Highlife great, Stephen Osita Osadebe recently passed on. What implication will his death have on highlife
Again, we have lost a great man. We have lost one of the very few remnants of this musical form. A few days ago, Orlando Julius came to my place from Ghana and I did not hesitate to tell him that with Osadebe's death it appears we just have only one person left. And that person is Victor Olaiya. I said so because Osadebe was active to his last days. You remember that immediately after the Civil war, a lot of people forgot everything about highlife, but Osadebe kept playing highlife till his last days. And he did a very great thing for highlife.
He left a very great legacy for Nigerian music and Nigerian Highlife in particular, and he took it to all the nooks and crannies of the world Osadebe was a contemporary of E.C. Arinze who, because of old age, is not doing much. Victor Uwaifo is a younger musician. Oliver De coque, with due respect, was one of Osadebe's disciple's because he is a contemporary of Oriental Brothers, Paulison Kalu and the much younger ones. Chris Ajilo is old, but did his best. Of course, there are some older ones like Pa Steve Rhodes, but Rhodes plays more of orchestra now than highlife. That is why I make bold to say that with the demise of Osadebe, we have to be careful because highlife might go into total extinction. Highlife is under threat.
In what way do You think the memory of Osadebe can be preserved?
Not only Osadebe. There have been many of them like Celestine Ukwu, Eddie Okonta, Roy Chicago, Adeolu Akinsanya, Bobby Benson, Inyang Henshaw, Baby Face Paul and others who have gone. Remember Tunde Nightingale, G. O. Araba and Haruna Ishola? The only way to keep their memories is by making their works continuously available, like what Evergreen Musical Company is doing. Otherwise, many people of this generation may never know who Adeolu Akinsanya, Rex Lawson and many of them were. But by reissuing their works in quality compact discs and making it available, we have been able to bring these meaningful and philosophical music nearer to people of all ages. You know the music of today like hip-hop and rap are not our music. But Osadebe brought highlife to a very high level before he died.
In reissuing works of these departed masters, would you say that their families have benefited from the sweat of these icons in terms of royalties?
They are benefiting. And I would want to say that Evergreen Musical Company pays some of the best royalties. However, you must appreciate the fact that pirates are frustrating our job because you can get a useless compact disc for as low as NI00. It doesn't matter if it goes bad after playing it just once. We have paid some beneficiaries, singularly over N I million; some N100, 000 and others N300, 000 and above.
I will not mention names, but I am saying this with all sense of responsibility because many of these beneficiaries are still alive. We know the value of these works and that is why we make them into exclusive packages that nobody can price very low, When you see our package, you will know that it meets international standards. Now, people take our works abroad and when you go to Silverbird's Nu Metro, which is one of the biggest and most respectable shops in Nigeria, you will see our works there. You can't see any useless work there. It doesn't matter if they sell our works twice the price. That is not my business.
What has been your experience with marketing Fela's complete works in a single package?
I want to say that the Fela project is the biggest job we have handled and I will continue to pray and thank the estate of Fela for giving us the rights to the works of this great African music ambassador. We have put all his works in a single, high quality pack. It has 40 compact discs in one pack and this has never happened anywhere in the world. You will recall that Benson Idonije, Fela's first band manager, had said in one of his writings that there was an occasion when a well known recording company from the United States approached Fela for the rights to his works, but Fela refused.
The Afrobeat legend said even if they brought all the dollars in America , he would not accept. And Idonije was quick to say that if Fela was alive, he would have given his permission to Evergreen because of the Africanism in our work. You people from TheNEWS were at MUSON during the launch of the complete works and you saw the quality of people who attended. There was a former Inspector-General of Police, commissioners, ministers, politicians and people from all walks of life giving testimonies about Fela.
Fela was a philosopher, a prophet of our time because what he said has all come to pass. And today, you can't believe it, different kinds of people come to our office, asking for Fela's works. These include judges, top military officers and scholars, because they use his works for research. You also remember, at the launch, that Rasheed Gbadamosi said Fela was the greatest thing that ever happened to this country musically.
Last week, a certain Nzeribe called me, but was quick to say that he wasn't Arthur. He said that he was an elderly man, an accountant. Other accountants' have come to buy Fela's works. A 19-year old boy walked into my office and requested for Fela's works. I asked him whom he was buying for and he said he was actually buying for himself. This boy was actually nine years when Fela passed on. Don't forget that there was an occasion when one of the biggest pastors in this country, Pastor Adeboye, remarked that Fela was a great man because of his sincerity.
