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Fittingly, the
festival ended with a music concert sponsored by a consortium including
MTN, Star, Seaman’s, Dansa, Hyra Motors, and the Osun State government
at WOCDIF Centre on Friday, August 27. The concert featured upcoming
musicians and established stars including Isedale, Asindemade, Queen
Benny Black, Saheed Osupa, and Adewale Ayuba.

While Isedale and
his group sang some traditional Yoruba folk songs, Asindemade brought
back memories of the late Apala maestro, Haruna Ishola. Jimoh Buraimoh,
Ifagbenusola Atanda, and some others who couldn’t resist the pulsating
beats of the young man, showered him with crisp naira notes.

The biggest star of
the night, however, was self styled king of fuji music, Saheed Osupa.
The crowd welcomed him uproariously and later turned the hall into big
dance floor during his over one hour performance. The artist, who has
obviously mastered live performance and praise singing like his
illustrious forbears, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and Ayinla Kollington,
stole the thunder of Bonsue fuji king, Adewale Ayuba, who rounded up
the show.

Arugba’s Circle

The Arugba Osun
(votary maid) was recognised when a statue in her honour was unveiled
at Oke Fia, one of the major roundabouts in Osogbo. Speaking at the
unveiling ceremony held on Thursday, August 26, Biodun Odejayi, senior
manager, regional marketing operations, MTN, thanked the people and
government of Osun State for allowing the telecommunication company
adopt the roundabout it will henceforth maintain. He stressed that it
is good to live in a good environment and pledged the company’s
continuous support for the festival.

Principal
coordinator of the Osun Osogbo festival, Jimoh Buraimoh, reiterated the
importance of the Arugba to the annual rite and expressed hope that MTN
will continue to support the festival. The Osun State commissioner for
environment, Olajire Omotoso, disclosed that his ministry is
facilitating the adoption of roundabouts “with a view to bringing a
facelift to the city and for the adoptee to brand their products.”

He promised that the renovation would not be limited to the state
capital and urged the people not to deface the renovated structure.

The Super Model

never minced words about

those “dirty-looking stones”

that came in a dirty-looking pouch

in the middle of the night

in dirty-looking Africa

The Magi (two this time)

who brought the gift

bowed dutifully low and left

Our Super Model

asked no questions

sought no answers

even as she threw open her door

to two imperfect strangers

in the middle of a dirty-looking night

The Super Model

swore she never heard about

how flirtatious Charlie Taylored that pouch

from the scrotums of castrated men

and the crusted blood which lent

the stone their dirty coat.

Has the Super Model

ever seen amputated dreams

cat-walking the runway

of dirty-looking jungles, while handless

Stone Children* clapped, and pogromed

hordes watched with hollow eyes?

Thanks to the Court’s Geography lesson,

our Super Model

heard the word “Liberia”

for the first time;

what a dirty-looking buzz it left

in her regal ears!

The universe bows in remorse

for this dirty-looking inconvenience

to Charlie’s Angel. . .

Now, on to the Laundromat!

*Reference to Stone Child, Syl Cheney-Coker’s recently published collection of poems.

The first ever
Korean Film Festival in Nigeria which started in Abuja, as part of the
Korean Embassy activities celebrating the 30th anniversary of Korea’s
diplomatic relationship with Nigeria, ended on the evening of Friday,
August 22 with a screening of the movie, Le Grand Chef (The Grand Chef).

During the
week-long festival, no fewer than 2000 Nigerians, members of the
diplomatic corps, and friends of Koreans resident in Abuja, were
treated to the best of Korean movies, carefully selected by the Korean
Cultural Centre for the delight of their guests.

Featured films

The festival, which
opened on Monday, August 16, and was attended by an average of two
hundred people in a day, featured films like ‘Take Off”, ‘Rough Cut’,
‘Hwang-Jin-Yi’, ‘The King and the Clown’ and Jeon Yoon-Soo’s acclaimed
‘Le Grand Chef’ which most of the audience described as the star film
of the festival.

