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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.