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IT WAS THE SEVENTH EDItion of the Benson
& Hedges Golden Tones concert and from Lagos and adjoining towns came a huge
crowd of music buffs eager to savour the
latest vibes from their favourite artistes. Five hours in advance that
Saturday, December 14, hundreds of people had started finding their way to the
cricket pitch of the Tafawa Balewa Square, venue of the concert ingeniously
tagged
"Loud in Lagos." By the 9.00 p.m. kick-off time, the venue had
become jam packed, with hardly
"a space to put your legs," as one journalist later said in reference to the heavy crowd at the concert.
On parade that night was the cream of Nigeria's pop, Afro beat, highlife and
other indigenous music genres. Apart from Sani Dan Indo and his
Kuntuji music group from Kano, the artistes on show were all from Lagos. The
roll call: Kola Ogunkoya, the Gbedu Master who, unfortunately, was subdued by
the overwhelming crowd in his first major concert experience, Charly Boy, Ras
Kimono, Bright Chimezie alias Okoro Junior and, of
course, Kings Sunny Ade, KSA, and Wasiu Ayinde Marshal, KWAM 1,
The organisers were well prepared for the surging crowd. Aware that a
satisfactory glance on the expansive stage from all corners of the pitch would
be impossible, they brought a large screen video truck, the first of its type
in concert experience in Nigeria. By 5.00 a.m. on Sunday when
KWAM 1, the last act for the show, mounted the dais, thousands of people were
still on their feet, dancing away - an eloquent testimony to how much they had
enjoyed the night.
Regrettably, however, the story that was the story of
"Loud in Lagos" is not a reflection of the state of showbiz in Nigeria
in 1996. It was a year in which the lull that had been the lot of the industry
since 1995 when the country's political and economic problems of the previous
two years virtually knocked the entertainment world cold. The first hope for a
reawakening came in February with a change in the leadership of the
Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria. But somehow, Lady of songs
Christy Essien-Igbokwe, who beat Mike Okri and Skid Ikemefuna, now a new-wave
gospel singer, to become the association's first woman president failed to keep
her promise to resurrect the Nigeria Music Awards,
once the reference point in the entertainment industry.
As if labouring under a curse, a greater number of musicians ended up with
unsuccessful releases instead of the desperately wanted hits. Charly Boy
released Reality but soon found out that how well an album does in the
market is not determined by how many eminent personalities that attend its
launch. Both Mike Okri and Stella Monye went into the studio and came out with
works which hardly enjoyed air play. For Sola Idowu, a weird rap act who had
to change the title of her maiden effort from
an unimaginative Allen Avenue to Simply Weird, it was an experiment in failure.
It was also the year when
"prophet seeker" Peterside Ottong, attempted to stage a come-back after yards in the wilderness
but hit had rock with Albatross, an album in memory of slain
Ogoni folk hero Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Unsmitten by the bug of failure were the gospel musicians. Sonny Okosuns and
Timi Osikoya aka Telemi created waves. Fifteen of the gospel artistes,
including Ebenezer Obey, erstwhile juju star, were to come together in the
course of the year to record
Final Race in memory of Demos Deniran, an elder in their clan who passed away
in 1995.
However-from the valley, the music industry started its way up about mid-year
with the sentry of Lagbaja, the anonymous hornsman. THe masterstroke of the
masked afro beat singer was Coolu Temper, his
second effort on vinyl, which became an instant hit. The greatest strength of
Lagbaja's music is its eclectic nature, borrowing substantially from jazz
calypso and other deeply African traditional ensemble such as fuji (as in
KWAM's Baby Mi Show colour Re), juju and other Afro beats.
Lagbaja is also an acclaimed master at remixing popular tracks of established
musicians.
From July when he came on the scene, the Fine Arts graduate lit up everywhere,
literally jumping from one concert to another, with the gates going as high up
as N2,500 in one instance. Significantly, the masked
thriller raised the stakes and brought concert back from the abyss into which
it had apparently sunk. And talking of concerts, Water Parks in Ikeja, Lagos,
was perhaps the busiest venue in the Country. It hosted an average of two
concerts per month, among them the Unity Concert of Essien-Igbokwe which
took place shortly after she assumed duties as PMAM president. The greatest of
the shows came September 30 when Afro music legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti started
alongside, Femi, his son, in the triumpt of
"the father, the son and spiritual sax."
KSA also turned 50 during the year, celebrating the
landmark even with a carnival of sorts. For a whole week, the entertainment
world in Lagos stood up for the juju maestro who incidentally was marking his
30th anniversary on stage. KSA would seem to have enough reason to mark his
anniversaries with pomp. Some of his more elderly
colleagues went with the year. I.K. Dairo, knighted by the British colonial
government for his contribution to entertainment in pre-independent Nigeria,
took his bow. His conqueror: diabetes, which fastened its grip on him shortly
on his return from the United States where he taught African traditional music.
Another oldie
who went the way of the elders was E.T. Mensah, the
"son of the amateur guitarist" who turned an accomplished trumpeter and saxophonist. His death in his native
country, Ghana, provided an opportunity for nostalgic feelings in the highlife
community in Nigeria.
One segment of the entertainment industry which did
not witness one dull moment was home video. All over the land, producers
sweated on locations and at the end of the day churned out all manner of works,
some of them classics. Tunde Kelani, the magic hands behind Mainframe
Productions, Bayowa Films International, Kenneth
Nnebue, Amaka, Igwe, Okey Ogujiofor, Fidelis Duker, Zeb and Chico Ejiro were
some of those who made the home video market tick all year. Some of their
popular works include Violated, Glamour Girls Part 2, Tears for Love, Koseegbe,
and The Brotherhood of Darkness.
While
artists, especially painters and sculptors, remained in the news for much of
the year - thanks to corporate sponsors who ensured the staging of a long chain
of exhibitions - the book industry had a less memorable time. For the later,
the most exciting moments came in November when master
story teller Festus Iyayi won recognition as the most outstanding author of the
year. For displaying
"artistic growth beyond the levels of his previous experience," Iyayi with his Awaiting Court Martial, a collection of stories, won two of the
most coveted awards. First, he clinched the $1,000 (about N80, 000)
Christopher Okigbo Prize for All-African Writing at the 16th annual convention of the Association
of Nigerian Authors held at Kaduna from November 7-9. Another moment of glory
came December 5 when he bagged the first ever Nigerian Author of the Year Award
with a cash prize of
N50,000.
Another major literary development was the publication of Breaking The Silence,
which
"presents for the first time in the more than a century history of creative
writing in Nigeria, a choice selection of short stories by Nigerian women
writers." Edited by Toyin Adewale-Nduka and
Omowunmi Segun for The Women Writers of Nigeria, the 143-page book tumbled out
of the press few weeks ago. It has the potential to take the country by storm
if properly promoted and marketed.
Reviewed by Taye Ige in TheWeek, January 6, 1997.