The Grand Chef is a
culturally rich movie which tells the story of a special cooking knife.
The last Korean Royal Chef of the Chosun Dynasty, in brazen display of
his loyalty to his king and patriotism to his country, cut off his
right arm to avoid being forced to cook for the Japanese bureaucrat of
the time. Years later, deeply moved by the Chef’s conviction, the
Japanese decides to return the special knife to Korea, and to whoever
who deserves to own it.

To determine the
rightful owner of the royal knife, the bureaucrat’s son announces a
cooking contest to find the best cook for this knife. Thus, the
predestined cooking contests between two grandsons of the two
apprentices of the royal chef.

The high point of
the movie, which drew applause from the audience, is the manner in
which the movie uses food recipes to discuss such national issues as
internal democracy, as represented by the recipes the eventual and
rightful winner uses to cook the ‘secret king’s soup’ during the final
of the cooking contest.

The Korean Wave – Hallyuwood

America has
Hollywood, India has Bollywood, and Nigeria has Nollywood. Likewise,
Korea has its own ‘Hallyuwood.’ This newly-coined word combines the
meanings of the word “han (hal),” for Korea, and “ryu (lyu),” which
means ‘wave’. When these two Korean syllables are put together, it
gives us a new word meaning “Korean Wave.”

The Korean Wave is
a trend of increasing popularity for Korean pop culture, including
television dramas, films, and music in Asia and around the world. This
phenomenon began in the latter half of 1990s and is still growing and
spreading worldwide, including the Middle East and South America.

Some Korean TV
dramas have also been introduced to Nigerian audiences. “Jewel in the
Palace” aired on AIT; “The Painter of the Wind” is now being shown on
the same channel every Sunday morning; while “Winter Sonata” is also
being broadcast by the National Television Authority (NTA).

Silent motion
pictures were first introduced to Korea in 1903, and the first movie
with sound was produced in 1935. During the 1950s, the government made
great efforts to promote the film industry and later introduced a
screen quota system to ensure that domestically produced films had the
opportunity to be shown widely. In the 1960s, Korea witnessed its first
golden age of the film industry. After a setback in the 1970s caused by
the widespread penetration of television, the film industry rebounded
with even greater strength, thanks to increased investment by large
companies into film making and distribution in the 1980s. With the
emergence of young, talented film directors and the liberalisation of
the market, Korean movies began to occupy a major share of the domestic
market and Korean film exports started to grow. All these have laid the
foundation for the Korean Wave and the subsequent popularity of Korean
films all over Asia; and lately Africa and the rest of the world.

In his remarks at
the opening of the festival, the Korean Ambassador to Nigeria, Park
Young-Kuk said, “Korean films have developed on the strength of
incessant creativity, despite challenges from international film
markets like Hollywood. I hope you will be able to see and appreciate
the different styles and merits of Korean films, and enjoy what they
have to offer.”

A reward for friendship

As a means of
engaging the interest of festival goers, 20 Nigerians received various
prizes, ranging from Satellite TV decoders, wristwatches, footballs,
phones and other valuables as a reward for their friendship with the
Korean Embassy in Nigeria. One recipient, 28-year-old Amarachi Amunabu,
commended the Korean Cultural Centre for present and also commented on
the featured movies. “I have watched all of the five movies featured
and I must say that I am impressed at the quality of creativity and
positive projection of the ways of life of the Koreans. The quality
also is superb and commendable. I have always thought Asian movies are
all about kung fu. This is the first time I am watching a subject-based
Asian movie and I am very happy to have had the opportunity.”

In his speech, Suh
Jeong Sun, Director of the Korean Cultural Centre in Abuja, indicated
that the festival is to become a yearly event. “The Korean Film
Festival in Nigeria will hold every year. The 2011 edition will take
place in Lagos and Sierra Leone while the 2012 edition will return to
Abuja,” he said For Abuja residents whose interest may have been
sparked by the festival, Mr Sun had this announcement: “If you love
Korean movies, you can visit the Korean Cultural Centre’ studio every
first and last Fridays of the month for a free show of Korean movies.”

