EDAOTO AND THE AFROGENIUS BAND PERFORMING

ROCKIN-ON WITH EDAOTO

Use your favorite EDAOTO's song as callertune on MTN network!!! Text the codes below to 4100;
711416 = Feni Foro
711417 = Blackman

711418 = Stand Up
711419 = Had I?
711420 = Maromikiri
711421 = MSS
711422 = Push On
711423 = Somi Edumare

ETISALAT

BLACKMAN
EDAOTO 
7052426 

FENI FORO
EDAOTO
7052427
 
HAD I
EDAOTO
7052428
 
KAJOWAPO
EDAOTO
7052429
 
MAROMIKIRI
EDAOTO
7052430
 
SOMI EDUMARE
EDAOTO
7052431
 
STAND UP
EDAOTO
7052432
Download Instruction: Send the tune code to 251, e.g to download STAND UP by EDAOTO, send "download7052432" as a text message to 251.

Kindly find below your codes on Airtel

AIRTEL

	0285680	BLACKMAN	EDATO
	0285681	FENI FORO	EDATO
	0285682	HAD I	EDATO
	0285683	KAJOWAPO	EDATO
	0285684	MAROMIKIRI	EDATO
	0285685	SOMI EDUMARE	EDATO
	0285686	STAND UP	EDATO
Download Instruction: To subscribe on Airtel Send your choice tune code preceded by the prefix Buy to 791 e.g to download STAND UP intro send Buy 0285686 as a text message to 791. PLEASE NOTE THE SPACE BETWEEN BUY AND THE CODE

A personal perspective
On CriticallyspeaKing
by Ajayidami

Edaoto is a Yoruba noun that loosely translates to weird one, different kind or simply maverick. This is what Mr Agbeniyi is, he lays no claim to not being an outlier in the world of dread-locking wearing, guitar-wielding musicians. He has carefully cleared his path as a musician, carrying his influences around like the graffiti on his guitar with style, stark aplomb and effortless charisma.
Before he waxed a studio album, he had been gracing stages with his different kind of Afrobeat. His is an alloy of the big band orchestra laced with chirping of Yoruba folklore.

 His recipe is such that it seems Yoruba folklore was not initially part of the Afrobeat potpourri; he blends his seamlessly and makes it the rally point of his music. His music is sometimes conscious, often times rebellious, but at all times delightful. He has successfully stamped his insignia into his sound such that it is an abiding signature; perhaps this is why I find it needless for him to begin his album with a skit introducing himself as Edaoto—we knew that already!
The ingenious mature Afrobeat sound of Stand Up is next up; a wake up call for collaboration to fight the draconian arrangement that stifles our existence.

Afrobeat is successful when good music blends seamlessly with the message of rebellion, upheaval and a stirring of our collective social conscience. Edaoto and The Afrogenius Band achieves this most of the time.
The soft mushy issue of love is quite unusual in Afrobeat except one wants to use Lagbaja as a standard. Edaoto often writes love songs; might I just comment on his rather loose song-writing here which is reminiscent of Fela’s lyrical content—improvisation is the dominant language, but Edaoto typifies himself by deploring Yoruba as his lingua franca, that desire and assertion of an ethnic identity is rife in Edaoto’s consciousness. That said, Kajowapo is perhaps his most successful love song and the most unusual Afrobeat love song.
If rebellion and love are the first two tiers of Edaoto’s musical wardrobe, the last tier will be that of social advocacy. His music boils with societal issues and he finds an avenue in his lyrics to point out the salvation way like a moral compass. Listening to songs like Feni Foro and Maromikiri, one comes away with life lessons.
Edaoto’s music is a different and tasteful kind of Afrobeat that will travel beyond the scope of his expectation.

Edaoto in Ethiopia III

Edaoto in Ethiopia II

Edaoto in Ethiopia

EDAOTO's Blackman @ Felabration 2013

EDAOTO's kajowapo @ Felabration 2013

EDAOTO's Stand Up @ Felabration 2013

Edaoto in Kajowapo

Edaoto @ the world music day. 2013

Somi Edumare by EDAOTO

Edaoto

Critically speaking, Black is still Beautiful
–Lekan Balogun–

CriticallyspeaKing Album Cover photo by Aderemi Adegbite

Black people have come a long way—through the murky terrain of the ignominious trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, to ‘myths’ and stereotypical images, which denigrated their humanity. But, that ‘black’ spirit has not been broken. With artistic ingenuity, they transformed abuse into creativity, imitation into invention, signifying abuse into firm and acceptable worthy identity. From syncretism of faith, wherein Orisha seizes upon the Catholic strictures and subsumes Western denigrating faith into a worthy identity through Lucumi, Candombles, Santeria etc, to the dramatic arena — Black Theatre — that draws heavily from indigenous forms and cultural traditions, articulating people’s needs and aspirations, that are not only magical but also constructive, to music such as Blues, Reggae and Calypso, Black people continue to demonstrate the sheer magic of resilience for which they are “notoriously” famed.

