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Tuesday, October 9, 2012
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EMUfest
at OAU in 2010 performing with Beautiful Nubia,Yinka Davies and the legendary Orlando Julius-Ekemode,@ EMUfest 2010.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Between Cultural Ethos/Consciousness and Revolutionary Aesthetics: the Music of EDAOTO.
Music, besides power, is intoxication
- Sufi Inayat Khan -
 | |
| Edaoto in a documentary film - "Ghettoration" by Aderemi Adegbite |
He may not come in the mould of a Mozart. He may not also possess the western touch of a Beethoven, or the dexterity of performance like a Michael Jackson. Even
a Barry White or Steve Wonder, may just be out of comparison with his
own brand of music, yet, what is certain, without any doubt, is that he
has the energy to hold an audience spellbound, the vocal vitality to
create a lasting impression on whoever encounters his music either in
recorded form or while he is in performance, as well as the
appearance-most important of all-to symbolize two distinct elements,
which will readily stand him out from a crowd so much that one will want
to ask “who really is this guy?”.
For
some of us who grew up with him and know him so well, albeit to a great
extent, music is simply an avenue to fulfill what in biblical parlance
can be called “a calling’, knowing the kind of person he is, the energy
with which he argues his point, the esteem and passion with which he
holds his religious faith and zeal with which he wants to learn and
acquire knowledge. Art, music, in this sense,
becomes some sort of a “devotional imperative” for a soul yearning to
understand his society, his real purpose on this planet earth, and,
quite predictably too, what he is meant to contribute towards the
advancement of that society, first as an individual in the cosmos and
second as an embodiment of the creative essence of his Creator.
Art,
as seen by Zulu Sofola, is “a creative experience which is the only
human experience that is nearest to God because it is in that experience
that man shares very clearly in the most enduring and significant
attribute of the Supreme Deity”, because, it “emanates from the soul of
man, the centre of his being in which resides his divine quality as the
zenith of creation”, and ultimately as “the medium through which the
soul of man reaches out beyond itself to transform and make intelligible
the prodding within the inner recesses for the ultimate Truth, the
meaning of existence, man’s place in the cosmos, his relationship to the
Supreme Creator and to his fellow creatures, and finally the ultimate
end of man”(2)
Edaoto
readily cuts the picture of a reggae artiste, judging from his
appearance, especially his dreadlock hairstyle, synonymous with the
Rastafarian movement. However, that is where it all ends. The
lyrics of his compositions, ranging from folk tradition, to myth and
vintage Afrobeats provide a basis to examine his brand of music from
perspectives, chief among which is the fact that he embodies the
totality of the attributes of the African oral performer. Song rendition
apart, the compositions in themselves encapsulate the energy that a
writer would want to channel into his creative material, especially in
the arrangement of the idea into the sequence of plot and
characterization towards the realization of a set out objective,
otherwise known as the thematic thrust.
