Thursday 10 December 2015

NIGERIAN MUSIC, AJEGUNLE HAS PLAYED A PART.



Music is in our everyday expressions and experiences. We make music, play it, listen to it, dance to it and appreciate it. No matter whom you are or where you are or what you do, music is in your life. It is all around you, in your house, your place of work, your place of worship, your social gathering and in fact, everywhere.
Can anyone imagine our world without music? Impossible. Music is indeed a "universal language" which we all speak and understand, no matter in what racial, ethnic, linguistic or classified vehicle it is conveyed. Once you hear good music, it moves you; it touches you and it transforms you, unless you are not a living member of the human society. Music has always been part and parcel of Africa, right from our traditional folklores, songs, dances, festivals, initiations to socialisations.
The power of music to act therapeutically has also long been recognised. Music can be effective in conjunction with other interventions in promoting relaxation, alleviating anxiety and pain and promoting well-being through the production of particular endorphins. It has also been used to promote appropriate behavior in vulnerable groups and enhance the quality of life of those who cannot be helped medically.
No wonder, we have all heard of a music reggae-style hit called "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye, that American soul music legend. The development of recording techniques in the latter half of the 20th century has revolutionised the extent to which most people have access to music today.
Indeed, there is a crucial need for more systematic investigation of the ways that music can impact on groups of people in social and cultural settings in a given society. This is where African popular music bears a striking relevance in intellectual investigation. And this is an important area of music study which Trends in African Popular Music: Socio-Cultural Interactions and the Reggae Genre in Nigeria by Ikenna Onwuegbuna has come to help address. The author is not only a foremost music teacher at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, he is also a practising Afro pop musician.
His new book then is not just a paedagogic adventure but an authoritative and passionate exploration of the dynamics of African popular music with specific emphasis on the Nigerian Reggae genre. Published in 2015 and coming in both soft cover and e-book format, the new book has a total of 150 pages of enlightening insights and illustrative examples, well structured into six chapters.
The author takes on preliminary issues as Our Aspiration, Problematizing the Issues, Justifying the Rationale and the Implication.

