tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82788885430430774652024-02-21T01:35:42.153-08:00Arts and Society ... appreciating the African society through its arts Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-79326888256793103682015-06-15T12:15:00.001-07:002015-06-15T12:15:00.703-07:00Saraba Magazine—Juliet By Magunga Williams<a href="http://www.sarabamag.com/writivism2015-juliet-magungawilliams/#.VX8kG2k8fXc.blogger">Saraba Magazine—Juliet By Magunga Williams</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-48314778927442418752015-06-13T03:03:00.002-07:002015-06-13T03:03:59.958-07:00These Lines Must Survive by Nurudeen Lawal A Review of ‘An Autobiography’, ‘Cut’, and ‘Death is not the end’ by Kelechi Nwaike, Tonye Willie-Pepple, and Adeyinka Elujoba respectively<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMlW72hEWqWkhEc_ez6PCTV6jSNqHKe7VYqgjS8iVpmkFlW17gpUraogFE2We40n8R_7SCkuxA5Ld_hvqSe6_dyxW_AnM5r-ckDyJndwDd7BxE9zGmGqvXwCuaG-IAQh3O5cXmL0JU3Sw/s1600/Saraba_Survival_Featured1-300x180.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMlW72hEWqWkhEc_ez6PCTV6jSNqHKe7VYqgjS8iVpmkFlW17gpUraogFE2We40n8R_7SCkuxA5Ld_hvqSe6_dyxW_AnM5r-ckDyJndwDd7BxE9zGmGqvXwCuaG-IAQh3O5cXmL0JU3Sw/s1600/Saraba_Survival_Featured1-300x180.png" /></a></div>
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<b>The Land is Large</b></div>
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“An Autobiography” by Nwaike is a poem of 15 stanzas with irregular lines. It is a poetic reflection by an orphaned young man. The poem flows smoothly from the ‘stuffy room’ of the poet persona in the north through the sky resisting the fearful faces of the witches flying ‘by at night’ to the South where he, and his brother, has come in their pursuit to keep riding on with life even after the demise of their parents. Aspiring to survive.</div>
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Then the Holy Spirit beckons. Music invites. The persona is recruited ‘into a church choir’ singing to the glory of God. Survival continues. Then. Another aspiration sets in. It’s now love; the mover of the world. Being an action-packed August guy, he starts pursuing the girl of his dream. With vigour. Unfortunately his love is unrequited; disappointment, but not resignation. As the candle light burns on, his passion fires on. And the spirit propels him, again, to go north. Again. Since the land is large; if it’s not here, it may be there: north, south, east, west. </div>
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“An Autobiography” is a word-snapshot of a young man (and his brother) passing through life in stages, witnessing sharp and blunt downfalls, changing places with keen observations, and rising every day with a zeal to survive.</div>
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<b>Trees: A Symbol of Resilience</b></div>
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“Cut” by Tonye Willie-Pepple is presented with a pictographic uniqueness: short lines, words written erect. ”Cut” engages the theme of survival from a significantly symbolic stance. “a tree” is written ‘erect’ to show the tallness of the tree and its resilience in the hands of the human cutters who “Cut/Cut/Cut…real good.” The tree boasts of “his” resilience; his re-forming power giving credence to the Yoruba proverb: “To the tree cutter is the stress; the tree will surely sprout again.”</div>
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This tree is irrepressible, confident of survival, not only in the mouth of a machete but also in the face of fire! Tonye scores high here by introducing a suitable sexual imagery; the one I call regenerative imagery, further entrenching the theme of survival. Though burnt to ashes, the tree promises to make love, through its ashes, to the earth. He regrows, this time, in twins: from a tree to forest!</div>
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Whether in the hands of the blade, or in the face of fire, the tree is resilient; confident of his survival. </div>
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<b>Survival in Death</b></div>
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In Adeyinka Elujoba’s “Death is not the end” the poet persona addresses Iya Oba not to give up in the after world and charges her to:</div>
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<i>Practise the feel of the earth</i></div>
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<i>and how to loosen aerolites</i></div>
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and be strong underground to withstand men’s ‘soles, tractors, armoured tanks…foundations, huts, skyscrapers'. So, the dead should not resign as “death is not the end.” To survive in death, there is the need to be firm, resilient, and more importantly, to adapt. In four stanzas, seventeen lines, “Death is not the end” stretches the elasticity of creativity to a high point and can best be appreciated if read from a symbolic perspective.</div>
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“An Autobiography”, ”Cut”, “Death is not the end” write and paint the theme of survival with utmost simplicity, loaded lexemes, fitting imageries, pictographic uniqueness..</div>
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Download the <a href="http://www.sarabamag.com/the-survival-issue/" target="_blank">www.sarabamag.com/the-survival-issue/</a>Survival Issue of Saraba Magazine to read the poems. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-88782831606151103572015-05-15T23:33:00.000-07:002015-05-15T23:33:06.085-07:00News Alert: Call for Submissions Issue 18: The Crime Issue<br />
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Crime is part of everyday life, affecting us viscerally, contributing to the dynamic of our relations. The fear of theft, of assault, builds up walls we often do not see slowly rising up. In this issue, we hope to explore the intricacy of crime. Not as a news headline, or as sensationalism. Crime is the life we have been living, and we live.</div>
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Consider submitting poetry, genre fiction, literary fiction, essays, criticism—writing of any sort that helps articulate and problematize crime, lawlessness, even jurisprudence.</div>
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Our publications reflect and represent the best of emerging writing mainly from Nigeria, but also from the rest of the African continent. Our goal is to give emerging writers the opportunity of having their works published. “Emerging writers” is defined loosely, to spark useful dialogue—but we are interested in writers whose work show tremendous promise but have hardly been published in a major literary magazine.</div>
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Please submit via www.saraba.submittable.com/submit</div>
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Deadline: June 28, 2015.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-51148122296290889112015-05-14T04:04:00.000-07:002015-05-15T23:30:00.699-07:00News Alert: The 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize<br />
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In 2015, we are calling for stories on the theme of Water.</div>
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Deadline 31 July. Submit to water@shortstorydayafrica.org </div>
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1st Prize R10 000</div>
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| 2nd Prize R2 000</div>
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| 3rd Prize R1 000</div>
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The Judges:</div>
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Billy Kahora</div>
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|Mary Watson</div>
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| Abubakar Adam Ibrahim</div>
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Prize winners will also win an online creative writing course from All About Writing. 1st Prize Sponsor to be announced. 2nd Prize Sponsored by Books Live. 3rd Prize Sponsored by SSDA Staff.</div>
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Terms and conditions below:</div>
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Prize Sponsors</div>
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Terms and conditions of entry</div>
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1. Any African citizen or person part of the African diaspora, as well as persons residing permanently (granted permanent residence or similar) in any African country, may enter.</div>
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2. Writers of all ages are welcome to enter.</div>
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3. Only writers 18 and over are eligible to win cash prizes.</div>
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4. Writers may only submit one story for the competition. Repeat entries by the same writer will be disqualified.</div>
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5. Writers are welcome to submit stories in any fiction genre.</div>
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6. Stories must be between 3000 and 5000 words in length.</div>
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7. Stories must be submitted in English. While you are free to incorporate other languages into your story, the story must be able to be understood fully by its English content.</div>
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8. Stories must be submitted as a .doc (or similar) attachment to water@shortstorydayafrica.org, subject line WATER, by 11:59pm CAT on 31 July 2015. Late entries or stories not attached in an appropriate manner will not be accepted.</div>
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9. To facilitate easy reading and judging, please format your stories according to the standard manuscript format stipulated below. Stories not formatted in this way are at the risk of being disqualified.</div>