Central
in this regard are the oral artistes – griots, bards, minstrels, ewi
chanters and story tellers who-often engaged in their art-utilized the
medium of the spoken word. To Akporobaro, “the
artist who performs in the medium of the spoken word is engaged in the
same creative process as the modern writer who creates through the
written words”, because in several ways than one, “while engaged in the
process of storytelling as in the folktale or legend or in the evocation
of imagery when reciting poems or creating rhythm and melody in his
lyrical self expression, he shares with the modern writer the same
element of creativity and language manipulation”.(3)
Edaoto’s
kind of music, for its simplicity in terms of composition,
effectiveness in his impact and delivery, the affinity towards the
sublime often, despite the instrumentation and the blend of percussion,
use of western instrumentation such as the guitar, drum set, trumpet and
saxophone- components which help to achieve the heavy beats synonymous
with the Afrobeats style-something striking is still very much
discernable, mainly, the creativity with many dimensions, which he
shares with the oral artist including, among others “the imaginative
communication of experience, the communication of ideas of significant
human value and the heightened organization of the resources of language
towards the achievement of aesthetic effects”.(4)
 |
| Edaoto at Lagos Life Series 16, Photo by Aderemi Adegbite |
A
very striking influence on his composition is his Ifa faith, which
underlines his cultural outlook to life and his environment. Ifa,
as the storehouse of esoteric wisdom and knowledge embodies a careful
and highly developed process of human intellectual development properly
located in the Yoruba consciousness and serving as the cornerstone of
the faith in the divine. This form of knowledge, theosophy, as it is
known is a systematic formulation of the facts of visible and invisible
nature which, as expressed through the illuminated human mind -Babalawo /
diviner- takes the apparently separate forms of science, philosophy and
religion, and, it is not just philosophical (but also) a religious
system based on intuitive knowledge of the living (because) most of the
utterances are either prosaic poetry or poetic prose or both interwoven
in the Ifa corpus.(Ajikobi,9)
As
a devotee of Ifa and one, who is versed in such spiritual process of
awakening, he perceives the world in the light of the interplay of the
forces and elements, with emphasis on the place of the individual in the
vast universe, the knowledge of which he can never fully fathom. This
in itself underscores his deep understanding of the fact that “for the
African and his Afro-Caribbean progeny, religion is the essence of life”
(Ojo-Ade,48) and that “religion in essence is the means by which God as
Spirit and man’s essential self communicate”(Idowu,75). With music, he
somewhat re-choes Nketia’s submission that in many parts of Africa, the
general pattern of musical organization emphasizes the integration of
music with other social and political actions, as well as with those
other activities through which Africans express or consolidate their
interpersonal relationship, beliefs and attitude to life, knowing that
such occasions for public musical performances range from purely
recreational, ceremonial and social attempt to the religious (24).
His
song, ‘Aiye o fe ni f’oro’ inspired by a highly dialectic Ifa verse
probes into such esoteric wisdom while, at the same time cautions
against trusting any human being, knowing that man, by his very nature,
is unpredictable, prone to evil thought and actions as well as deceit.
Unlike the Christian Bible which has greatly maligned the belief in
traditional African deities like the Eshu for instance-this much is
discussed by Funso Aiyejina in a seminar paper at the Centre for Black
and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC) annual Black History Month
lecture - which foresees a world of perfect harmony among plants,
animals and their younger ones alongside their arrogant and ruthless
neighbour man, Ifa calls for rich sense and caution in the dealings by
man with his fellow man. Yet, he also understands, and, underscores this
even as he cautions against reposing absolute trust in any human being
that man’s experiences on earth, as well as material objects, have
meaning only in relationship to elements of the other world-the world of
Olorun, the Supreme Deity, and the Orisha, the deities-Eshu, Ifa,
Obatala, Oduduwa, Yemoja,Sango, Ogun etc(48) This is why in the
composition ‘Aye o f’eni f’oro’, these Orisha are ‘present’ as metaphors
for the powers and even mortal replicas of the human race.
Knowing the kind of world in which we live and the evil which lurks at the very centre of man’s heart as the Eleri ipin(witness
of fate at creation), Ifa admonishes wisdom as deciphered from Edaoto’s
composition, ‘Aiye o f’eni f’oro’, contrary to a section of the 11th
chapter of the book of Isaiah in which “the wolf will dwell with the
lamb, the leopard will play with the young goat, the calf and the young
lion will falt together, the cow and the bear will graze on the same
site, playing hide and seek together, the cobra and the nursing child
will exchange friendly winks, the lion, like the oz, will feed on straw
and a little child will lead and minister to them all”. Such a world is merely an illusion and, like all illusions, can only exist in the imagination.