“There was an
Independence Trade Fair held on the grounds of what is now Bonny Camp
in Victoria Island and there was a pavilion for Art,” Bruce
Onobrakpeya, the doyen of the Nigerian art scene, recalls with
nostalgia. “Uche Okeke, Demas Nwoko and I decorated some of the other
pavilions,” he continues “and the works of the older artists like Ben
Enwonwu and Aina Onabolu were shown as well as those of us younger
artists.” Onobrakpeya was speaking to me a day after his 78th birthday
and at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos, after the re-commissioning
of a new Murtala Mohammed Gallery in the Museum complex.

Interestingly, a
photography exhibition, ‘Nigeria Yesterday and Today’, made up of black
and white photographs of past leaders; traditional, civilian and
military, was hung on the walls surrounding the bullet-ridden black
Mercedes Benz car in which General Mohammed,then military Head of
State, was assassinated on his way to work in 1976.

For a National
Museum, the quality of most of the photographs displayed was
embarrassingly poor. Some of them had been digitally-treated and
re-copied; but all the same, this display speaks volumes of our lack of
depth in preserving and respecting our national archives. There were a
few excellently-conceived portraits; particularly from the military
regime eras; taken by the great photographer Peter Obe. By some quirk
of coincidence, the first photograph in the exhibition was that of a
distraught Oba Ovonramwen of Benin on a ship on his way to a
British-imposed exile in Calabar. This historic and world famous
photograph was taken in 1897 by Nigeria’s first master photographer,
Jonathan Adagogo Green of Bonny in now Rivers State. It is a shame that
the supposed custodians of our national archives do not know this fact.
Yet, it took two American Art-History professors, Anderson and Aronson,
to discover and identify Green’s body of extraordinary photographs in
the nineties!

Pockets of celebration

In Onobrakpeya’s view, the bullet-ridden car is not an appropriate commemoration of Murtala Mohammed as a leader.

“That car reminds
us of violence. There should be a more befitting monument to him like
they have done for leaders in Asia, Kenya and Ghana.”

How are we using
Art to celebrate Nigeria at 50, I ask him? “Whatever we are celebrating
in the Arts now has its beginnings in the Independence Art Exhibition,”
he explains. “Art in Nigeria has grown and developed because of the
resilience of the artists, sponsorship of patrons, emergence of Art
galleries, Art workshops like the annual Harmattan workshop and
government’s efforts like FESTAC ‘77 and more recently, ARESUVA. For
Nigeria at 50 there are pockets of celebration. The exhibitions of old
pottery and the re-commissioning of the Murtala Mohammed Gallery at the
National Museum Lagos is part of it. One would have wanted a central
focus that would be spread for a whole year. I suppose if you put all
the pockets of celebration together we will have a great celebration,”
he concludes.

Bolanle
Austen-Peters, MD of Terra Kulture, believes that Art is gaining more
relevance and the industry is vibrant. “We still need additional
government sponsorship and visibility. For all the money voted for the
celebration of Nigeria at 50, how much was allocated for the Arts? At
the last minute, a lot of charlatans will be used instead of creative
people with experience and know-how, so we will not have a meaningful
and significant input from the Arts in celebrating Nigeria at 50,”
Austen-Peters predicts.

Arinze, a
celebrated ceramics artist is emphatic. “I am not sure we are doing it
rightly,” he says. “There should have been an Art competition that is
juried after which there would be one big Art Exhibition opened by the
President. Artists were invited by the Nigerian government to hold an
Independence Art Exhibition in 1960. From this Exhibition came the
Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA) which has been in the forefront of
developing Art and artists in Nigeria.” Arinze, the Director of ArtZero
– a collective of artists that hold yearly exhibitions and participate
in group exhibitions and the Art Expo – knows the dynamics of the
present Art scene in Nigeria quite well.

It is heartening
that the Art community and artists are not waiting for government to
set the tune or show the direction in using the Arts to prominently
celebrate Nigeria at 50. In fact, evidence that government had no
clear-cut policy strategy for the role of the Arts in celebrating
Nigeria at 50 had been obvious for quite some time. As many artists
point out, plans for involving the Arts in celebrating Nigeria at 50
should have been rolled out more than a year ago.

