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Victor Uwaifo has a
string of firsts as taut and sound as those on his guitar. Among
others, he is the first to break the mould of Nigerian bandleaders
being either trumpeters or horns-men; Nigeria’s first true master
guitarist and one of the best in world contemporary popular music. He
is also the first to give a leading role for the guitar in Nigerian
popular music; the first Nigerian musician to play a double-necked
guitar; the first to have his record on the BBC Home Service chart-in
1966 (that hit went on to become the first Gold disc in Africa and,
remains the only Gold disc in West Africa, because it was the only 45
rpm record Gold Disc before the format was phased out) and the
first-ever Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Tourism in Edo State.

It’s no wonder then
that Uwaifo exhibits a streak of confidence in his art as he declares
candidly and uncompromisingly, “I am not just a master guitarist; I am
an institution as an instrumentalist, mostly on the guitar and flute
and, basically in all spheres of life.” He might not be modest, but he
has risen from being a guitar boy into a guitar maestro, genius and
national musical icon.

Guitar Boy

For nearly five
decades Uwaifo has continued a creative love affair with the guitar
that has flourished. He has produced an exhaustive and varied catalogue
of world famous contemporary popular music as well as structural
innovations to the musical instrument.

Uwaifo recalls that
he did “manual labour” to earn money to buy his first guitar in the
1960s. A decade later, he produced and released a tune, ‘Guitar Boy’,
which became one of his greatest hits and national bestseller of the
1960s. Uwaifo had every right to tag himself the Guitar Boy back then.
He is still an active instrumentalist and continues a famous musical
and artistic life! His influence on guitarists in other genres of
Nigerian popular music is enormous. “I inspired Sunny Ade and other
juju music guitarists to stand up and play as against sitting down to
play the guitar,” Uwaifo asserts.

He developed into a
confident innovative master guitarist and showman. His repertoire of
choreographed stunts include a stylish sequence of aerobatic
somersaulting, complex body gyrations, dancing, doing the splits,
playing behind his back and even with his teeth. “I bite my guitar,” he
declares with relish. He attributes his physical fitness and ability to
perform these tasking stunts to body-building, which he started as a
secondary school student at St. Gregory’s College, Lagos. At school
then he established a high jump record of 6 feet 6 inches that still
stands.

Victor Uwaifo’s
trademark as a guitarist include a sustained fluency in extended solos;
multiple ripples of melodic sounds and harmony interlaced with
percussive chords. Marvelous multi-layered guitar solos distinguish two
of his greatest hits, ‘Joromi’ and ‘Guitar Boy’.

Joromi

His ingenuity with
the guitar has also inspired him to design different types and shapes
of the instrument. Unique to these Uwaifo wonder guitars is a
combination guitar and keyboard he named Joromi.

The Guitar Boy of
yesteryears is now a 70-year old Hon. Sir, Dr Victor Efosa Uwaifo JP
MON. After his secondary school education, he won a scholarship to the
Yaba College of Technology where he obtained a National Diploma with
Distinction in Graphics. He obtained a first class honours degree in
Fine and Applied Arts from the University of Benin in 1995 and went on
to earn a Doctorate degree. Currently, he is Chairman of Joromi
Organisation, Chairman/Director of Joromi TV (JTV) and Recording
Studio. and the Victor Uwaifo Art Gallery in Benin City.

Uwaifo became a
Nigerian popular music icon and international superstar in the 1960s. A
many-faceted pioneer, he has contributed his own distinct musical
flavour to the genre of Nigerian popular music called Highlife. His
megahit ‘Joromi’, that made the BBC chart in 1966, propelled him to
monumental and permanent fame. It became Africa’s first Gold disc and,
over the years, Uwaifo accumulated 12 other Gold discs.

‘Joromi’, however,
remains special. Its lyrics and theme, like the bulk of Uwaifo’s music,
is deeply rooted in his native Benin culture. “Everything about my
sound and rhythm is Benin,” he explains. “Ekasa is a rattle you tie
around your ankle when you dance. The sound creates the Ekasa rhythm,
which is similar to the sound of a locomotive engine. The only time
they dance Ekasa in Benin is during the crowning of a new Oba (King).
Some of my songs are also traceable to certain Obas and their eras. It
is a way of documenting history through music.” The story of Joromi is
an intriguing Benin fable. According to Uwaifo, “Joromi in Benin
mythology was a wrestler, a world champion who after conquering the
whole world decided to go to hell and fight the Devil with seven
heads.” It is no wonder that Uwaifo named his first studio in Benin,
opened in 1978, Joromi.

Legend

His background as
a trained artist contributed to his creative process as a musician.
“Art has form, music has form,” he explains, adding: “Art has colours
and the colours have relativity with sound. Sound and colours are in
harmony. If you take the harmony one by one, you have do re mi fa so la
ti do…do, you represent with black, re-red, mi-blue, fa-green,
so-neutral/white (which is no colour), la-yellow, ti-violet, do-you go
back to the same octave. Then you can mix several colours to begin to
have other families of colours. These are just the basic things. Music,
art, writing, creativity, are all the same thing. They are all
interwoven, co-cyclic and they work in motion and action. Once you can
see art on a deep level, you can also see music.

Music has form and
structure just like in architecture. You cannot put certain sounds in
wrong places. Even if you are doing abstract art, the deliberate
distortions must make sense.” What are the flavours of his unique sound
and rhythms? “To explain the different forms of my music, I gave them
different names. They have different time signatures and
interpretation. Their rendition is also different. That’s why I
identified them as Akwette, Sasakosa, Mutaba, Ekasa, Titibiti, and so
on.” What about his approach to instrumentation? “I inter-marry African
instruments, Benin instruments, percussion and other instruments with
contemporary musical instruments to make African sounds. And I still
retain the authenticity of the African sounds. That is the beauty of
it.” How does Uwaifo classify his music? “Some of my music is Highlife.
All other music whether the Ekasa or Titibiti and, all other ones put
together from the East and West of Nigeria are under the same umbrella
of Highlife. Highlife is the music of Nigeria and West Africa. The
sounds may differ but all these various sounds put together come under
Highlife!”