Where are the bands?

Nigeria has often time been called” The Heart of Africa Music” because of its role in the development of West Africa highlife and Palm wine music which fuses rhythm with techniques imported from Congo for the development of several popular styles that are unique in Nigeria. ALLI MUTIAT takes us on a ride into Highlife music.

No doubt, the music industry in Nigeria is gradually coming up. This is evident in recent music video productions, lyrics and other performance. The industry now experiences influx of young, up and coming artistes, who are into different genres of music, but the most popular one include the Hip-Hop (secular and religious), R&B and Fuji.

Highlife music remains over-shadowed in Nigeria at present by widely popular fuji, juju, reggae and hip-hop music listened to by most of our youths.

However, the music industry is obviously losing what used to be its strength and identity from inception, that is, from 50’s to the early 90’s live band performance. In Nigeria today, most musical artistes now depend on computer and other music producing, digital technologies, before they can sing. Besides, bringing bands to perform at a show is gradually fading out.

Musicians in the western countries where the technologies and the Hip-Hop and R&B genres originated from perform on stage with their bands. The likes of Akon, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and Wyclef among others have gone on major tours with their full band members.

Even some African musicians with the likes of Papa Wemba, Maria Makeba (Mama Africa), and Lucky Dube among others have their live bands.

Gone are those days when nearly all the Nigerian musicians had their own bands as they moved about performing at various social gathering and relaxation centers. The musicians themselves could play one or two musical instrument as then most popular genres of music then were Highlife, Juju, Apala, and Jazz.

Majority of the then musicians have become legends in their own choice of music. They are now point of reference in the Nigerian music industry. The likes of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Sunny Ade, IK Dairo, Late Sunny Okosun, Steven Rhodes, Ebenezer Obey,  Fatai Rolling Dollar among others are still celebrated today, and their songs still remains evergreen to many Nigerians. Like the living ones, the dead ones among the music veterans were skillful, artistic and up to the task when it comes to stage performance. For instance, Orlando Owoh, the highlife crooner has a voice synonymous with combo highlife of the palm wine guitar style. He was a master lyricist and veteran who have been on the scene, since the late 50’s. Another highlife legend is Oliver de’ Coque. He was perhaps the last gap of Igbo highlife, whose identity is recognised by agitated guitar. Before him were the highlife stalwarts like Ikenga Super Stars, the Oriental Brothers, The Rockafil Jazz of Nico Mbarga and lately, the Sound Makers led by Stephen Osita Osadebe.

The realism of a performance from a live musical band cannot be over emphasised. The unadulterated mix of drums, saxophone, guitar, and other musical instrument sound, unarguably makes one enjoy music to the bone marrow.

Now, only few musicians like Lagbaja, Megga 99, and a crop of other Fuji stars have permanent band members. Among the Hip-Hop musicians, only Dapo Oyebanjo, popularly known as D’banj or Koko Master, plays with harmonica, appreciating the rich values of the same instrument that our legend musicians imbibed in gaining hype in the music world

However, despite the cumbersome nature of producing music in analogue, it is still better than the digitally made ones which are cheaper and easy to manipulate. It should not be back side that getting up-to-date with the latest trend in music production, but live band performances should be revived in Nigeria music industry. Apart from Lagbaja who performs with his bands at the Motherland other few jazz and highlife “Retirees” who perform in major relaxation spots in Lagos metropolis, the life performances of musical bands would have been dead by now. Nigerian musical artistes should try to work hand in hand with other stakeholders to enliven band performances in the country as this will further bring out the originality and inherent creativity in musical artistes. Corporate organisations and the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN) should work together and promote live band performances in the Nigeria music industry.