Last minute efforts

There are ad hoc
and last minute official efforts to integrate the Arts into the huge,
planned celebrations. The idea of building a commemorative tower was
muted and unresolved. Various art groups and associations have been
asked to submit artworks, at their own expense and as late as
September, for an exhibition to be mounted at the National Stadium,
Abuja.

President of the
Guild of Fine Artists and a much respected painter, Efosa Oguigo is of
the opinion that the lack of commitment from government agencies in
planning a huge contribution from the Art community and artists, “will
make the forefathers of the SNA unhappy.” “Immediately after
Independence,” he points out, “the SNA was formed and the government
started to court them. That is why we have so much great art by
Nigeria’s best artists in our public spaces, government buildings and
government galleries.” He laments that plans to involve the Arts in
celebrating Nigeria at 50, “are disjointed because we just see concerts
of efforts. I would have thought that there would be a streamlined
thing that would have the punch it should have.”

It’s not that Nigeria at 50 just crept up unexpectedly and took
everyone unawares. We are notorious as a country for not planning well
ahead and being meticulous about detail. Amazingly, the Presidency and
the chambers and committee rooms of the National Assembly have many Art
works on their walls. Are we to believe that other more important
aspects of the celebration distracted the decision makers from seeing
these Art works on their walls and deem them fit to be part of
celebrating Nigeria at 50? Or is it just a subtle way of telling the
nation that Nigerian Art has not inspired them to greater levels of
appreciation? But then how many of our fifty-odd political parties have
policies for Arts and Culture in Nigeria?

Elo Photos will be
holding a Family Portraiture exhibition at the Palms Shopping Mall in
Lekki, Lagos, come October, as part of the country’s 50th anniversary
jubilee. The exhibition, to be titled ‘Chronicles of Anuoluwapo’, is
designed to illustrate the importance of documenting important family
memories and hopefully inspire families to request for a family
portrait.

“I realise there
was a gap to be filled in family portraiture as a lot of families don’t
document their family memories,” Oluwaseun Akisanmi, the photo artist,
told reporters at a recent press briefing on August 27.

“Sometimes, parents
get too busy that they allow important times to pass without having a
photo documentation to keep these memories alive,” he said,
highlighting one reason for the neglect of family portraiture.

The exhibition will
mostly feature pictures of the photo-artist’s two-year-old daughter,
Anuoluwapo, alongside some other poignant family pictures. Akinsanmi, a
graduate of Accountancy from Eastern Illinois University, USA, believes
having the exhibition at the shopping mall will help reach out to
prospective clients.

“I decided to take
the exhibition to The Palms because I believe the kinds of people who
visit the mall are mostly the very busy ones who don’t have much time
to have special pictures taken. It is a unique place to showcase my
works to people that will appreciate it and it will also give visiting
families the opportunity to have a family portrait taken,” he explained.

The artist

Akinsanmi began
practising professional photography in 2005, despite his father’s
preference for accountancy. However, photography has become a passion
he wasn’t ready to let go.

“I discovered that
photography is what I have passion for and ventured into it after being
encouraged in my church to live my passion rather than just be another
regular employee at some firm,” he said.

He revealed that his love for photography was sparked by a digital
camera he received from his mother during the Christmas of 1998, while
still a student in America. Acknowledging the abundance of photo
professionals in the country, Akinsanmi decided to carve a niche in a
specific area – family portraiture, with a major focus on children.

Songstress, Onyeka
Onwenu, started a promotional tour of her latest album, ‘Inspiration
for Change’, on August 16, with a visit to Classic and Beats FM, Ikoyi,
Lagos.

The album, which
contains three tracks, ‘Change Song’, ‘How Wonderful’ and ‘Run Goodluck
Run’, canvases attitudinal change among Nigerians.

Onwenu reiterated
the message of the album while speaking at the commencement of the
tour, which has taken her to radio stations including Eko FM and Rhythm
in Lagos, and Kapital FM, Brilla, Aso FM, and Raypower in Abuja. She
noted, in an interaction with presenters at the two radio stations,
that Nigerians have the capacity to make the country a beautiful place
to live in.