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10. Stories must not have been previously published in any form or any format.</div>
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11. Simultaneous submissions are not welcome. Any story entered or published elsewhere during the course of judging or publication will be disqualified.</div>
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12. You are welcome to enter under a pseudonym or nom de plume, as long as you also include your real name along with your entry. (Guidelines on how to handle this in your entry can be found in the standard manuscript format below.)</div>
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13. All entries will be judged anonymously, i.e. with names removed.</div>
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14. The judges' decision is final.</div>
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15. By submitting a story the author attests that it is their own original work and grants non-exclusive global print and digital rights to Short Story Day</div>
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Africa; non-exclusive digital rights to Worldreader to publish individual stories on Worldreader Mobile; and non-exclusive global print and digital rights to Short Story Day Africa and BooksLive for publicity purposes.</div>
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16. By entering, the author agrees to allowing Short Short Story Day Africa to include their entry in an anthology should it be selected by the judges; and to working with editors to get their story publication ready.</div>
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17. We will not share your personal information with anyone. We will, however, add you to Short Story Day Africa mailing list for the sole purpose of informing you of next year’s event. Standard manuscript format</div>
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If you submit manuscripts to publishers or agents, you've probably come across the demand that you use “standard manuscript format” (or “SMF”) for your submissions. It isn't always spelled out what this means, however. Generally speaking, the term indicates that you should format your document with the following guidelines in mind:</div>
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Type your document, using a single, clear font, 12-point size, double-spaced. The easiest font to use is Times New Roman, or a similar serif font. Include your name and contact information at the top left of the first page. Put an accurate word count at the top right. Put the title of your story halfway down the page, centred, with a byline underneath. Start the story beneath that. If you write under a pseudonym, put that beneath the title – but remember to include your real name in the top left of the first page. Put your name, story title and the page number as a right-justified header on every subsequent page, in the format: Name/Title/Page Number. Generally, you can also just use a keyword from your title and not repeat the whole thing on each page. Left-justify your paragraphs. Ensure there is at least a 1 inch or 2 centimetre margin all the way around your text. This is to allow annotation to be written onto a printed copy. Indent each new paragraph by about 1/2 inch or 1 centimetre, except for the first line of the story or the first line of a new scene. Don’t insert extra lines between your paragraphs. A blank line indicates a new scene. Put the word “End” after the end of your text, centred, on its own line. If you are printing out your submission (rather than submitting it electronically), print on plain white paper, on only one side of each sheet. Don't staple your pages together or bind them in any way, but package them up well so that they won't get damaged and send them off. It’s always worth checking the exact requirements of any publication or competition you submit to, but if they don't specify any formatting requirements, or just say “standard manuscript format”, follow these guidelines. Click <a href="http://www.shortstorydayafrica.org/competitions%20/" target="_blank">here</a> for further details. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-7196650376114298612015-05-11T07:06:00.000-07:002015-05-11T07:06:38.520-07:00News Alert Good day, Lagosians. If you have not, I guess you have to do it now: revisit your schedule, to accommodate the 14th edition of the Nigeria International Book Fair. The 14th edition of the Nigeria International Book Fair is scheduled to hold from Monday, May 11 through Saturday, May 16, 2015 at the Multi-purpose halls of the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos state. Click <a href="http://www.nibfng.org/" target="_blank">Lagos International Book Fair</a> for more details.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-64376608879138912952015-05-06T04:39:00.000-07:002015-05-06T04:39:22.048-07:00Generational Curse: A Bloody Superstition? Penetrating Damilola Yakubu’s Ireti<div style="text-align: justify;">
Not all stories I have read made me feel this way; very few did: I felt I had the penetrative power which logged me into the authorial privacy of Damilola while reading through his new short story Ireti—featured in the Survival (17th issue) of Saraba Magazine.</div>
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Ireti is the story of a young woman (Durosinmi) who suffers the pains of miscarriage allegedly attributed to a generational curse placed upon her family (Orimogunje) by her great grand-father’s adopted wife. All of them—the female children—will suffer this misfortune four times and only those who could dare or survive to try the fifth will have the joy of remaking themselves.</div>
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The reason for my feeling: I am very familiar with the traditional belief in generational curse, and stories woven around it. One of the most familiar grand narratives—from which I felt Damilola sourced his story—is this:</div>
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In the distant past, a wealthy man owned slaves punished a woman slave for getting pregnant by ensuring she was given ‘saltless’ meals throughout the pregnancy period and after delivery. The slave, feeling humiliated, placed curse on the man’s generation of female children to suffer still-birth and other related misfortunes if they did not get similar degrading treatment. </div>
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Nonetheless, the most impressive thing about Ireti is how Damilola reworked the narrative to problematize the concept of generational curse; fit in the story with the theme of survival, and carefully eased himself out of falling into ‘nollywoodian stereotype’.</div>
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The curse? takes another direction in Durosinmi’s life. Instead of waiting for the fifth time to get her remake, it takes her just three times. The joy though doesn’t last long as the baby dies not long after his birth. Thus, Durosinmi’s dissimilar experience throws up a big question for Orimogunje family—and indeed every individual that believes in generational curse—to answer: this cyclical experience, is it really the case of generational curse or genetic inheritance? </div>
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<b><i>Nurudeen Lawal</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Note: To read Ireti and other interesting stories and poems about survival, download the 17th (Survival) issue of SarabaMagazine here: </i></b></div>
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<b style="text-align: right;"><i><a href="http://www.sarabamag.com/" target="_blank">www.sarabamag.com/survival issue </a></i></b></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-33543859678224395622015-04-30T03:40:00.000-07:002015-05-04T10:37:33.442-07:00Listening to the Postcolonial Singer in Tejumola Olaniyan's Arrest the Music: Fela and His Rebel Arts and Politics<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The seriousness with which scholars of African popular
non-literary cultures have approached the music of Fela Anikulapo Kuti reaches
its high point in Tejumola Olaniyan</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arrest
the Music</i> because this is the first book that locates the meaning of Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s life, art, and politics
within the larger intellectual milieu whose contours the musician himself helped
to shape. The book also stands out for its adamant refusal to accept on face
value the many received truisms, many of them self proclaimed, about Fela; his
patently radical political statements, for example, are shown to lack ideological
coherence or philosophical depth. To the question why is Fela important, Olaniyan
responds that the body of work captured the essence of the </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">postcolonial incredible</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (2) in ways no other
African popular musician did. Fela became the force he was because he read the Nigerian
postindependence situation very accurately and transmitted his observations in
musical and verbal idioms most suitable for comprehending them. In all pitches possible
and at every performance forum presented to him, Fela never missed the chance
to articulate that which in the African postcolony </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">cannot be believed; that
which is too improbable, astonishing, and extraordinary to be believed</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (2). All thinking
Africans listened to, sang along, and wondered with Fela about the sheer
illogicality of how things could have been so wrong. Indeed, without the sustained
musical attention, lyrical and percussive, that Fela paid to the senseless
incongruities of life in the African postcolony, he would not have made much
sense to many people, especially given his relentless willful violations of middle
