Music of many colours

In continuance of the little Victor Uwaifo thing we've been on, I decided to post this offering from the crates, No Palava (or No Palava/Delicate Lover).

I just listened to it this morning for the first time in years and figured it merited sharing, though I must advise that it is from 1984, The Year (in my mind, at least) That Nigerian Music Started To Suck--as such it betrays hints of the glossy yet sterile digital production and cheesy synth sounds that would soon become the industry standard. The songs themselves are pretty good, though: on this album, Uwaifo skips the Edo folklore-based material for poppy songs in English and pidgin, dealing with the vagaries of romantic love. The title track, "No Palava," celebrates rough makeup sex while on the flip side, "Delicate Lover" offers, I guess, the antithesis to that. Actually, now that I think about it, side A sort of represents the "rough" side and side B the "delicate" side.

The liner notes by Dili Uzuka recounts Uwaifo's history and achievements up to that point, including his then-recent honor as a Member of the Order of the Niger. A lot of the other information contained therein is I already went over in my last post, but also one tidbit I forgot to mention: Victor Uwaifo's claim to have created an innovative system of musical notation based on not on notes, but on colors. Specifically, the colors of traditional woven akwete cloth!

SIR VICTOR UWAIFO born on the 1st March 1941, graduate of Graphic and Commercial Art, Yaba College of Technology (1963), had resigned his appointment with the Nigeria Television Service Lagos because he had discovered the relativity between Colours and Music. Elementarily, he explained it thus:

"...take for example BLACK which is the strongest colour: it's [sic] musical interpretation will be DOH, Dominant, which is also the premier musical note.
ME, the Third, is represented by BLUE.
SOL, the Fifth, which harmonizes with all musical notes is WHITE, Neutral, which harmonizes with all colours".

If we struck at Chord of C Major, we'll have a representation like this:

DOH - BLACK
ME - BLUE
SOL - WHITE
DOH - BLACK

A colour out of place in a painting will cause as much unpleasantness as a discordant musical note in a chord. SIR VICTOR UWAFOR'S [sic] inspiration came from the 'rhythmical' colour-weave pattern of the African Akwete Cloth. He says with elation, "I can conveniently marry sight to sound because I 'see in colours' and I can 'hear'.

(Frankly, I never really comprehended Uwaifo's color notation theory, and I doubt anyone else did either, but hey... We're merely mortals!)

Elsewhere, Uzuka exhorts that just as Uwaifo's innovative music withstood the encroachment of soul and pop in the 1960s and 70s, so would it survive the "rasta invasion"--At the time this record was released, reggae was stealthily, steadily creeping up to become Nigeria's predominant pop sound.

Of course, Uwaifo himself had been flirting with reggae rhythms since the mid-70s and includes the sweet lovers tune "Take This Message To My Darling" on this album. Interestingly, the drummer on this session is Black Rice (or Black O'Rice), sticksman in the Benin-originated underground roots reggae band Jahstix. In the mid-80s, Jahstix was set to blow up in a big way, but their album never came out and their lead singer/guitarist Majek Fashek got a solo deal and was prodded into the Next Bob Marley™ fast track. Black Rice later moved to the Netherlands, and last I heard, he was serving a jail term for murder there. (Don't know if it's true, though.)

SIR VICTOR UWAIFO (M.O.N.) - NO PALAVA (POLYGRAM, 1984, POLP 111)

SIDE A
1. No Palava
2. Abana
3. Khakhi Nobi Leather

SIDE B
1. Delicate Lover
2. Take This Message To My Darling
3. Come Into My Life Jejeje

All songs composed and arranged by Sir Victor Uwaifo (M.O.N.)

PERSONNEL
Bass guitar - Tony Bucknor
Percussions - King Pago
Ekwe - Sam Abosei
Drums - Black O'Rice
1st Guitar - Godfrey Okunmwonyi
2nd Guitar - Jerry Moscow
Lead guitar, vocals, keyboards and flute - Sir Victor
Tenor sax - Roy Maco
Tenor sax solos - Christopher Uwaifo, Kojo Ochri
Backing voices - Osayame Uwaifo & Mabel Judith Ezekoka & Christy Odita

A Joromi Production

Ekassa Fever! (Part 2)

(This is cheating, you know... It's really part 1!)