On air personality
and one of the founders of Classic FM, Tintin, led people that
interacted with Onwenu during her visit. Some of her hit songs; ‘One
Love’, ‘Walk Right Back’, ‘Iyogogo’ and ‘African Woman’ were played at
the session. Hosting the singer at Rhythm FM was DJ Midas.

Two tracks, ‘Kosi’
and ‘Maryam’s Peace’ were also played from her album, ‘Legend’. The
studio audience responded positively to the tracks from the latest CD,
‘Inspiration for Change.’

Ms Onwenu later
said she was very happy about the responses to her promotional tour so
far. She said of the stopovers at the two stations, “I was blown away
with what happened in the studio. We all danced to the song. It was
highlife at its best and modernised with rap and scintillating horns.”

She reiterated her
social message, encapsulated in ‘Nigeria@50’, a song she’s rendering
specially to commemorate the country’s golden jubilee.

“It seemed like all
our discussions about change in Nigeria – the need to support Nigerian
government and people in bringing about this change, all the optimism
about the greatness of Nigeria in spite of our self-inflicted wounds –
had whipped up a certain patriotism and pride in our country, Nigeria.
I am convinced that Nigerians are ready for this expected change. I am
excited,” she said.

Onwenu urged her fans and all Nigerians to be part of the wind of change.

“We are a beautiful people. We are blessed. We will change for the better, and we will make it,” she declared.

She also urged Nigerians to come on board her campaign for change by visiting her blog: www.inspirationforchangeng.com.

The Ebedi Writers
Residency, the first of its kind in Nigeria, will be inaugurated today
in Iseyin, Oyo State. The town’s traditional ruler, the Aseyin of
Iseyin, Oba Abdul Ganiyu Adekunle Salau, will be on hand to open the
resort, located at the Barracks area of Iseyin.

Writers, members of
the governing board of the resort, and the public will attend the
opening ceremony, to be chaired by playwright and academic, Femi
Osofisan.

The occasion will
feature poetry renditions, cultural display and presentations by two
current residents, Abiodun Adebiyi and Lola Okusami, and students from
the community who have been tutored by the duo. There will also be an
interaction between journalists and the two residents.

Ebedi is an
initiative of writer, Wale Okediran, a former president of the
Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). The residency aims to provide
writers with a serene and condusive environment to complete ongoing
literary works.

Writers from across
the world with uncompleted manuscripts in any genre, are welcome to
apply to enjoy the facility for a maximum duration of six weeks. The
Ebedi Resort provides accommodation for selected writers as well as
recreational activities and a modest allowance for expenses.

In return,
residents are expected to spend at least two hours a week interacting
with students of selected secondary schools in the town, to help create
a love of literature in local children.

The next session of the residency will start in October. Interested
writers can send their applications to the secretary of the governing
board, Alkasim Abdulkadir at alkasim.abdulkadir@yahoo.com or visit
www.ebediwritersresort.com for further details.

Filmmakers across
Africa can now submit entries for the seventh edition of the African
Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), organisers have said.

A statement from
the Africa Film Academy (AFA), which organises the annual film
festival, disclosed that the 2011 awards ceremony will hold on April 9.

Interested filmmakers should submit feature, short, documentary, and animation films for the 30 categories of awards available.

Tony Anih, director
of administration of AFA, disclosed that organisers decided to invite
entries early to encourage filmmakers who are still working on their
film to finish before the deadline of December 31.

“The 2011 awards is
for films produced and released between December 2009 and December 31,
2010. Late entry will close January 7, 2011. But we have always
encouraged filmmakers to avoid the late rush by submitting their works
ahead of time,” he said.

Films to be
submitted for the awards must be a director’s cut and must not contain
adverts, stated Anih. He added that feature films must not be more than
120 minutes, while short films must be 50 minutes.

The synopsis, list
of credits, marketing stills, filmographies of the directors and
producers, 10 DVD copies, proof of right to submit, and year of
copyright must also be indicated on works to be submitted.

