Kilokilo: Beautiful Nubia’s mixed grill for Nigerians

Beautiful Nubia in performanceAkintayo Abodunrin highlights the artistic merits and themes in Kilokilo, Beautiful Nubia’s latest album in this review.

WITH his latest album, Kilokilo, which was formally heralded on to the Nigerian music space with a free concert on April 26 at Unity Centre, Ikeja, Lagos, Beautiful Nubia (‘Segun Akinlolu) has confirmed that he is an artiste not afraid of innovation, and that he will remain faithful to his craft even if by so doing, he doesn’t get tonnes of naira.

After the hugely successful Jangbalajugbu, fans and admirers of the dreadlocks-wearing musician had expected that his next album would be similar to Jangbala... but Nubia surprised them. Instead of the somewhat popular tone/hue of Jangbala..., Nubia elected to make Awilele, the subsequent album lean towards arts music. Not only were some of the fast tempo instrumentation present in Jangbala... missing in Awilele, the vet- doctor turned musician placed emphasis on the message(s) in the album.

Fere that followed Awilele toed the same path as the artiste seemed decided to completely abandon all elements of popular music to focus more on his unique blend spiced strongly with elements of Yoruba traditional folk music.

In Kilokilo, Nubia, apparently, still favours the arts or traditional Yoruba folk music genre as he dwells on social themes and appropriates instruments - agogo, shekere, ryhthm sticks, guitar, horns, gangan and conga - from traditional Yoruba music. Recording the album with analogue equipment (he has always done this anyway) also seems to suggest that Nubia really wants to distance himself from hip-hop, rap and the likes to evolve his own brand which interestingly, Asa and others are embracing.

In the 12 tracks of the beautifully packaged Kilokilo, Nubia, who some have compared to Tunde Kelani for his preference for craft and message to profit, dwells on courage, corruption, persistence, unity and of course love. “Kilokilo” and “Everybody knows”, the second and eighth track of the album, for instance, strongly condemn corruption as well as the culture of impunity among Nigerian politicians. Nubia laments the dire state of the country caused by the dearth of honest men and the ascendancy of lotters in the title track of the album just as he calls on Nigerians to warn them to desist from their ignoble acts “... Oponu aja to n gbo mo ategun, sebi aditi ni won omo a f’e pe bora...” (Foolish dog barking at the wind. Deaf, accursed men)” the artiste cries. The same strain is found in “Everybody knows”.

While Nubia condemns corruption in the afore mentioned tracks, he encourages Nigerians in the first track titled “Brother in Arms” (Ise Mbe); in the fourth track titled “Je je je”; and in track six titled “Prayers for you”. Interestingly, “Prayers for you” which is the sixth track of Kilokilo shares some similarities in arrangement to “Onile Ayo”, the sixth track of Fere. They both sound much like church music.

In the third track titled “Wa bu’ra”, Nubia becomes a story teller as he narrates how an old man met his wfe of 40 years in a dancehall and how they have weathered storms together despite the fact that Yorubas believe that a girl picked at a party or dance hall is not responsible. But curiously here, Nubia completely misquotes a Yoruba proverb. He says “Iyawo ta fe lode ijo, eyin aro lo nsun” instead of the accepted “Iyawo ti a fi ijo fe, iran ni yoo wo lo” which the Yoruba author, Kola Akinlade, confirms to be the correct one in his Owe Ati Itumo.

However, like he did in “Oke Bola”, the 10th track of Awilele where he relives his growing up years and pays tributes to some outstanding personalities like Mama Agba, Iya Segun, etc, Nubia does the same in Kilokilo where he pays tribute to “Mama Bendel”. He says of her: “... I was living far away from home/ I missed my family and friends/ But out of the gloom there was a woman/who kept us laughing into the deeps of the night/To her we went for our meals/.... She put the shine in my dull days...

“Down the street”, the 10th track of Nubia’s newest baby is a poignant lamentation of a kid, most probably an orphan, wondering where her folks were gone. But the message, essentially, is to spare a thought for orphans and all other less-privileged members of the society.

“My mother’s fatter than yours”, the next track underscores the importance of being oneself and not following the crowd. Like the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti recommended caution in joining the crowd in Follow-follow, Nubia does the same. He, however, goes further to highlight the benefit of being industrious and enterprising in one’s engagements.

And Kilokilo, like Nubia’s other albums, has its own songs about love. In Jangbalajugbu, it was “what a feeling”; Awilele had “Each time you turn” and Fere had “Ife Oloyin (Gotta tell you)”. In Kilokilo the love tracks are “Ka jo ma se po”, “Everywhere you are” and “To see the sun”.

Beyond its messages and the fact that it is not the run of the mill popular music, Kilokilo is a good piece of art crafted by a gifted artiste and his team. The songs, like they are wont, grow on the listener over time and unconsciously, s/he starts whistling them. The instrumentation, which sees a kind of seamless blending of the guitars, horns, drums, agogo and shekere, is lifting. In fact, you are most likely to keep playing over and over the instrument’s lines in your head.

But although the overall arrangement of Kilokilo makes it an “ear delight”, the album again raises some questions about the actual genre of Beautiful Nubia’s music. Of course, it is clear that it is not popular music and although it also has some strains of highlife, it is really not highlife. What it is, is what Nubia himself has refused to say, preferring instead to leave the classification to his audience.

However, what cannot be taken away from Kilokilo and Nubia’s music generally is its soothing nature. It provokes reflections on sundry societal ills but also encourages and delights. How long Nubia will remain faithful to this message(s) infused and pro-arts music style not fetching him millions but which has given him a passport to immortality remains to be seen.