In addition to being one of the flashiest and hardest working Nigerian musicians of the highlife era, Sir Victor Uwaifo was almost certainly the most ingenious. Never content to follow the boilerplate of the highlife mainstream or to slavishly ape imported trends, Uwaifo built his reputation on ostentatious showmanship and the judicious mining of the legends and songs of his native Edo culture, which he repackaged as newfangled pop: modern music of African folklore.



Victor Uwaifo was born in Benin City in 1941. Like Fela, he was born into a family that placed a high premium on education and achievement. As a child, he showed precocious talent in athletics, art and engineering, constructing intricate toy cars and airplanes and even a guitar that used high-tension wires for strings and bicycle spokes for frets. Much to his father's disapproval, he had a "drinkard" at the tavern tune the guitar in exchange for a jug of palmwine, got himself a book on music theory and started teaching himself to play.

In his teens, he was sent off to Lagos to attend the prestigious St. Gregory's College (which later produced bands like Ofege and Grotto), where his time was split between studying, sports, playing with the school band and apprenticing with "the evil genius of highlife," Victor Olaiya and his All-Stars. Upon graduating from Greg's, he won a scholarship to Yaba College of Technology where he studied graphic arts by day and played with dance bandleader E.C. Arinze by night.

After leaving YabaTech in 1964, he took a job working as a graphic artist at NTV Channel 10 in Lagos and formed a band called the New Melodies with whom he performed Bini folk songs. It was during this period, he has long maintained, that he encountered a mami wata, or mermaid, while lounging on Bar Beach. The experience inspired the song "Guitar Boy & Mamywater," a massive hit for Uwaifo's renamed Melody Maestroes.

Another early hit was "Joromi," a dance number that retold the Bini legend of a swaggering wrestler who dared to wrestle spirits and demons in the afterlife and became the first certified gold record in Africa. Uwaifo continued his pattern of drawing from Edo folklore to create custom pop sounds like akwete, mutaba, sassakossa and of course, ekassa.

Uwaifo explained the his modern articulation of the ekassa in John Collins' Musicmakers of West Africa:

In fact I wouldn't say I created Ekassa as it was already here as an indigenous dance of Benin. It was a royal dance performed during the coronation of a new king. Some people thought it an abomination to hear "ekassa" while the king was still alive, but I didn't mind them as the first tune was a brilliant hit and others followed. Ekassa incorporates the beat of the tom-tom and agba drums, Western wind instruments, two guitars and, of course, me on the guitar singing in the Edo language.

Uwaifo rode the style for four or five years, releasing four longplaying Ekassa volumes and several singles between 1971 and 1975.

As might be expected, Uwaifo's appropriation of ancient, and in some cases sacred, songs for the purposes of contemporary dancehall debauchery did not always go down well with the self-appointed guardians of the legacy of the great Benin Empire, but Uwaifo viewed his work as that of a high-tech curator:

They fail to see the foundation of my music is very cultural, as demonstrated in the beat and the lyrics. The fact that I use modern instruments to produce my sound has not altered the basic character of the music, otherwise we might as well argue that a historian writing ancient history with modern tools, like a Parker pen and paper, is a farce. The tools he uses to write history will not alter the facts and dates of the book. We have experimentation and evolution of ancient African cultures and my music is no exception to this.

Victor Uwaifo went on to build hotels and a TV studio, went back to school and got a master's degree in sculpture, established himself as a renowned visual artist, served as a professor at the University of Benin and a commissioner in Edo State, and he still performs regularly. His proteges and followers have included musicians from the Midwest such as Sonny Okosuns, Aigbe and Felix Lebarty and Sir Patrick Idahosa. Still, in characteristic cocky form, Uwaifo shrugs off the idea of naming a successor; even as he continues to refurbish the ancient mythos of Benin, his favorite mythology is that of Sir Victor Uwaifo himself:

Since I don’t believe that a genius ever has a successor, I don’t expect any of my children to succeed me. Let’s compare notes: Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, John Stevenson, did anyone ever succeed them? And back home, has Ghana or Africa ever found another Nkrumah? I am a rare specie, and it’s very unlikely that anyone will ever succeed me. If that happens, then I do not rate a genius.