Filmmakers in the Diaspora are also not left out as AFA has
announced the Best Africa Film in the Diaspora and the Best Diaspora
Short Film Awards categories.

Songstress, Onyeka
Onwenu, started a promotional tour of her latest album, ‘Inspiration
for Change’, on August 16, with a visit to Classic and Beats FM, Ikoyi,
Lagos.

The album, which
contains three tracks, ‘Change Song’, ‘How Wonderful’ and ‘Run Goodluck
Run’, canvases attitudinal change among Nigerians.

Onwenu reiterated
the message of the album while speaking at the commencement of the
tour, which has taken her to radio stations including Eko FM and Rhythm
in Lagos, and Kapital FM, Brilla, Aso FM, and Raypower in Abuja. She
noted, in an interaction with presenters at the two radio stations,
that Nigerians have the capacity to make the country a beautiful place
to live in.

On air personality
and one of the founders of Classic FM, Tintin, led people that
interacted with Onwenu during her visit. Some of her hit songs; ‘One
Love’, ‘Walk Right Back’, ‘Iyogogo’ and ‘African Woman’ were played at
the session. Hosting the singer at Rhythm FM was DJ Midas.

Two tracks, ‘Kosi’
and ‘Maryam’s Peace’ were also played from her album, ‘Legend’. The
studio audience responded positively to the tracks from the latest CD,
‘Inspiration for Change.’

Ms Onwenu later
said she was very happy about the responses to her promotional tour so
far. She said of the stopovers at the two stations, “I was blown away
with what happened in the studio. We all danced to the song. It was
highlife at its best and modernised with rap and scintillating horns.”

She reiterated her
social message, encapsulated in ‘Nigeria@50’, a song she’s rendering
specially to commemorate the country’s golden jubilee.

“It seemed like all
our discussions about change in Nigeria – the need to support Nigerian
government and people in bringing about this change, all the optimism
about the greatness of Nigeria in spite of our self-inflicted wounds –
had whipped up a certain patriotism and pride in our country, Nigeria.
I am convinced that Nigerians are ready for this expected change. I am
excited,” she said.

Onwenu urged her fans and all Nigerians to be part of the wind of change.

“We are a beautiful people. We are blessed. We will change for the better, and we will make it,” she declared.

She also urged Nigerians to come on board her campaign for change by visiting her blog: www.inspirationforchangeng.com.

It is good to have talent. It is better still when that talent
is discovered early in life and then nurtured with immense care and love. For
this luck; Bukola Komolafe is forever grateful to her mother Rachael Olufunke,
who, when Bukola lost her father at two, brought her up and directed her life
to God, the church and music.

Bukola Komolafe was born and grew up in Lagos. Her mother was a
contractor at Tin Can Island and a minister in the Celestial Church of Christ.
Bukola became a member of the choir at eight and by her teens she was recording
with many churches and gospel musicians as a back-up singer at Decca records.
She is proud to remember that she was a back-up singer for Dupe Solano (now
Olulana) one of the top gospel singers of the eighties. She also excitedly
recalls that she attended Saka Tinubu Memorial High School, Agege, Lagos!

Majek Fashek

She then embarked on a career as a back-up singer in studios,
also doing jingles and recording with different church groups like De Cross
Gospel Mission as a worship leader in the eighties. She later felt she had done
every aspect of singing and needed a change. When she heard that Majek Fashek
was auditioning for back-up singers, she decided to try her luck and, out of
the 20 others at the audition, she got chosen to be one of his four back-up
singers. She worked with Fashek for two years.

Why Majek? “I listened to the lyrics of his music and I was
comfortable with them,” she replies, adding that, “I felt that if there was a
secular musician I wanted to work with, it was him.” Her first gig with Majek
was at the Eko Merieden; after he had come back from the United States of
America; she went on tour with him around Nigeria in 1989/90. Majek went back
to the US and when Komolafe got to there, she did some concerts with him in the
New York area. She however never recorded with him.