class, Western educated, social norms. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s mediation of the </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">postcolonial incredible,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> in musical idioms that
always punctuate a call to dance with a call to listen, to act, and to
transcend imposes a difficult burden on his audience. The call in </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Noise for Vendor Mouth</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> takes the form of a
shout, the mock complaint in </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lady</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> is set to a heavy </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">funky rhythm,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> the rumination in </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Water E No Get Enemy</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> is wrapped in
contemplative horns and vocal, the</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">sprightly drums and other percussion</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> in </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Shuffering and Shmiling</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> raise the heart</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s pulse and lift the feet
as its words prick the brain, the endearing </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">exuberant horns</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> of </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Eko Ile</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> evoke sweet images of the
home. Belaboring the audience, in my reading of Olaniyan, secures the other platform
on which Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s importance rests. Fela not only identifies the regime of the incredible
in postcolonial Africa; he also rebukes the condition with an obvious relish
that cannot but convince his listeners that this is an</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">interregnum</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> that will definitely
pass. He betrays the hidden</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">vulnerabilities</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> of African postcolonial
anomie with tongue wagging lyrics and suggests in fist clenching themes how they
will be supplanted. In record after record, the constantly grave critique of
the songs always insinuates (and sometimes yodels) the return of a savory norm;
at the end of the savage percussion of the song </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Zombie</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> rises the calm pitch of a
saxophone riff that bespeaks a dawn. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The perspicacity of Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s observations and the
audacious way he proclaims them are precisely the reasons his Yoruba speaking
fans called him ab</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">m</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ì</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">è</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">d</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, or the incredible creature. But we need to distinguish that epithet
formulated by overawed admirers from the sober contextualization <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arrest the Music</i> does. Olaniyan</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s reading of Fela aligns
the musician</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s genius with the tendency Emmanuel Obiechina has identified in African
fiction as the poetics of disillusionment which shows the African ruling
classes at work doing their self serving inept best to misappropriate the
fruits of independence. The recognition and analysis of Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s vision of the
inevitability of a better tomorrow, provided the practice and theory of
trenchant critique continues, also corresponds very well to the type of
cultural advocacy which the Ghanaian novelist, Ayi Kwei Armah, makes in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Two Thousand Seasons</i>. Fela, like Armah, simultaneously
declaims Africa</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s loss of </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the way</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> and signposts the recovery of the same, refusing </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">to be mere mirrors to
annihilation</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (Armah xiii). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Whether he is a struggling </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“‘</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">apolitical</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> avant-pop hipster</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">who hung on to jazz
tenaciously or the brash and self-confident </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Afrobeat moralist,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> the city is Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s forte. There Fela
locates, unlike fellow nationalists to whom the essence of African being
resides uncontaminated in the village, the most vibrant spot in the symbolic
geography of African postcolonial life. The city harbors the most outrageous episodes
of gargantuan abnormalities; if order is to begin to prevail, it will start
there. In the African metropolis, Fela notes, mass transit buses operate as if
the owners have the official permission to make more room for standing passengers
than for seated passengers and still charge both groups the same price. In
Lagos specifically, motor drivers act as if traffic signs mean the exact
opposite of what they instruct: </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Turn Right</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> is normally taken to mean
make a left turn. But despite its maddening chaos, Fela always sings of a homey
Lagos (literally so in Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s endearing Yoruba term, Èkó Il</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">) as a difficult place
whose irresistible charms cannot be spurned by any right thinking person. Good
or bad, the city seems to be home!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">At any rate, the hope of betterment subsists still.
People who suffer and smile on the cramped city buses will one day, if they
listen carefully to Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s lyrics, realize that their condition
can be remedied if they move in certain political directions. When those
Lagosians who bleach their black faces heed Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s admonition and live
comfortably with the skin into which they were born, the crowded bus might be less
smelly. When Fela sings about </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">go slow</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> or traffic jam, the city
lover</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s regret shows both in the dragged out words and in the deep voiced
inflection. In the excoriation of the shocking stupidities of the overseas
trained African postcolonial intellectuals, bureaucrats, and technocrats no trace
of malice can be detected. Even when the objects of ridicule are named evil
agents of transnational corporations and their collaborating perpetrators of
misrule, the scorn is aimed at the witless acts of self hatred and not the individuals.
Although Fela might have believed, Olaniyan notes, that he stopped singing
amorous songs after his discovery of Afrobeat highmindedness (29), his
tenacious optimism indicates that he never ceased singing about love; he only
refined the art and channeled all his affection towards Lagos, his symbol of
the African motherland. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s wicked humor and his rhetoric of
ironic familiarization sweetens his harsh criticisms and makes his cataloged abominations
easier to follow. One of his earlier songs about Lagos says: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Bi mo ba wa moto ni London
o/ Even if I drove in London <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ma tun sese wa ko tiwa
nile/ I would have to learn to drive anew when I return home Bi o ba wa moto ni
New Yorku o/ Even if I drove in New York <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Wa tun sese wa ko tiwa
nile/ You would have to learn to drive anew when I return home <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tori Turn Raiti l</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Eko o, la</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ju e/
Because </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Turn Right in Lagos, open your eyes <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Turn Leefu lori o . . ./
Turn Left it really is <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tiwa tun yato si tiyin o
se e ngbo o/ Ours is different from yours, you hear<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ka to tun sese so tawon
obinrin wa/ Let</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s not even talk about our women <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ledi ni won o. They</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">re Ladies <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Except for the gratuitous snide remark about </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ladylike</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lagos women, the
contrarian nature of things in Lagos—like that of the postcolonial nation in
general about which he sings in </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Opposite People</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">evokes bemusement and not tragedy.