I am not bothered by this. Even if I get a successor musically what about other fields where I also excelled? I am a writer, publisher, philosopher, a scientist, a painter, sculptor and a musician that plays several musical instruments. I remain the only musician today who invented a double-necked guitar, designed and built his own car. And above all these, I’m still alive. I’m yet to see anyone capable of succeeding me.*

Sir Victor Uwaifo: there can be only one!

(And massive big ups to another singular gentleman: our good friend Zim, who niced us up with this this nicety!)

*quote culled from Nigeriafilms.com.

SIR VICTOR UWAIFO & HIS MELODY MAESTROES - EKASSA - MODERN MUSIC OF AFRICAN FOLKLORE (PHILIPS, 1971, 6361 013(PL))

SIDE A
1. Dododo (Ekassa No. 1)
2. Obodo-Eyo (Ekassa No. 12)
3. Vbakha-Okun (Ekassa No. 10)
4. Iduah (Ekassa No. 18)

SIDE B
1. Obele (Ekassa No. 14)
2. Edede (Ekassa No. 13)
3. Izogie-Eronmwon (Ekassa No. 16)
4. Omoseruwa (Ekassa No. 15)
5. Ogieni (Ekassa No. 17)
6. Ovoramuen II (Ekassa No. 8)

Ekassa fever!

When I posted that Sir Victor Uwaifo's Greatest Hits comp a few months ago, I said that I didn't think it was representative of his best work, but I didn't say what I thought was.

For the record... This:



For my money, Uwaifo's early-70s "Ekassa" recordings captured the most exciting synthesis of his highlife, cubano, Bini and soul & rock influences, with the "Guitar Boy" getting flossy on the axe, drums, organ, flute and xylophone.

SIR VICTOR UWAIFO & HIS MELODY MAESTROES - EKASSA VOL. 2 - TALK OF THE TOWN (PHILIPS, 1973, 6361 033 (PL))

SIDE A
1. Ekassa 28 (Ebibi)
2. Ekassa 34 (Igiodo Giodo)
3. Ekassa 31 (Isede)
4. Ekassa 32 (Votumamuoga)
5. Ekassa 25 (Aiworo)

SIDE B
1. Ekassa 38 (Ame'sihion Segbe)
2. Ekassa 24 (Kikikri)
3. Ekassa 26 (Akhuankhuan)
4. Ekassa 35 (Sumwen-Sowa)
5. Ekassa 29 (Osulelelemule)

Yeah, if I were to select any Uwaifo records for a collection of "classics," I'd definitely have to choose some of these. Here are some (relatively) recent video clips of the perennial showman performing "Ekassa":

Sir Victor Uwaifo & His TitiBitis of Africa - Jackpot

Yes, I finally got my computer back today (Woo-hoo!). Yes, all my data really is gone (D'OH!).

Such is life. I no fit die.

Anyway, here's a nice album that Jon and I were discussing in the comments of the "Portuguese" post. I was able to find it somewhere while trying to re-plant the seeds of my digital music collection. I apologize in advance for the DivShare... I know it's been acting up of late but it's kinda the best I can do for now. Just to make things a little easier, I throw in supplementary Megaupload link, 'ey?





> DOWNLOAD IT FROM DIVSHARE! (I HOPE!) <

or

> DOWNLOAD IT FROM MEGAUPLOAD! <

> OR ZSHARE EVEN! <

EDIT: Just realized that the tracks are mislabeled on the album sleeve and also in this file... The one that says "Ewere Noyoyo" is actually "Sakpaide Special," and vice versa. I don't want to have to re-upload these (though I probably will end up doing so later anyway because that's how obsessive I am) so please, correct that error when you download, please!