The message

Now that she is back on the music scene as a solo gospel singer,
what’s her take on the state of gospel music in Nigeria? “It’s evolving and
people are finding themselves. There’s need for people to want to create a
niche for their kind of gospel music. There is still a lot of work to be done.
Meanwhile, there are a lot of good gospel singers around like Lara George,
Infinity, Muyiwa n’Riversong and Midnight Crew. Then we have Nigerians in the United
States who are coming up; people like Jonathan Lewis and Niyi Adams.”

Gospel music per se is the creation of African-Americans and it
started off as Negro Spirituals. The music, like other genres of
African-American music – from Jazz to Rhythm and Blues and now Hip-Hop -, has
spread round the world to inspire a variety of hybrids. Can we then have
Nigerian indigenous gospel music, I ask Komolafe? “We have indigenous gospel
music,” she emphatically replies. “Different types of music minister to different
people,” she continues. “Here in Nigeria we have Waka gospel music like Sarah
Kokumo who had a huge followership in Ibadan. The roots of our gospel music can
be from our indigenous folk music, but it is the message that is important. The
message is Christ. So, any gospel music without Christ or Christ’s principles
is not gospel!”

Gospel music has always been about praising God and the music
has now assumed the power of inspiring choristers and worshippers in ‘new
breed’ Pentecostal into frenzies of dance and body-shaking that are usually
associated with nightclubs and parties. How do gospel singers and musicians
reconcile this oddity? “If the song is truly gospel there cannot be sexual
innuendos,” Bukola explains. “Getting down in dancing in appreciation of what
God has done for you is a way of genuinely expressing yourself without having
to distract from the gospel message. However, there are times when
inspirational songs cross over into the church and then you can see
manifestations of inappropriate gestures and behaviour in place of expressive
dance.”

New CD

Komolafe has released her first music CD, FREE. It is a 10-track
‘album’, eight of which are original musical compositions by the singer; with
the other two being, in her words, “known songs, that I have reformatted.”
Eight of the songs are in English and the other two are in Yoruba and English.
Free was recorded in Maryland, US, from where Bukola commutes between Nigeria
and back.

FREE, is also the title song of the CD and, she waxes poetic
singing about being “free from fear and shame.” She says “it is a song to
express the freedom I have in Christ, just to live for him and maximise my
potential.” Komolafe has a good voice with excellent range and her breathy
inflections colour the emotions of the various songs. Her enthusiasm is very
obvious and there is the unmistakable aura of a back-up singer finally let
loose to fully express herself and explore the timbres of her voice.

FREE is a first class recording, intelligently produced with
good sound knowledge and balance to enhance the richness of the
instrumentation. The recording does good justice to the calibre of quality
musicians who provide an impressive spectrum of eclectic popular music;
Afro-American as well as Caribbean, Spanish and African, to back Komolafe’s
songs and lyrics.

Incredibly, all the back-up musicians are professional Nigerian
musicians based in the United States. “I purposely made it like that because
Nigerians are so talented and I have worked with them in different projects and
just felt it would be nice to work with them on my first CD,” Bukola points
out. Particularly outstanding is Uncle Frank Martins whose strumming and riffs
on acoustic and electric guitar define the genres of reggae, kwela and pop
music that provide the instrumental backing for Bukola’s voice. Songs like
‘Free’, ‘O Se Baba’, ‘Tis So Sweet’, ‘Calvary Medley’, ‘My Now and Future’ and
‘Song in the Night’ lift FREE into the realm of truly inspired gospel music; a
captivating listen for ‘church-goers’ as well as lovers of good music; whatever
the genre.

The CD was well received in the United States and Komolafe will soon be
partnering with one of the big gospel music labels in the States to produce her
next album/CD. Meanwhile she continues to perform by ministering in churches
and appearing at gospel music festivals. She believes that there is room for
more gospel music festivals in Nigeria. As for indigenous gospel music, its
appeal depends “on how it is packaged.” Bukola Komolafe has shown the way. “A
lot of people are inspired to write about what God is doing in their lives;
with true narratives like testimonies,” she says. She has definitely given a
good example with FREE.