Edaoto’s
delve into the repository of Ifa and bringing out of the song – it is
more of an anthem in literary gatherings, such as WORDSLAM, Poetry
Potter, CORA Stampede, the annual Ife Poetry Festival and Savannah Bar, a
popular joint on Iwaya road, Onike, where he regularly performs – is a
demonstration of an artist’s awareness and utilization of the cultural
ideology of his people, even today in a world already taken over by
foreign music genres and entertainment values. He
echoes Khan’s opinion that “music is the most sacred of all art”(3) and
the understanding that there is an African identity encapsulated in the
same African world existence in which there are well defined ideas of
nature, human life, existence, social relations, even as much as they
affect man; and, this in turn being the basis for defining and
interpreting cosmic and other ecological phenomena because, man in the
African world is never conceptualized as an individual per se but
essentially as a part of the collectivity in spite of his unique and
characteristic idiosyncrasies (Onwuachi, 16).
Culture,
the very dynamic structure for the better understanding of nations and
man also becomes a veritable tool for what Olaniyan calls “race
retrieval and cultural apprehension” with a song like “Osaa mo, pe
Yoruba ni mi” etc. Music turns into a tool to join the call for cultural
revival and more specifically, the Black African movement. Though
subtle in approach, yet the message is loud and apt: there is the
urgent need for all peoples’ of Black descent to retrace their steps,
embrace their ‘forsaken’ old tradition starting with the names that they
bear. Little wonder that Edaoto has adopted this stage name, throwing
into the trash bin and refuse dump of history his Christian/Anglo-Saxon
name at birth–Lawrence. Thus, Lawrence Agbeniyi becomes Edaoto, taking a
cue from the very famous Black writer cum activist, Le Roi Jones, who
threw away the colonial name for Imamu Amiri Baraka, because “our names
tell stories/ our place get histories / Omo to so’le nu/ o s’apo iya
ko”- that is, the child who scorns his heritage sets the stage for
future disgrace and lament.
 |
| Edaoto at Lagos Life Series 17, Photo by Aderemi Adegbite |
The
Black consciousness movement which swept through the whole of the
continents where Black peoples are domiciled, starting in America from
the beginning of the 20th century-movement which became fully matured resulting in the famous Harlem renaissance of the 1930s, music
such as the blues and Negro spiritual was a significant component of
the struggle. Together with the activities of African-American civil
rights activists, who employed artists and writers of their culture to
work for the goals of civil rights and equality, groups such as the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
founded in 1909, came into being to promote civil rights and fight
African-American disenfranchisement, the Universal Negro Improvement
Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), by the
Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey, who advocated the reuniting of all people
of African ancestry into one community with one absolute government and
the National Urban League (NUL) founded by Ruth Standish Baldwin and Dr.
George Edmund Haynes, with the purpose of counseling black migrants
from the South, training of black social workers, and working to give
educational and employment opportunities to blacks, among other goals.
As
such, Jazz music, African-American fine art, and black literature were
all absorbed into mainstream culture, bringing attention to a previously
disenfranchised segment of the American population while intellectuals
like W.E.B Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey,
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jnr, in America including poets like
Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay and musician like
Bessie Smith, as well as their Caribbean counterparts like the St.
Lucian playwright, Derek Walcott and his Martinique compatriot Aime
Cesaire and others strive to negotiate a better and respectable
personality for Africans against denigration from their white
counterparts through their poems and theatre. That same call was and
still is a renewed call for the embrace of and value for our being. It
is a call to abandon any form of colonial and neo-colonial apparatus
and way of life which are eroding our heritage in whatever form they
are.