Lagos is home, the chorus insists, its oddness notwithstanding. Pronouncing </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Turn Right,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Turn Left,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> and </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">New York</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> with the epenthetic
vowels characteristic of Lagos pidgin English makes the words sound as if the peculiarities
observed nationalize road sign rules. The articulation also renders believable
the singer</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s declaration of undying love for Lagos. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s unsurpassed understanding of which
direction the wind of culture is blowing in post-independence Nigeria, Olaniyan
shows, accounts for his sustained commercial success. In the dwindling numbers
of the high society that defined taste in the concluding years of direct
colonialism Fela noted correctly that the historical circumstances that sustained
the prominence of Highlife music were fading. The teeming children of the newly
empowered elite, in defiance of the genteel tastes of their parents, were
raising themselves on African American popular music and not jazz, Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s preferred high art
style. To tap into the trending developments, Fela rechanneled his energies and
invented a genre that blends the tastes competing for superiority, fusing </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">indigenous Yoruba rhythms
and declamatory chants, highlife, jazz, and the funky soul of James Brown</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (32). That concoction,
which he christened Afrobeat, found an eager audience among diverse taste
strata that include the urban working classes, college educated youths, and
curious holdovers from the Highlife generation. Olaniyan periodizes the
transformations in Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s intellect, politics, and art into
distinct musical styles and matching ideologies; the Afrobeat moralist that
most Fela admirers know developed out of the Highlife journeyman, and the</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">apolitical avant-pop
hustler</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> who favored jazz. In other words, the radical Fela did not
drop out of the heavens, nor was he born with iconoclasm in his genes. In order
to explain contradictions of Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s avowed radical nativist politics
and his shallow understanding of critical African cultural history,
particularly as it concerns women, Olaniyan also suggests we need not look too
far beyond the musician</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s circumstances, part of which are
created by Fela. The book</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s analysis of the well calibrated use
of non-musical elements</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">photography, jacket illustration, costumes,
and even marijuana consumption</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">in the packaging and delivery of the
records isolates for the reader</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s understanding Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s acute awareness of music
as a commodity. The artist successfully stages for his public the aura of a
selfless ideologue by shoehorning the musical and non-musical into one
unrelenting mode of criticizing the norm. By reading within and against the
grain of Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s rhetorical self and product fashioning, Olaniyan</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s study outlines some new
methodologies for understanding African popular expressive cultures. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After having spoken of the distinguished
innovativeness of this work, the very little room left uncovered by Olaniyan</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s comprehensiveness ought
to be remarked upon. This reader wants to know, for instance, why the Afrobeat
moralist</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s imagination never strayed out of the city. Fela </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">quotes</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">extensively from the life
of those who do not live in cities in his early highlife-jazz incarnations. </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Water E No Get Enemy,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> for example, consists
entirely of an elaboration on a <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yor</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ù</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">b</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> proverbial saying
repeated many times in the song</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s refrain, and </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Alujonjonkijon</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> is based on the sung chorus
of a folktale. Except in few and scattered saxophone and keyboard reproductions
which listeners not familiar with Yor</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ù</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">b</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> lore will not be able to
decode, the quoting acts gradually disappeared in the Afrobeat moralist
records. The ostensibly nativist Afrobeat</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s poignant lack of
interest in the African </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">interior</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> is even more pronounced
in Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s cultivated avoidance of native instrumentation. It may be true, as
Olaniyan argues, that Fela replaced the </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">talking drum</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> traditions of the Yoruba
with the prominent mimetic use of horns in many songs. But the African
percussive ensemble is far more varied than mimeticism. As j</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ù</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">j</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ú</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> and f</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ú</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">j</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ì</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> musicians have shown many
times over, the so-called talking drum does more than respond to the verbal
call in Yor</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ù</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">b</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> drumming ensemble. I want to suggest that Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s eschewing the interior
of Africa</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the laboring peasant figure and native instrumentation being two examples</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">reflects the shallowness
of his understanding of modern African modes of being. Like the scriptocentric
many on the African</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">classical</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> left, Fela was not at home with artifactual nativism probably because he
did not know, and probably did not try to learn, the workings of these </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">pagan</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> artifacts which, in the
mindset of an al</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">k</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ò</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">w</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (the literate) like Fela, belong to the ar</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">á</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ò</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">k</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">è</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (the upland hick) . On a
larger continental scale, it ought to be noted, it was not until Ngugi wa
Thiong</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">o</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s famous break with English language in 1977 that the possibility began
to occur to the African left that artifactual nativism is not necessarily
reactionary and that behavioral nativism could be linked to progressive politicking.
Ngugi repudiated the church, stopped calling himself James and found wisdom in
material Gikuyu verbal aesthetics; musically, Fela never left the church,
although he dropped his </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Christian</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> name. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One notable result of Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s rejection of the musical
practices of the African hinterland could be seen in his successful rebuff, as
Olaniyan correctly observes, of the panegyric impulse that dominates modern
musical genres derived from Yoruba traditions. But Olaniyan did not account for
the fact that the praise singers did not leave Fela alone and freely borrowed
musical arrangements and lyrical directions from him. Indeed, the trademark </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">busy instrumentation</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (29) that defines Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s most popular dance
records filtered down to </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">p</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">l</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, the normally leisurely genre
in Yor</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ù</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">b</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> language popular music. Olaniyan notes that Haruna Ishola, an </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">p</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">l</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> maestro, once advised his
fans to discountenance the mad motions that Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s music </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">induces in dancers. But this is not the only kind of
reaction Fela provoked. The rise and popular acceptance of the Afrobeat
moralist made it possible for Orlando Owoh to sing a passionate praise for
ganja. After Fela, Omowura and Adeolu Akisanya, like Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s one time employer and
Highlife superstar, Victor Olaiya, sang against skin bleaching. Even Haruna
Ishola, the anti-Fela, embraced Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s humor in his own criticism of skin
bleachers whom he called </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">óò</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">y</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ò</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">y</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ò</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ad</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ì</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">y</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ẹ</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> ab</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ó</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">l</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ọ́</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">r</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ù</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">n</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> or blistered skin
chickens. Just like Fela in </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">JJD</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, Adeolu Akisanya
ridiculed the Western educated man who has lost his ways through miseducation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The praise singing Ayinla Omowura, who drew followers from
the same urban lumpen that Fela courted, reinvented </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">p</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">l</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">à</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> music by borrowing Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">sprightly drumming</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">. Omowura also took a
trope or two from Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s style of irreverent lyrics. No
Yoruba language musician will, before the emergence of the Afrobeat moralist,
direct invectives at his detractors with the stark vulgarities Ayinla Omowura used
against those who started the rumors of his being kidnapped. After asking which
</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ears have ever heard of
the Olumo rock being stolen,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Omowura curses the rumor mongers,
saying: </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is your mothers that will all be kidnapped!</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> In this song, Omowura
turns himself into an immoveable ancestral rock and, in a very </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">un-Yoruba,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> but definitely Fela,
style directly curses out other people</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s mothers! Omowura lived out the Fela
script in one more critical way by adopting a matronymy, </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Wura</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s Child,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> for his public last name.