Essentially, the writer explains the overall imperative for his rigorous exploration of African pop music in the context of Nigerian Reggae in the face of scarcity of similar literature. Other issues of discourse by the author are SOCIO-CULTURAL INTERACTIONS, which explore Socio-musical Events Functional Popular Music and Nigerian Reggae Music. DEFINING POPULAR MUSIC forms are the fulcrum the author discusses in details from Definitions According to Specifics, Stylistic Definition,
Sociological Definition, Process-based Definition, Theory-based Definition, African Popular Music, Ethnic Pop, Interethnic Pop and International Pop. The reader is also effectively taken down a historical journey with respect to THE REGGAE GENRE, showing us History and Etymology of Reggae, Growth and Spread of the Genre, Development of Various Sub-Genres, Modern Trends in Reggae Music, and Nature and Features of Reggae.
Interestingly THE NIGERIAN REGGAE SCENE comes alive before our very eyes as we grasp The Period between 1960 and 1980, The Period between 1980 and 2000, Nigerian Reggae in the Present Millennium and of course, A Brief on Sonny Okosuns-the Pioneer Exponent. His detailed discussion of the evolution of reggae in Nigeria is particularly enlightening. This is because the evolution actually turned into a revolution as the new exponents of reggae came on the scene with diverse hits after the pioneering Sonny Okosuns' voice faded with his 1979 release of No More Wars which did not contain a single reggae tune.
The revolution of reggae then started in full swing in the 1980s with popular hits like Tera Kota's Lamentations for Sodom, Mandators' Crisis, Evi-Edna Ogholi's My Kind of Music, Fashek Majek's Prisoner of Conscience, Ras Kimono's Under Pressure and Orits Wiliki's Tribulation. During the same period, several other reggae artistes emerged from various parts of the country, releasing pure reggae albums. Yet, there were also other musicians who did not release pure reggae songs but gave impetus to the revolution with one or two reggae tracks in their albums. Such cross-over artistes include Christy Essien-Igbokwe with Time Waits for No One, Onyeka Onwenu with Tide is High, Oby Onyioha's Raid Dem Jah and Mike Okri's Let Your Love Show, among others.
By the end of the 20th century, according to the author, "Afro-reggae had solidified so much that in an interview with the BBC World Service in 1999, David Hines, the lead singer of Steel Pulse and an authority in reggae, told the world to look to Africa for authenticity in the art; and he went ahead to name
Majek Fashek of Nigeria, Alpha Blondy of Côte d'Ivoire (both in West Africa), and Lucky Dube of South Africa as ideal exponents." However, by the 1990s, the Nigerian reggae scene started witnessing more dancehall entrants like Baba Fryo's Denge Pose which heralded other popular Ajegunle-Lagos bred musical stars like Daddy Fresh and Daddy Showkey. Even though these new dancehall reggae artistes released their works in the late '90s, it was in new millennium 2000 that their influence bloomed across Nigeria.
Today, general music production in the country has gone digital and contemporary artistes rely heavily on digital manipulation of their voices and beats unlike what obtained in the time of Sonny Okosuns. It is no surprise then that those who today could be called the reggae musicians of the 21st Century are not really pure reggae exponents but crossover artistes from Afro-hip hop. Thus reggae has in one way or the other influenced a majority of recent and today's popular young Nigerian musicians like Tuface, Faze, P-Square, D-banj, African China, Marvelous Benji, Sound Sultan, Felix Duke, Nigga Raw, Timaya, Terry G, Duncan Mighty, Iyanya, Flavour, Omawumi, Patorankin, Cynthia Morgan, Tiwa Savage, Davido, WizKid, Olamide and many others, all with dancehall hits.
The author takes us by the hand to the time of perceptive REFLECTIONS on Approaches to Pop Music Analysis, Musical Approach, Socio-Cultural Approach, Ideological Approach, Historical Approach, Problems of Popular Music Studies, Suggested Solutions to the Problems, Recommendations and Prospects and Summary and Conclusion.
Figuratively, Onwuegbuna also provides us with graphic representations of a basic reggae rhythm-emphasising the "one drop" pattern, a representative score of Sonny Okosuns' HELP album, representative score of Majek Fashek's SEND DOWN THE RAIN hit song, as well as a representative score of Evi-Edna Ogholi's ONE KILOMETRE album.
According to Dr. Michael Bitz in his Foreword to the book, the author's work is especially fundamental because he combines a practising musician's understanding of music with a musicologist's perspective on how music influences our society and vice versa. "This combination is rare, and this book demonstrates the depth of his knowledge and the scope of his research. Ikenna Onwuegbuna focuses on popular music, since this represents the voice of the people. Traditional songs may be important for cultural heritage, and classical music can be very powerful
in terms of sonority and compositional sophistry. But it is popular music that most people turn to as a representation of self-identity. Onwuegbuna's unique investigation into Nigerian popular music helps us understand the role of these songs in Nigerian culture including its origins, developments, and future trends. Because this book includes both textual analysis and musical transcriptions, it provides us with a fresh perspective on the importance of music in life and society."


Interestingly, this reviewer can still recollect fond memories of events which are believed to have prepared the author for his present level of scholarship in music. In the mid 70s, Dr. Onwuegbuna as a school pupil was already a celebrity among us his peers. He was admired and seen as an icon of success in school.
Two mentors that influenced Onwuegbuna's foray into music happen to share ancestral linage with this writer. They are Teacher Inyama - the popular band master of Abakaliki days - and Rev. (Prof.) Kanu Achinivu. But perhaps the unsung heroes then that influenced him were Super 5 International Band and Chike Rogers , as both were musical bands that hit the national scene from Abakaliki. So, by reading through Onwuegbuna's new critical book today, this reviewer is reconnecting to his first music class in 1978 taught by Sir M. M. Okoye at Nnodo.
There is no doubt that Trends in African Popular Music is coming at an opportune time in the evolution of music in Africa, and especially Nigeria. As we all listen to African pop music everyday and enjoy its resonant expressions in diverse forms, especially reggae, one hopes all interested stakeholders in music can appreciate their musical experiences beyond mere entertainment.
Today, pure Nigerian reggae is not as upbeat as it was some years ago because its practitioners have been overtaken by new exponents of Afro pop music who have been releasing one dancehall hit after another and winning awards and acclaim across Africa and the world. However, there is hope for the revival of Nigerian reggae as Fashek Majek, one of the early exponents, is now making a comeback after years of lull and oblivion. Hopefully, Ikenna Onwuegbuna's new book too can help revive the spirit of Nigerian reggae and restore it to its pride of place in our everyday musical experience while also generally enhancing scholarship in musicology in Africa and the world.
Without mincing words, Trends in African Popular Music comes highly recommended as a veritable book that would help all music lovers, practitioners, students and the general society appreciate the peculiarity of African popular music and its trends. His epochal work will profoundly influence the next generation of musicians and music scholars in Nigeria and boost the availability of relevant literature on the subject in Africa.

-Onwumere writes from Lagos.

1 comment:

Subscribe

Labels

Flickr