The Elder Musicians Sing Nunc Dimittis

Vanessa Obioha writes that the last three decades have seen several Nigeria’s great musicians depart the earthly plane

One by one, they are leaving us behind. The musicians who pioneered sounds that are now identified as African and truly Nigerian are succumbing to the inescapable hands of death. The latest to sing Nunc Dimittis — a Latin phrase coined from the Gospel of Luke that means to depart — is Victor Uwaifo.

The man of many hats bowed to the Grim Reaper on Saturday, August 28 after a brief illness. Uwaifo was an exceptional musician, a man who, musician Ade Bantu described as a renaissance man for the effortless way he wore multiple hats “be it as a musician, sculptor, inventor, politician or educator.”

He was fondly called the Guitar Boy due to his deftness on the musical instrument. More so, he invented one for himself which he played lovingly. Of his vast catalogue of music, ‘Joromi’ was the most popular and sampled but people still remember the sweet melodies of ‘Mammy Water’, another hit song of his.

Uwaifo was a proud Bini man. He not only sculpt visual art pieces with clear Bini themes, but he also delivered many of his songs to the world in his mother tongue. His stagecraft was something else. Arguably, he was the first musician to share his performance space with a midget, the popular King Pago, who he lovingly introduced with a lot of flourish and drama at each show. Both men would hold the audience spellbound with varying degrees of stunts. King Pago was later absorbed into Majek Fashek’s band, the Midget featured prominently in the ‘Majek Fashek in New York’ video.

His musical career which spanned over six decades was decorated with more laurels than scandals. It is on record that Uwaifo is the first musician to win gold discs on the continent, the first to be awarded the National Merit Honours of Member of the Order of the Niger (MON), and the first musician to become a member of a State Executive Council as Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Tourism. He was also able to become an outstanding academic, teaching at the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Benin, Edo State.

Uwaifo belonged to the class of musicians who promoted Highlife in Nigeria, although he formed his own sounds which included the Akwete rhythm, Ekassa, Sasakosa and Shadow. This set of musicians worked with bands and honed their skills in not only singing but understanding the concept of music from production to delivery. To an extent, their music was identified by the musical accompaniment. For instance, Afrobeat is largely known for the saxophone, keyboards, drums and funky melodies; Highlife is characterized by jazzy horns and multiple guitars. The late Tunde King who is credited as the founder of Juju music used the Sekere, Tambourine, Guitar Banjo and the Talking Drum to develop the sound which was later expanded by the likes of King Sunny Ade and of course, Sir Shina Peter who popularised Afro-juju, a combination of afrobeats and juju. There is also Fuji, Waka, Apala and other traditional genres of music.

For all his dexterity and creative ingenuity, Uwaifo was not able to stick to a particular sound for an enduring period that could inspire other musicians to follow in his track and shape that style into an acknowledged one. He was a restless creator, who only spent fleeting moments on a new sound before moving on to another.

These musicians enjoyed international fame as well despite the technological limitations at that time. For example, if not for patriotism, Mary Afi Usuah would have been one of the world’s most renowned opera musicians to come out from Nigeria.

But our elders are leaving us. Senescence is getting the best of them. Some of them have had their lives truncated. The last three decades have seen these great talents depart the earth. We lost Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the Afrobeat pioneer in 1997, Sunny Okosun in 2008, Fatai Rolling Dollar in 2013, Chris Ajilo in 2021, Majek Fashek in 2020, Chief Stephen Osadebe in 2007, E.C. Arinze in 2015, Oliver de Coque in 2008, Victor Olaiya in 2020, one-half of the Lijadu Sisters, Kehinde in 2019, Nelly Uchendu in 2005, Christy Essien-Igbokwe in 2011 and Uwaifo this year. There are many more departed that can’t be mentioned due to space constraints.

Sad as their passage is, the comforting news is that while they may have left the earthly plane, their music lives on forever.