Of course, Wura being the musician</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s mother</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s name, </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">omo Wura</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (Wura</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s child) is the colloquial
reference those in the Yoruba section of the Nigerian interior would have
called Ayinla the singer. However, the normative thing to do is to change into
the family</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s patronymy in public forum, especially official documents. Ayinla</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s refusal to change his
full public appellation from the matricentric colloquialism of </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ayinla-who-is-Wura</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s-child</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> is a radical public
gesture which Fela himself never accomplished in spite of his avowed love for
his mother. We know that Fela refashioned himself by rejecting his </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">slave</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> name, Ransome; however,
he never repudiated the idea of patronymy to the extent that the unschooled
Ayinla Omowura did. The African interior is not that closed up towards
progress, after all. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I want to close these remarks occasioned by Olaniyan</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s study of Fela with a
word on what is shaping up to be the most enduring impact of Fela on the
intellectual understanding of contemporary African condition. The signs are
emerging that the generation that grew up on Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s music is beginning to
take charge of things in Africa as taste makers and delineators of how African
affairs should be understood intellectually. For illustration, I will use only Anglophone
novel writing in Nigeria. Chris Abani</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s 2004 best seller, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Graceland</i>, is about the misadventures of
a slum dwelling Nigerian young dancer for whom the soul-deadening and utterly
blighted material circumstances of his society are relieved only by his love
for the music of Elvis Presley who, like Fela, is another incredible. The
physical and aesthetic response to music saved that young protagonist whom the
cauldron of existence in postcolonial Nigeria would have dissolved completely.
The author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Graceland</i> himself
claimed to have suffered from the knuckle spikes of Nigerian political life
that Fela chronicled so unforgettably in his music. Indeed, Abani pays homage to
Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s precedent setting artistic response to tyranny in the title of this
collection of poems about prison experience, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kalakuta Republic</i>. Abani</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s book and Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s famed residence are both
eponymous with a notorious cell at the old Nigerian police headquarters in
Lagos. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps the best index of the presence of Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and an attestation to the
correctness of Olaniyan</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s evaluation of his work as
monumental embodiments of the postcolonial incredible</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">in the intellectual
unconscious of Nigerian life today, is to be found in Chimamanda Adichie</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s novel about the
agonistes of the will to live freely in spite of the murderous designs of the
African postcolonial potentate. With her gripping depiction of the tyranny that
governs intimacy in Eugene Achike</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s household, Adichie reiterates the
extent of the </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">postcolonial incredible</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> which Fela chronicles memorably in
his songs: the benevolent father is a heartless disciplinarian, the public
philanthropist rules his wife and children with a maniacal tyranny, the man
honored by his people as Omelora, </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the one who does for his people,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> detests, and never misses
a chance to punish, his father</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s free choice of religion, the
financier of free speech advocacies and agitations for democratic governance
will not countenance his own father</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s free choice of religion! Although
he operates mainly in the civil society, Eugene Achike resembles very closely
the potentates Fela criticizes all the time in his songs. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s Afrobeat moralist</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and optimistic</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">outlook on the</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">postcolonial incredible</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> is amply present in Adichie</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s novel. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purple Hibiscus</i>, the mind boggling
antinomies and oddities of life in the Nigerian postcolony are presented as events
that shall pass ultimately. After all, the homely tyrant is poisoned by his
meek, long suffering wife! The Afrobeat impulse of the novel is most obvious in
the literal references to Fela’s music. In Eugene Achike</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s house, Fela is unknown,
and only the Catholic hymnal reigns. But Achike</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s tyrannized children have
a cousin, Amaka, who knows Fela inside out. Amaka</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s family lives on campus
at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the island of reasoned democratic dissent
within the novel</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s sea of public and private despotism. After a visit during which Amaka
infects her cousin with her love for Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and other </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">culturally conscious</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">indigenous musicians</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> like Osadebe and Onyeka
Onwenu</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kambili begins to imagine the possibilities of life beyond her father</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s severe manhandling of
her mind and body.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Amaka, the novel</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s agent of proper cultural
education and political reawakening, is, like Fela, sharp witted and states her
opinion fearlessly. Amaka learns from her mother, just as Fela is believed to
have imbibed his iconoclasm from his own mother, that </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Defiance is like marijuana</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">it is not a bad thing when
it is used right</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (144). Amaka remains a devout Catholic but refuses to make
herself available for the holy sacrament of confirmation because she would not adopt
an </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">English name</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> for the rite. She asks
the very liberal Father Amadi, the family friend they all love deeply: </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What the church is saying
that only an English name will make your confirmation valid. </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Chiamaka</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> says God is beautiful. </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Chima</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> says God knows best, </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Chiebuka</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> says God is the greatest.
Don</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">t they all glorify God as
much as</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Paul,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> and </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Peter</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> and </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Simon</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (272)? Listening to such Fela-like sacrilegious statements
and observing acts of defiance at close range gradually began to influence Kambili</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s view of the world. The
emergence of this new person shows when one day Kambili is caught </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">singing along</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Fela with Amaka (247).