An average Nigerian would fornicate and commit adultery, but Fela was able to marry 27 women at once and he kept them all in his house. This is unlike a situation where a man will have one wife and keep a million concubines outside. So, Fela was a great man. In fact, pastors use Fela to preach these days in churches because all what he said have come to pass and that is the truth. Is it the economy? The elections? Is it the mismanagement? Whatever evil happening today had been said in one way or the other by Fela. And there is nothing left to be said.
How did you manage to preserve these works that are being reissued?
I have been a collector since the age of 12, my last year in primary school. Not knowing that 1 was going to do what I'm doing now, I started collecting works. That is why today, nobody has ever disputed the fact that Evergreen is the, biggest custodian of works ever done by a living or dead musician in this country and in Ghana. We have every single thing that any musician, whatever his medium, ever did in this country. They are all in our archives. I have been collecting these records and I have been trying to guard them jealously because it is my first love.
How did you manage to secure the agreement to re-issue Fela's works, given the problems over his estate?
Surprisingly, it has been an exciting .experience. The family has cooperated a great deal. I think the Fela spirit in them did not allow them to give me any problem at all. It scaled through perfectly. And this is not the first time we were approaching them for this kind of thing.
Four years ago, Fela was one of our earlier releases in the works of 20 great Nigerian stars, which included Bobby Benson, Roy Chicago, Celestine Ukwu, Victor Olaiya, Adeolu Akinsanya, Osita Osadebe, Eddie Okonta, Victor Uwaifo, Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, Orlando Julius, Fatai Rolling Dollar and so on. When we did the job, we felt it will not be complete without Fela and we approached the family for one number: Oni dodo Oni moi moi," which Fela made popular, though it was originally done by Professor Sam Akpabot. We approached them and they gave us the permission to go ahead and we fulfilled our obligation even before it was due. And I think that encouraged them.
So when we now approached them for the big one, we had no problem. Let me also say that we did not collect a single work from the estate. Everything came from our archives. People were so excited, particularly about the Koola Lobitos era which was clean and neat. I'm talking about works of 47 years ago when Fela was still playing at Kakadu Hotel in Alagomeji.
Before him, E.C. Arinze had equally played there. That time, Victor Uwaifo was a student of st. Gregory's College, Lagos. Uwaifo was always in shorts, playing guitar for E.C. Arinze and I remember an occasion when somebody said, who is this small boy always playing guitar for you? So Arinze had to go to Quay side and bought a pair of trousers and a tie for Uwaifo, one of the greatest guitarists we have in this country.
At that time, Rex Lawson, who died on 16 January 1971, was playing at Central Hotel. Lagos was good and at that time too, Osadebe was playing at Empire Hotel, owned by Chief Kalu. From there, Osadebe moved on and came out with his highly successful release, One Pound No Balance in 1964. That was one of Osadebe's greatest hits. Later, he came out with Osondi Owendi and others.
So, where do you see our music in the near future, given our glorious past?
It is a serious matter because we have to keep doing what we are doing otherwise most of our real music will go into extinction. The present practitioners are so lazy, lack focus and just want quick money unlike those before them.
These great musicians were highly fulfilled the moment they were on stage. They did not talk about money, they were very loyal and committed. But the current crop don't even want to be members of bands, they want to form their own bands after two to three months tutelage. They just rush to the studio, no thanks to all these computer keyboards. So in two hours, they are with meaningless records. Unlike those days when the likes of Eddie Okonta and Bobby Benson spent several years with Roy Chicago. Zeal Onyia had. a great influence on Osita Osadebe because Osadebe learnt a lot of things from Onyia who was one of the greatest trumpeters in West Africa.
What I'm trying to say is that most of these people were with Bobby Benson, Victor Olaiya was the leader of Bobby Benson's second band, Eddie Okonta was also there. In fact, Eddie Okonta played the horns on Taxi Driver, Baby Face Paul was there they were there for many years. It was like a school. But our boys today don't have that kind of patience, they cannot persevere. They want quick money.
We know that these works are under threat, but we are going to work hard to ensure that all the works by these icons are readily available. And thank God, Osadebe has over 80 albums to his credit and many unrecorded works. He really worked hard. So, his name cannot just die. He lived a very good life.
Are you doing any' thing for Osadebe records as well?
We don't have an plans for now, but it is not impossible for us to keep it in view. We may, in the future, meet companies like Premier Record which has rights to some of his works. There are also a lot of other people who are involved with his works. If you go to Alaba, you will see his works all over the place. His works are just scattered under different labels, but because of the way people have embraced Fela package, we will think about it and see what w can do. |
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