This,
in itself is definitely political, especially in the instance that the
call is implicated in the destiny and future of the people. While
addressing an audience of French students in 1967 on why he has decided
to utilize the possibilities of theatre in the advancement of the
revolutionary and political agenda of the Negritude movement he founded
with Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal and the Guyanese Leon-Gontran
Damas , Aime Cesaire evokes historical, political and technical
imperatives, much as Edaoto would want to do now, seeing how terribly
eroded our African values are, particularly in the aspects of music and
its promotion of lewd, utterly provoking and culturally empty lyrics and
foreign idiosyncrasies. Cesaire declares that “politics is the modern
form of destiny; today, history is lived politics. Theatre (music in
this sense as Edaoto’s ‘art’ is concerned) evokes the invention of the
future. It is, especially in Africa, an essential means of
communication. It must, accordingly, be directly comprehensible by the
people”(239-40)
Edaoto
has hearkened to the call, being stung by that bee of memory, which
always hums the music of “never forget” because of his belief that “the
artist must be a teacher helping his society to regain his belief in
itself”(Achebe), because the artist in the traditional African society
is strategically placed in a vintage position to function “as the record
of the mores and experiences of his time” (Soyinka) and helping his
society to “put away the complexes of the years of denigration and
self-abasement”(8).
 |
| The Afrogenius Band members at World Music Day 2011, Photo by Aderemi Adegbite |
Edaoto
understands that the true African is aware that station in life is not
primary, rather, it is the degree of divine presence in the individual
that matters (13). Music has always been an elegant art, a time-tested
art, which not only stimulates the ears, but equally propels the soul
and the entirety of being into levels beyond the mundane. In
African past folklore was a source, a very distilled source of wisdom
and connection for the people and their ancestry which provides a vast
tapestry in which is woven in terrifying images and colours, many
actions and incidents that can chill, terrify, depress and, or excite
the human imagination. The Black activists knew
this and so adopted it, the legendary Fela Anikulapo Kuti knew this and
utilized it to the fullest in the challenge of agents of oppression -
government and religious clans alike–it is just a call, a renewal of
faith in the poignant weapon that never fails to reach its target – the
corrupt and diseased mind.
Edaoto,
might have read James for he-through his kind of music- responds to the
literary critic’s submission that in situations as explosive as Africa
today, there can be no creative literature(music inclusive) that is not
in some way political(and) in some way protest, for, even the
writer(musician in this instance) who opts out of the social struggles
of his country and tries to create a private world of arts is saying
something controversial about the responsibility of the artist to (his)
society.(10) He knows this rather too well, judging from the vehemence
of his criticism of the silence and aloofness of fellow African leaders
when America, acting under the auspices of NATO and other agencies of
neocolonialism and oppression invaded, albeit, blatantly the sovereignty
of Libya killing Moammar Gaddafi, much as the Super power invade the
privacy of other less-powerful countries of the world, and his reaction
to Nigeria’s own self-styled successive Messianic leaders, whose every
decisions have been nothing but irrational, chaotic and outright bereft
of sane direction, much to the detriment of the impoverished masses,
some of who are equally gullible.
Little
wonder that at his last monthly show at Savannah Bar, a friend- carried
away by the energy of his performance that was almost virtuoso except
for the back-up and instrumentation, together with the scintillating
rhythm he was dishing out, supported by his AfroGenius Band-quietly
walked up to me and asked, “What do you make of his music?”, and I asked
in return “What do you think?” He only looked at me intently and
whispered, “He is a true son of the soil!”
WORKS CITED
Achebe, Chinua. “The Duty and Involvement of the Africa Writer” in Carley, W and Kilson, M. (ed). The African Reader: Independent Africa. New York: Vintage Books, 1970.
Aiyejina, Funso. Esu Elegbara: A Source of an Alter/Native Theory of African Literature and Criticism. CBAAC Occasional Monograph, No. 15. Lagos: Concept Publication Limited, 2010
Ajikobi, Dimeji. “Oral Tradition in African Literature”, Ed. Sophie Oluwole, The Essentials of African Studies. Book 2.Lagos: Xcel Ventures, 1998
Akporobaro . F. B.O. Introduction to Africa Oral Literature. 3rd Edition Lagos: Princeton Publishing Company, 2006.
Idowu, Bolaji. African Traditional Religion: A Definition. New York: Orbis Books, Maryknoll,1973
James, Louis, “ Protest Tradition”, in Cosmo Pieterse et al (ed) Protest and Conflict in African Literature. London: Heinemann, 1974.