Her growing freedom to think and act independently is further marked later in
the story on her return from a trip to Nsukka when she reports herself to have </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">laughed loudly above Fela</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s stringent singing.</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> She finally learns, among
other things, that </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nsukka [the university] could free something deep inside your belly that would
rise up to your throat and come out as a freedom song. As laughter</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (299).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When Fela proclaimed that </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">music is the weapon of the
future,</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> many critics probably dismissed the declaration as an exaggeration. In
Olaniyan</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">s book we have a clear outline of how to begin to understand the
relationship of popular music to the practices of enlightening cultural and
political critique in postcolonial Africa.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><b><i>Professor Adeleke Adeeko </i></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><b><i>Ohio State University </i></b></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-4607549283574454982015-04-19T02:46:00.002-07:002015-04-19T02:47:58.159-07:00The Poet And His Patient: A Review Of Dami Ajayi's Clinical Blues Title: Clinical Blues<br />
Author: Dami Ajayi<br />
Publisher: WriteHouse<br />
Year: 2014<br />
Reviewer: Salawu Olajide<br />
<br />
THE POET AND HIS PATIENT: A REVIEW OF DAMI AJAYI’S CLINICAL BLUES<br />
<br />
One can begin with notch of the two-word title that Dami Ajayi has chosen for this seminal gang of poems, ‘Clinical Blues’. The poet has prepared poetry as the lab where medical science and music are titrated and adulterated. But then, love and sex are also apparently inside the test tubes. Dami Ajayi has carefully made a remove of himself from mundane discourses of literature viz: politics, history, or culture. The unfailing uniqueness of Dami Ajayi in experimenting with issues of sex, love, alcohol, modernity gives one another new crave of other subsets of discourses that are obtainable within the discourses of poetry. The poet, just like the string of guitar, is constantly pulled to observe humanity from poetic lens applying music, sex, love, betrayal, modernism, internet as they are not infrequent in his poems. One cannot escape the heavy stench of maladies that are monstrously crippling the society though in this bond of classic write.<br />
<br />
It was one of those sunny afternoons listening to Dami Ajayi in a monthly seminar organised<br />
by Prof. Gbemisola Adeoti, the edition held at Pit Theatre, Department of Dramatic Art,<br />
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria I came in face with this genius.. Dami Ajayi is a troll in Nigerian poetry. He came to present a poem and did a little talk. He came with such fizzy exuberance. And now, CB is a classical album that does not derail but resonate with everyday inflection.<br />
And in the words of Ayodele Arigbabu, this is a classic document, a work running the risk of ‘being labelled a classic’. Of course, the Damisque voice in the collection is that of a bard who has come with scalpel to dissect clinically, the soft body of poetry. Applying the inky balm where necessary. He is the physician who has the arch balance with his patient—the reader. He has come to employ the science of his words to fix and heal the wounds of illusion on the sin qua non, not only in the heavily laden Latinate jargons but also colloquial letters.<br />
<br />
The collection is a bundle of poems meticulously fragmented into three parts. The first phase of the poems tagged, ‘Love Poems’ is an intellectual dig into the discourse of love. In our first encounter captioned, “Promenade”, the persona is in conflicts with all the shenanigans of love. Speaking matter-of-factly, the poet throws us into the pit of oxymoron, an expose of love complexity and contradiction in the first line: “The deviant puppet....” This is a snap phrase which gives us visual imagery of puppet an object of control, always pliable but in this case, the reserve is in scene. This line further fuels the explanation of domineering issue in love and relationship. Other notations of love include fate, fear, timidity, anxiety, and surrounding attitudes as the persona illuminates:<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am scared to<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I love you too<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am too used to<br />
Playing Swain that<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These words I recount<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Don’t bite<br />
Dami has impatiently given us the balancing effects of music and poems to discourse of love and life. The two now becomes weaponry fondly employed in life for any resolve. It is a way to gain subservience and make ‘slave’ of the soul. And it seems the persona of the poet has committed the act before throwing us a poser in Sub-section IV of Love Poems.<br />
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In the midst of this, Dami pushes us into another phase of issues attached to love, affection, and life in, ‘Meeting Me Halfway’, ‘Nashville Postcard’. We are taxi-ed through different intricacies of love how to win affection, the pain, and triumphs. After all, ‘Love Songs’ is an muiscal eulogy, ululation, missile to capture the recalcitrant lover.<br />
The poem links up inextricably to sex in ‘Konji Blues’, ‘Domesticated Couplets’—as the metaphor of ‘back’ spins up the utility of your spine, the only thing that makes sex happen, speaking of which is not absented in ‘Love In Bermuda’ also. We can also scroll down to headiness, divorce, and disappoint: measures which Dami unravels and ends with ‘Ode To Juliet’.<br />
So the reader being under the risk of scathing jargon of medical language walks into ‘Hospital Poems’ like that. It is a way the poet savours how the medical proffer solutions to human puzzlement in general. Dami stretches this explanation on how trammelled humans are in the medical even when the obscure fill the scene: ‘Sometimes later you will/ Returen to this/Antiseptic corridors....’ CB is a bloom of medical imagery strewn across all human conditions or circumstances. It is a plausible account of the persona as he unmasks realities around life. Of course, Dami heats up this by showcasing even the sheer flaws that bedevil the academic, humanity, and medical profession. He is nimble to say:<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At the sitting of grey<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Obstetricians and medical students<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Who warms his bed and beer table.<br />
The persona turned physician tells us of his encounters in his medical science. We are made familiar to see the sad facts of human nature, impairment, dangers, welfare versus the clinical. In sub-section II, Dami makes it obvious how perfection of even the specialist cannot outflank human nature:<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I know the clinical meetings<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Not where doctors wage<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Wars against themselves with Literature<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But where diseases wield<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Their many forms in a game<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Of hide and sick.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
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Then, we are able to finger illusion of life in, ‘If Tomorrow Comes’. The persona presents us the dire of all answers concerning the-much-sought-after future and inability to know what it holds. Through this, we are played through the dark humour of ineluctable nature of death, infirmity, and inability to rescue humanity out of its flaws as the section fades in on, ‘Requiem For A Young Hypertensive’ and ‘Requiem For An Asphyxiated Neonate’. There is also reverberation of Dami’s experiences as a student where he wants to keep up with his personal challenges and that of ‘Lagenbeck’s Anatomy’.<br />