Edaoto in his natural habitation on a Sunday morning

The roll call is a long one. Blacks, who defied odds, at least from the artistic perspective and set worthy examples and in whose footsteps Edaoto is passionately and vigorously following—such tradition of commitment to culture and time-hallowed tradition. Clarence Muse provides a vivid example. He notes the Black American playwrights’ doggedness, and the determination and the sheer astuteness of the Black Self in asserting its presence on the American White dominated stage. He writes that “our aim was (is) to give vent to our talent and to prove to everybody who was willing to look, to watch, to listen, that we were as good at drama as anybody else had been or could be. The door was opened a thin bit to us and, as always, the black man, when faced with an open door, no matter how small the wedge might be, eased in”. Shange also clearly exposes the American stage as an agent of colonialism by challenging—actually manipulating the minstrelsy in favour of Black consciousness and personality. By putting on black faces for a musical show, Whites conceal the fact of dramatizing their own anxieties, rather foisting that sense; naked sense even, of their inferiority on Blacks, writes Cronacher. But, with spell #7,Shange’s theatrical militancy or what Tejumola Olaniyan describes as “combat aesthetics” is re-energized and refocused as she has done earlier in for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, engaging the racial and gender questions as they affect African-Americans, whether male or female and, through the play, dislodges the complex historical effects of differences and White racist constructions of the Black people. Such commitment is the hallmark of Harlem writers, poets and musicians—some kind of black theatre, literature and music that Imamu Amiri Baraka insists should be acts of liberation.

Edaoto in his abode on a Sunday morning

Recently the truth of that statement was re-echoed at the Alliance Francaise (French Cultural Centre), Yaba, Lagos amidst sweat and excitement, aesthetic fervor and sated satisfaction expressed by the guests gathered at the launch of “CriticallyspeaKing”, Edaoto’s nine tracks offering of music and African philosophy. The young and dynamic, highly gifted artiste continues to play that role serving as the “conscience” of the society’s cultural mind, breaking the barriers of culture and norms created by the huge and imposing presence of foreign values promoted by the dual machinery of Western education and religion. Much reminiscent of veteran performers like Hugh Masekela, the South African duo of Mariam Makeba and Brenda Fassie of blessed memory and of course Femi Kuti, the young Edaoto and his Afrogenius Band express a deep sense of what it means to be Black and at the same time to be creatively effervescent, despite stifling condition of living created by the antagonistic classes in the country who, rather than see to the welfare of the populace, engage in political meanderings and permutations.

Edaoto in his residence on a Sunday morning

From the political engagement of ‘Stand Up’, which passes scathing remarks at the seeming lethargy of freedom fighters and, the docility of the masses towards sociopolitical situation of the society calling instead for collective action against oppressive state machinery, which perpetuates corruption and disregard for the dignity and survival of the common populace; to ‘Kajowapo’ wherein the love of a woman is metaphorically played out and translated, given more engaging purpose in ‘Had I?’, as love of country, of root and race stemming from belief in oneself and the past of one’s ancestry; to the call and response of ‘Maromikiri’, infused with scintillating guitar, saxophone and rattle percussion, which is no less deeply philosophical as ‘Aye O f’eni f’oro’ that takes one through a mystical journey into the soul, the nature of man and familiar yet strangely slippery terrain of human relationship mired by deceit, treachery and disappointment, calling instead for thoughtfulness and counsel derived mainly from the power and spirit within. Ritual thought sourced from myth mixes freely with aesthetic vibrancy of folk tradition that recalls the skill and artistry of Tunji Oyelana, Jimi Solanke, Orlando Julius Ekemode and Akeeb Kareem, the Blackman’s signature virtuoso performances; ‘Somi Edumare’ foregrounds the indispensability of the Divine in human affairs, through invocation which ordinarily translates into a renewal of some sort, a connection with the cosmos and essence of being through prayers while ‘Blackman’ advocates racial identity and can best be summed up in Tejumola Olaniyan’s description of such as a worthy attempt at “race retrieval” and “cultural self-apprehension”, concluding an energetic philosophical offering.

Edaoto in his dwelling on a Sunday morning

Listening to “Criticallyspeaking”, one could argue that the Black spirit and Black Revolution have been given a boost, albeit, by an expression of commitment by a young artiste whose society today is riddled with imbalance and loss of value. As Ron Karenga notes, “For all art that does not contribute to and support the Black Revolution is invalid, no matter how many lines and spaces are produced in proportion and symmetry and no matter how many sounds are boxed in and blown out and called music”. Lawrence Agbeniyi is a metaphor, and, as Edaoto—the Unique Being—he transforms wearing the toga of the traditional griot, the travelling minstrel who embodies the vitality of the oral art form, and at the same time, the garb of the intellectual in whose hands music becomes the ideal veritable tool to engage in a soul-searching, a quest for the collective to embrace the necessity and the naturalness of the Black humanity, whose true essence has remained intact, untainted, in spite of many years of abuse, denigration and, in some cases, self-delusion.

Edaoto…gazes across the horizon

Works Cited
Coleman, Michael. “What is Black Theater? Interview with Imamu Amiri Baraka”, Black World, 20,
1971,p 338.
Cronacher, Karen. “Unmasking the Minstrel Mask’s Black Magic in Ntozake Shange’s spell #7’, in Feminist Theatre and Theory. Kayssar, Helene,(Ed) London: Macmillan Press Limited, 1996.
Karenga, Ron “Black Cultural Nationalism”, in The Black Aesthetics, Addison Gayle (Ed). New York: Doubleday: Anchor,1972, p31
Muse, Clarence. In Sampson, Henry T. Ghost Walks: A Chronological History of Blacks in Show
Business, 1865–1910. Scarecrow Press, Incorporated, 1988.
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.
Toll, Robert C. Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth Century America. New York: Oxford UP, 1974.
Wintz,D Cary. Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. Houston: Rice University Press, 1988.

06 Feni foro 1

06 Feni foro 1

Edaoto à l'Alliance Française unplugged