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Ten years after
the death of playwright and critic Ola Rotimi, his family has launched
a foundation in Lagos to commemorate his passing and to build on his
legacy.

At the official
launch of the Ola Rotimi Foundation, performances by Malian Kora player
Mamadou Diabate and undergraduates of the Dramatic Arts department at
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, were scheduled to thrill the
audience. The August 20 launch fell two days after the date of the
playwright’s passing.

Gracing the launch
cum fundraiser were arts patron Rasheed Gbadamosi and his wife; and
National president of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts
Practitioners (NANTAP) Greg Odutayo.

With his wife,
Kamela and children also in the audience, the late Rotimi’s son and
chief organiser, Kole Heyward-Rotimi, took charge of the evening’s
proceedings. Despite the late professor’s calibre, attendance at the
event was unfortunately marred by heavy rainfall, amongst other
probable reasons.

The programme
however kicked off early at Terra Kulture with Grammy Award-winner
Diabate enthralling the audience with a string of songs played
skillfully on the kora. About the songs, Diabate, whose range includes
jazz, blues and traditional gospel, said afterwards, “The songs I
played today are traditional and some are my own compositions. One of
the songs I played is a good way to introduce people to the instrument
so they understand what the instrument sounds like.”

The audience
obviously liked what they heard and showed their appreciation by
rewarding the talented artist with rounds of applause.

Preserving African culture

Hailing Diabate’s
dexterity during the interlude, Kole Heyward-Rotimi said “the job of
the griot is to promote and preserve African culture,” a major focus of
the Ola Rotimi Foundation.

Diabate was
himself pleased with his audience, small though it was. He described
his visit to Nigeria as “a great experience out of places (visited) in
West Africa,” despite having being in the country only two days. He
constantly referred to Nigeria as home.

While looking
forward to future performances and collaborations in Nigeria, he
admitted to not having listened to Nigerian music since his arrival.
“Not yet, but since I was a little boy, I’ve known Fela Kuti. I got
(the chance) to see his son (Seun Kuti perform) in Mali in 2009.” He
listed Juju maestro King Sunny Ade and the late Babatunde ‘Baba’
Olatunji, acclaimed drummer and percussionist, as other favourite
Nigerian artists.

The kora is an
instrument passed down through generations, Diabate said; and his
musical prowess dates from his birth into a family where the kora has
been played for “thousands of years.” As he says, if his son does not
learn how to play it, there is always someone else in the family
itching to acquire the skills.

Diabate, who
started playing the kora aged five, also plays the xylophone, the gong
and the drums. “Everybody plays the drums,” he quipped, “but the kora
is my own instrument.” An undeniable statement when one watches Diabate
in performance. As someone in the audience observed, even though
Diabate was the only one twanging the 21-string instrument, the kora
gave off a mesh of sounds that seemed like a four-piece band was in
action.

Diabate put it
down to hours of practice, probably in line with the 10,000-hour rule
suggested in Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’ as a right start on the path
to genius.

“That’s a lot of
work you have to do (in terms of) practising,” the Malian musician
said. “You have to be part of your instrument. You have to love your
instrument. The way I receive my songs, that’s how I give (them) back
to the audience, so you will find out if I am real. This is what we
play: the song coming from the instrument. We love it. So, if we love
it, the people will love it too.”

He admitted to
forgetting about the audience whenever he played the Kora. “You’ve got
to get inside the spirit of the instrument. You have to make yourself
connected to the instrument. When I get the Kora, the audience is no
more; until I’m done till I see the audience. (The performance) is only
myself, my instrument and my spirit.”

Having lived in
the United States for 15 years, it was only natural that the country
would influence his music. He however maintains that his tradition and
the griot culture play a huge part in his music. “In the griot society,
we have the musician/storyteller, and the singer. There is a story
behind every song. There’s a voice singing the story behind every
song.” He described ‘The Kaira’, one of the songs he performed, as
preaching peace and happiness based on a cultural, pro-independence
movement that existed in colonial era-Mali in the 1940s.

Jungle justice

Following
Diabate’s act was the performance of Ola Rotimi’s ‘When Criminals Turn
Judges,’ directed by the younger Rotimi. A depiction of post-colonial
Nigeria in the throes of corruption, the play painted a grim picture
that contrasted heavily with Diabate’s song about peace and happiness.

The 50-minute
satire portrayed the erosion of values in our post-colonial society.
Bar Jesus (Lanre Ariyo), a corrupt vagrant preacher and two layabouts,
Akin (Muyiwa Betiku) and Jide (Olalekan Osani), plot to arrest Laguna
(Kehinde Ladeji), an affluent businessman. Laguna is marked for arrest
when the ‘criminals’ discover his plans for an illicit relationship
with the young, pretty Ebun (Precilia Omije) who is married to Abu
(Temitope Adesanya), a cripple.

When the trio
succeed in their mission, they go ahead to deliver judgment on Laguna
and Ebun whilst keeping the former’s clothing and bicycle as spoils of
war. Abu saves the day when he appears on the scene with a rifle which
he is not afraid to use. A well-executed performance by the young
students that proved true to Nigeria’s current position as a nation
filled with hypocrites, never mind that the play was written in the
late 1960s.

Commenting
afterwards on the event’s poor attendance, Heyward-Rotimi said they had
done all they possibly could in terms of publicity and had enough
assurances up till the morning of the event not to be worried about
people turning up. Speaking generally on logistics, he said, “We were
given commitments for dates, for venues and they all fell through,” he
said.

The eventual
programme, he said, was different from the initial plan which was a
series of events over a three-day period. This was to include one day
dedicated to the Diabate concert, another for cultural performances
from around the world and the last day for stage productions. Sensing
Heyward-Rotimi’s disappointment, a word of encouragement from the
audience suggested, “It’s not yours to abandon, it’s yours to be
finished.”

Heyward-Rotimi
requested the few present to continue to support the project and to
spread the gospel. “What you can do to help is to spread the word… this
is not the end.”

A remark, which many in the audience will have little cause to doubt.