WE ROCK NAIJA!
I can understand why we love our music. It speaks our language, the words of our moment. The hopes, fears and emotions of our socio-economic history are chronicled in the lyrics and rhythms of our Panacea of home-grown songs.
Osadebe, Uwaifo, Obey and KSA swung the highlife and juju that heralded a dawning emancipation of national wealth. Bathed in the black oil wells of opulence, our people could now afford to party in lavish style, blending their appetites for western affluence with an ingrained enjoyment of local rhythm. So we swung, ‘osondi’ed, ‘joromi’ed and ‘miliki’ed away....
Onyeka and Okotie sang us pop music that kept up the beat at our much enjoyed birthday parties. The sing-along was infectious and the dance steps were whatever we created them to be. All hail ‘ekwe’ and ‘my sweetie, my sugar’.
Fela decried an ailing nation and defied oppressive dictatorships. He spat the venom we were afraid to spit, shook the fists that we longed to shake and so, gave us the freedom we could not take for ourselves. Those were the years of ‘suffering and smiling’.
Barrister, Kollington, KWAM 1, and Shina Peters, reminded us that we could still enjoy life in spite of our circumstances. Rich and poor alike had the right to groove, together, to fuji and afro-juju. True to form, ‘the young shall grow’!
And today, a throbbing kaleidoscope of fresh new voices and talents is creating cosmopolitan sounds that reflect the predominant rags-to-riches, been-to-and-back, daily-hustle-for-survival, fight-the-political-machine life of today. They sing out our inner battle for national identity and the ambition to make our place on the world stage. To these we party away our worries and frustrations every weekend-to-a-back-breaking-week. We have found our perfect blend of the ethnic and the western and we can only forge forward from here, with our own ‘stylee’.
Whatever the era, whatever our focus, our sound rings out over and again, our bodies gyrate to the rhythm of our soul and our hearts overwhelm with the unity of one voice, crying..... We Rock Naija!
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