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‘Barroom Reflection’ completes the trinity of the volume. It is a bust into music and hard lines of life. ‘Libretto For Fela’ is a fold of musical parlance used in lampooning the society, as fracas of disunity is explored in ‘Everything Scatter’; not only that but overpowering relevance of Afrobeat music as different from other types of music. ‘Zombie’ x-rays the historical fabric of military oppressive rule over the hapless civilians. Much more, it is a blunt approach how life issues are perceived through the poems. The poet’s persona goes on to satirise societal malaise in ‘Look and Laugh’, ‘Shuffering And Shmiling’ as the complacency of the masses is challenged, and thus their hibernation in the face of tyranny. ‘New Buka’ is a haven and centre of escapism for the persona’s life. The affinity of the persona is that of umbilical link. Among these, we have collage of issues that rear up along other poems as sorrow, penury, and all shades of miseries are kindled in, ‘House of Hunger, Revisited’. Dami does not exclude anybody but universalises this through the lines thus:<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We’ve all passed by it<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At some time. Either as lodgers<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Or janitors and tourists<br />
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Hardship in life makes no exemption. The persona elucidates through the lines that everyone is in confines of this: ‘We are all victims....’ A quick recount of history is made in both ‘Celluloid’ and ‘Bouazizi’s Ashes’. Dami wings in on memories that cannot be forgotten June 12 and the ubiquitous death of Bouazizi which sparked the viral revolution of Arab Spring.<br />
The persona plugs into his own personality, his looms of experiences of the city, what it means to him. The discourse of alienation, and who-knows-who in the city is also refracted: ‘Personalities are buried/ In the earth of anonymity,/ Swallow unmarked graves’. The fears, failures, hope, and fraud of life T S Eliot’s Wasteland and modernist literature brings on Dami as the new Eliot. It is also a thick demonstration of intertextuality. Dami Ajayi himself taps into modernism adequately. And thus, the personal leads us to where the stream has ended: ‘Diagnosis’ and ‘Amnesia’. But we should not also forget we have a cyber existence in ‘Calling Credits’.<br />
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Dami ajayi has painstakingly organised violence through the harmony of his verses. It is same thing to say that CB contains letters which have come out to express themselves to us regardless of the poet himself. CB is an evergreen album that streaks of humanity all over it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-54964688607268998832015-04-19T02:28:00.000-07:002015-04-19T02:28:14.502-07:00Jonathan and His Dollar Desperations: Deconstructing Niyi Osundare’s ‘The Emperor and the Dollar (T)Rain’<br />
Niyi Osundare is a distinguished professor of English, a prolific poet in whose hands poetry fires more than Avtomat Kalashnikova- AK-47.<br />
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‘The Emperor and the Dollar (T)Rain’ is one of the most recent of his poetic vituperations. The poem is divided in to two parts, each part containing five (5) six-line stanzas making 60 lines in all.<br />
This poem, at the risk of restraining arts, is a satirical expose of the last minute desperate effort of Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, with his ‘train’, to bribe the traditional rulers so that he can be returned re-elected in the March 28 Presidential election. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
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The first part of the poem deals with the desperate effort of an emperor who doles out dollar to the obas and obis seeking in return from them something worthwhile. The poet persona leaves out not the emperor’s wife, the empress. While the emperor is on the dollar raining mission, his empress is taking care of the womenfolk with ‘her cache of gold’.<br />
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In the second part, the persona comes out of his poetic shell and makes it unequivocal that Nigeria is the target of his poetic outburst. He affirms that, ‘In the house called Nigeria, Corruption has a room’. The emperor, his ministers, the pastors, etc. are all involved in all sorts of political misdeeds capable of steering the ship of a country aground.<br />
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With this latest masterpiece, Osundare rhythmically captures the current political situation in Nigeria. Some of the poetic instruments deployed are; metaphor, alliteration, repetition, sarcasm, simile, etc. These shall be critically explored to bring out the beauty and expatiate exegetically the content of the poem.<br />
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<b>Emperor Goodluck Jonathan, DSM: the Dollar Spraying Machine</b><br />
With a fitting visual imagery couched with effective repetition, the poet presents the picture of the desperate Nigeria president who ‘hits the streets’ spraying dollars on the traditional rulers to gain their loyalty in the March 28 presidential election. Using cacophonic series of alliterative phrases, one could, without blur, picture the president and his train running from the obis to the obas with a ‘cargo of cash,’ ‘lustful loot,’ and ‘sparkling sterling’. For Emperor Jonathan, the poet asserts, what democratic governance means is to:<br />
Bribe the Pastors, bribe the Thugs<br />
Pound and plunder the national treasury…<br />
And to successfully return for the second term:<br />
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<i>Press the flesh, pull the polls</i><br />
<i>Rake in the gains of your hard-bought treachery</i><br />
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<b>Empress Patience Jonathan: the Nigerian Mrs Malaprop</b><br />
The poet persona spares not the empress’s wife, madam ‘Peace'. Apart from being exposed as an accomplice in his husband’s plundering of the national treasury, the persona, with a dexterous blend of sarcasm and alliteration, makes reference to the embarrassing (linguistic) display by Nigeria’s first lady—who ironically refers to the great Wole Soyinka as an embarrassment. Visualise the poetic portrait of Madam Patience Jonathan in the following lines:<br />
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<i>With her cache of gold for the womenfolk</i><br />
<i>Every word is a Malaprop Moment. </i><br />
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Does anyone remember the hilarious Mrs Malaprop in The Rivals, a comedy of manners play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan? Madam Patience seems to be her Nigerian representation!<br />
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‘<b>The Royal Grovelling that Greeks the Gift’; Forget Not the Actions of Your Ancestors</b><br />
While the rain of dollar is falling, it’s disastrous that some of the traditional rulers, without asking necessary questions, hurriedly brings out their basins to have their shares of the presidential dollar rain. Very unfortunate! This only brings to memory the collaborative role of their forefathers in one of the most dehumanising trade in the world history; slave trade. Their ancestors sold out their subjects to slavery in exchange for material things like gins, mirrors, gun powder etc. and now, they are also bent on repeting the sad history, selling their people to the vote-buying emperor in exchange for dollar. Obviously, ‘there is nothing beyond purchase/in the land of venal crawlers’.<br />
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{<b>Note</b>: fortunately, the presidential rain of dollar could not get him the second term, thanks to the emerging enlightened Nigerian masses}<br />
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Sadly though, out of the deep respect the persona has for tradition, he declares that:<br />
The royal grovelling that greeks the gift<br />
Is way beyond my plebeian telling<br />
Yet, before the ‘royal grovelling’ brings back the autocratic acts of their forefathers, is it not the high time they got disrobed of the toga of traditional reverence?<br />
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<b>Corruption: a ‘drug-defying malaria’ Afflicting Nigeria</b><br />