Mysticism of Forever Chimes

Cover of the bookA review of Mark Nwagwu’s Forever Chimes by Jare Ajayi.

Forever Chimes by Mark Nwagwu (published by Stirling-Horden, Ibadan, Nigeria ), has a mystique air around it. This mysticism feeds on the paradox of its denouement; by natural law and by African tradition which the book celebrates, a soul, a people and a race do not 'die' or disappear willy nilly.

For Chioma, a person who has, for the better part of her earlier life, nursed the hope of having 17 children to, without any traumatic romantic experience such as being jilted, suddenly choose the path of nunnery, makes one to wonder how those seeming lifetime experiences and genealogical knowledge/wisdom put in her charge are to be passed into the next generation. The situation as climaxed on page 375 tends to ‘explain’ why information or knowledge does not seem to be cumulative in Africa as it should. Deep reflection on this suggests that the author probably tries to parody life itself in at least two ways:

First, there is often a detour on the path which life charts for individuals. Second, life is an enigma. It is in our daily attempt to come to terms with this enigma that we either get our fingers burnt or learn lessons that when applied, launches us ever forward. The summary of what is being said here is that Mark Nwagwu's Forever Chimes is enigmatic and certain idylls within that enigma cloaks the book with the garb of a masterpiece potentially a great book that will attract wide spread attention beyond national, cultural, generational and epochal divides. It is a book bound to be a reference point by scholars, students (of various hues) researchers and general readers across ages.

But perhaps, that is drawing a conclusion before even telling a story fully. The book has Akadike and Chioma (his great granddaughter) as major characters. Thus, it tells the story of, at the narrow level, the Akadike family spanning about four generations. Predictably, in telling a story involving a number of people spanning nearly a hundred years, and a story that straddles at least two continents with diverse cultures, light is bound to be shed on matrixes beyond the immediate characters in the book. By a deft exploitation of creative talent and self dedication to the cause, Chioma truly lives up to expectation. In telling Akadike and Chioma’s stories, Mark Nwagwu in Forever Chimes rekindles a praxis started by the likes of Amos Tutuola, Elechi Amadi, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo etc, in their books that serve as pedestals for cultural canons and signifiers. Chioma’s great grandparents “were born in times of great tribulations. All of

Nigeria was in turmoil, wahala everywhere, and poverty the tobacco chewed by the people of Okeosisi, the proud bearers of her ancestry.” (p7). It was at a time when Christianity was just coming to Nigeria . A time when a wife or child could not dare let the head of the family know she is already listening to sermons by Christian catechists, let alone embrace the new (exotic) faith. How, before the last page is turned, Akadike, a supra traditionalist embraces Catholicism and seriously tempers his traditional practices as couched by Nwagwu in a manner suggesting the superiority of Christian God to the traditional one beggars some contemplation. What would have properly opened Nwagwu to the charge of pandering ‘to the alien God’ is mediated and redeemed by three heartwarming situations in the book.

First is the ‘exportation’ of African cultures to foreign lands, second is the African values that are still espoused even by nationals who are domiciled in the US – the Akadike offspring. The third is the vignette presented by interactions between Igbo and American nationals for everyone to understand and appreciate human virtues (and human values) the more. Matter of fact, Nwagwu successfully and subtly (in non-propagandistic manner) demonstrates – and have foreigners (through Jeff etc) admit - that African culture in certain respect could be the hope of mankind in this age of near perdition – as a result of individualistic materialism and existentialism. "...those market women in Ibadan taught me that money and material wealth are not indices of happiness but friendliness and charity. And though we may be poor in earthly goods, we each have a larger reservoir of human warmth to offer others. And that is what makes one happy; giving and never stopping to give" (p258) to quote Jeff.

It is a moot point that what makes a story interesting or otherwise is not just the theme or what a story tells – but often the manner of telling it. Often the success of a literary work has a lot to do with how real or authentic its characters and plotting is. Here, Mark Nwagwu scores high in that his characters are ‘alive’ in terms of the roles they are meant to play. Stylistically, Nwagwu rises to the challenge posed by the narrative method he adopts – presenting anthro-contemporaneous ideas to a diverse audience of the 21st century. His portraiture of Chioma, for instance, apart from giving allowance for her precocious nature is in line with her age and experience in the diverse places she lives. Nwangwu’s writing is evocative and by that very fact, arresting. His image of women is positive – as he portrays them as resourceful, industrious, loving, creative, intelligent and of course stabilising agents.

It is an interesting coincidence that this epoch-making book comes out on the heel of the 56th year of the publication of the first African novel in English (Amos Tutuola’s The Palmwine Drinkard) and more importantly the 50th anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s landmark title, Things Fall Apart. The significance and relationship between these works lies in their watershed nature for African literature. It would be recalled that prior the publication of Forever Chimes’ antecedents just mentioned, Joseph Conrad had come out with his Out of Darkness, a narrative that not just denigrates Africa but virtually claims that the continent had no past. Tutuola’s book establishes that Africa does have a literature. But because his work is gnomic, the seriousness attached to African literature through that stands suspect in some quarters. It took the publication of Achebe’s work to show that Africa is peopled by human beings who feel and act like any other human beings elsewhere.

There, of course, are various kinds of literature. Nwagwu chooses the serious, exponential path perching, as it were, on wings of the likes of Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Sembene Ousmane, Ayi Kwei Armah among others. Apart from the ending that rings of contrivance and seeming attempts to Catholocise the theme, the greatness of the book stands still. If anyone is wondering why Catholic denomination is more widespread among Igbos of Nigeria, this book provides a working answer especially on page 364. It is hoped that subsequent edition would take care of edito-typographical and spelling errors on pp 70, 94, 204 and 242.