to Nigeria, but
obviously it will find its way here. It’s a musical chronicle of the
years of Nigeria’s Second Republic (1979-83) and covers a lot of the
notable developments of that era: the increased professionalisation of
the Nigerian music industry with the rise of high-tech independent
labels like Phondisk and Tabansi, the rise of solo singers as the old
bands died, the emergence of more women in the music scene, and so on.

The next one will
probably be out in December, and it will focus on the venerable
Semi-Colon Rock Group of Umuahia. Then in early 2011, we’ll have
something concentrating on music from Cross River and Akwa Ibom States
and then a spotlight on Benin-style highlife, and lots of other stuff
in the pipeline.

Is royalty payment a big issue for you?

It is a big deal to
me. A BIG deal. You see, one thing that a lot of people don’t know is
that most Nigerian musicians of years past never made any money off the
sales of their records. I mean, ask someone like Onyeka Onwenu if she
ever made even one naira from record sales. There’s no way I can in
good conscience perpetuate that kind of exploitation of our artists and
so, it’s of the utmost importance to me that the original artists are
paid, even if it’s not a huge amount of money.

CDs actually are
not selling as much as they were ten years ago, so nobody is getting
rich off selling discs. But one thing we’re working on is developing
ways to licence the music for use in films, television, adverts,
ringtones, and other applications, and hopefully we can make some
decent money for the artists that way, because some of them really,
really need it.

What do you hope to achieve with this project?

I’d love to tell
you that I hope to become a millionaire from it, but I’m much too
realistic to even fool myself with that, let alone fool you. If, as a
result of my efforts, Nigeria’s rich heritage of popular culture
becomes fully recognised and celebrated, and I get to see our national
artistic legends reap some of the money and kudos they deserve, I think
I’d call myself a happy man.

And if I’m able to
even make a few pennies from it myself to stay afloat and continue
doing what I do, that would be a bonus, because this is really
expensive work and I fund it pretty much completely out of my own
pocket.

What’s next after this?

Well, I don’t like
to look like I’m this guy who is stuck in the past, because despite my
interest in history, I’m very much on the cutting edge of culture! I
want to sign some contemporary artists to Comb & Razor Sound; I’m
just looking for artists who are really unique. What I would really
love is to find a really cool, young Nigerian hard rock/funk band.

Also, this whole
music thing is really a side track that I stumbled into over the past
two or three years and it has taken me away from my work as a
filmmaker, so I’d like to get back to making movies soon.

To that effect, I have some film projects I’m developing. I haven’t
completely given up on the documentary either. I’m also working on a
book on the history of Nigerian filmmaking, and a cartoon series for
Nigerian TV.