Khan, Sufi Inayat. Music. New Delhi: The Sufi Publishing Company,1962.
Laville, Pierre. “Aime Cesaire et Jean-Marie Serreau: Un acte politique et poetique” in Les Voies de la creation theatrale II, 1970
Ngugi, Wa Thiong ‘O. Homecoming. London: Heinemann, 1972.
Nketia, Kwabena. “Music in African Culture” in FESTAC 77. Publication of the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. London: African Journal Limited, 1997.
Ojo-Ade, Femi.”De origen africano, soy cubano: African Elements in the Literature of Cuba” in Jones, Eldred Durosimi (ed). African Literature Today. Number 9: Africa, America & the Caribbean.New York: African Publishing Company,1978
Olaniyan, Tejumola. Scars of Conquest/Masks of Resistance: The Invention of Cultural Identities in Africa, African-American and Caribbean Drama. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Onwuachi Chike “African Identity and Ideology”, in FESTAC 77. Publication of the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. London: African Journal Limited, 1997.
Sofola, Zulu. The Artist and the Tragedy of a Nation. Ibadan: Caltop Publications Limited. 1994.
Soyinka, Wole. Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture. Ibadan: New Horn and University Press, 1988.
…………………………………………
Lekan
Balogun, award-winning writer and theatre director, is of the
Department of Creative Arts, School of Postgraduate Studies, University
of Lagos, Akoka.
2 comments:
-
Light sakpere. said...
-
This is a whole piece on one person - ''Edaoto.'' Indeed, he is a
representation of ''African Arts and Culture.'' He's still on the rise,
will he ever get there? Of course! With the rate at which he's going
and with God on his side, he definitely will - ase!
-
1 February 2012 10:00
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Akinbo A. A. Cornerstone said...
-
Eda'oto, truly a unique personality with the power of the muse.
-Akinbo A. A. Cornerstone
-
2 February 2012 02:12
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Edaoto shines this December...
EDAOTO AND THE AFROGENIUS BAND SHINES AT GOETHE-INSTITUT 2011 END OF YEAR PARTY
“…Edaoto and the Afrogenius Band…their mastery of Afrobeat dexterities won them applauds from the audience who could not resist their coming down to the dancing floor. Their intermittent applauds at the end of each song by this Afrobeat band was yet a pointer to the general acceptance of the band.”
The Goethe-Institut is widely known as the German government cultural outreach in any country it is located. This is the case in Nigeria, as in other countries where it is found; the platform continues to serve as a meeting point for the different cultures and arts, the world over. Every year when the institut drew up calendar of her yearly programmes one event that remains unchangeable is the End of the Year Party. And 2011 is not an exemption.
This year party was however with a different. It coincidence with the send off party for one of the establishment highly industrious hands- Mr. Sunday , who will be retiring this December ending, after four decades and two years with the establishment. For the staff of Goethe-Institut and the entire culture and arts community in Nigeria, Mr Sunday‘s, is one big fish who will continue to be relevant for as long as he lives.
No wonder that for the institut to loud these two events its choice of venue was Freedom Park, Lagos Island. And different performers entertained the audience at this event. Some of the performers paraded are Foot Print, Crown Troup of Africa, Prince Eji Oyewole and Edaoto and the Afrogenius Band. It was a memorable evening of music, dance and arts’ soiree that was energized by no other performer but Edaoto and the Afrogenius Band. Their mastery of Afrobeat dexterities won them applauds from the audience who could not resist their coming down to the dancing floor. Their intermittent applauds at the end of each song by this Afrobeat band was yet a pointer to the general acceptance of the band.
“It was a memorable evening of music, dance and arts’ soiree that was energized by no other performer but Edaoto and the Afrogenius Band.”
Report by: Ari-Ajia lanre
©December, 2011.
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