Using an apposite simile of the pandemic disease, malaria, the poet persona captures the distressing rate of corruption in Nigeria. Sitting atop the heaps of this corruption is none other than the emperor himself who in his characteristic ‘litany of lies’ redefines corruption as ‘mere instances of stealing’. Every institution in Nigeria—government, media, religion, etc. — is fully garbed in corruption toga. While ‘The Minister looted the Treasury….His/her Pastor praised the Lord…’. Naira, the Nigeria currency is now useless. The economy is crushed and yet we are the number one economy in Africa. Do people even care to ask why the emperor himself favoured Dollar instead of his own Naira in his vote buying campaign? Very soon—if we haven’t already—we will make another record: the largest importer of dollar in the world! <br />
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From the emperor and his empress to the ministers, pastors, and the brainwashed thugs, Niyi Osundare in ‘The Emperor and the Dollar (T)Rain’, captures, satirically, the wretched condition of ‘A sick, sad country…’ called Nigeria.<br />
<b> <i> Nurudeen Lawal</i></b><br />
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Note: Read ‘The Emperor and the Dollar (T)Rain’ on www.saharareporters.comAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-69140126083228003972015-04-19T01:57:00.002-07:002015-04-19T01:57:57.722-07:00Treading the Lonely Path: a Review of Omotayo Yusuf’s HeroOmotayo Yusuf is my friend. The one I am proud of. Together we navigated the literary ocean at Obafemi Awolowo University. Omotayo is a storyteller with literary simplicity, the kind akin to that of the great African literary icon; Chinua Achebe. When he writes, the English language flows and slickly draws in his hand as the rainy-season okro would do in the hands of a great cook.<br />
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Today, he has many short stories to his credit—some have won him laurels; while some are still in his mail waiting edgily to be unleashed. The one that however caught my attention of recent is his winning entry in ZODML short story contest titled Hero.<br />
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Set in the Nigerian military era, Hero is the story a journalist, nicknamed Scholar, who actively uses his column to challenge the oppressive status quo; the dehumanising activities of the Nigerian Supreme Military Council. With his unrelenting effort in writing against the military government, Scholar is arrested for ‘planning a coup’ and sentenced to fifteen year imprisonment. He remains undaunted! As a ‘committed’ journalist and defender of the common masses, Scholar looks forward to heroic and ‘epochal’ welcome from his colleagues at Real News and the members of his family when he eventually finishes his jail term. Unfortunately however, nobody seems to care about his existence, let alone his values, after fifteen years of suppression. Nobody came for him—even his colleagues at the prison, particularly Kojo who sees him as his ‘Idol’ cares less about him when he finally regains his freedom. It is a great disappointment, like that of the most popular fictional character Okonkwo (Things Fall Apart), after his return from exile. Scholar gets out to discover that things are no longer the same; there have been tremendous changes, just like the sea of changes that hit Okonkwo on his return from exile. Scholar’s family has changed; his six-year old daughter, has become twenty-one. Real News, where he works has altered; the Editor, his friend is no more the old self, his (Scholar’s) exclusive page 3 column where he tackles the government has become a display of nudity— where young girls, including Scholar’s daughter displays their nakedness in the name of displaying beauty.<br />
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Scholar is ‘hit by a wave of disappointment’. His thought is that he is a hero, and should be treated as such—with heroic welcome and celebrations. Little does he know that the path of heroism, in as insane setting like Nigeria, is a lonely path, the path of the unacknowledged. ‘Be right, may your road be rough’, says the legendary Tai Solarin, but the enormity of this statement seems to elude Scholar.<br />
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Hero arrests my attention due to two foremost factors: the writer’s ingenious descriptive power and the story’s historical relevance.<br />
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<b>The Descriptive Power</b><br />
The strength of the story is in its apt descriptiveness. It begins on a note of a powerful suspense, the kind that compels the reader to read non-stop until the last page is turned. In addition to this is the apt use of imagery—all forms of imagery: visual, tactile, auditory, etc. are ingeniously engaged. As I read through, I couldn’t help but picture, in my mind’s eye, the ‘wave of disappointment’ that hits Scholar after his uncelebrated welcome; the page three ‘half-nude girl…hugging a pole lightly (with) her wet dress clung to her skin’; and listen with my imaginative ear to the sound of the ‘vehicles blaring their horns maniacally and swerving to overtake the other vehicles’. With powerful nifty description, Omotayo, cryptically highlighting the differences two epochs in Nigeria—the Nigerian oppressive military period with people with cherished values ready to die for even at the face of death threat and the succeeding corruption-filled civilian period characterised with people of no cherished values filled with selfish and materialistic ambitions—narrates the ordeal of a Nigerian journalist who remains negligible and uncelebrated despite his heroic selfless sacrifices to the cause of the common masses.<br />
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<b>Historical Significance</b><br />
While reading through, the character of Scholar, the frustrated journalist, brings to mind a notable and distinguished Nigerian journalist, Kunle Ajibade. Kunle Ajibade is a Nigerian journalist arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment (later changed to fifteen years due to international outcry) for his anti-establishment writings during the Abacha regime. However, he spent only three years in prison as his chief jailer, Abacha, died three years in to the jail term. Scholar shares some semblance with Kunle Ajibade. Let me briefly attempt a comparative assessment of the characters of the fictional Scholar and Kunle Ajibade:<br />
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Kunle Ajibade is a journalist and was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment just like Scholar.<br />
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Kunle was arrested for writing against the military government. Similarly, Scholar was arrested for ‘planning a coup’ through his anti-military column at The News.<br />
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Meanwhile, the two have the same mind set towards their jailers. At the 5th series of the monthly Bookjam hosted by Igoni Baret and the Silverbird lifestyle stores, Kunle Ajibade was reportedly asked about his relationship with his former jailers. His reply:<br />
I hold no grudge against them…they worked under a system where they might have even killed their own mothers had they been ordered to. They were much a victim as I was.<br />
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Similarly, when Scholar eventually regains his freedom, he leaves the prison without any ill feelings towards his jailers:<br />
He didn’t hate them. He saw them as emissaries who had no choice but to do the bidding of their masters.<br />
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Considering these striking similarities, one may want to conclude that Omotayo intentionally created the fictional character of Scholar after Kunle Ajibade’s personality. It is nonetheless interesting to note that this was not the case as Omotayo, as at the time of penning down this story, is not aware of the history and personality of Kunle Ajibade. It’s just a pure happenstance, and a viable argument in psychoanalytical literary discourse.<br />
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Today, Kunle Ajibade is more than doing well. He is the Executive editor of The News, the newspaper publication of Independent Communications Network Limited. But, it is not a matter of doubt that ‘in a saner clime’, as Isaac Anyaogu puts it in his article ‘Kunle Ajibade: A Profile in Courage’ published on saharareporters.com, ‘Mr Kunle Ajibade ought to matter more.’<br />
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Regrettably, for journalists like Scholars, and indeed Kunle Ajibade, Dele Giwa, and others, they could not ‘matter more’ for the path they have decided to tread is a solitary path, the path of the selfless but the unsung, the path with little or no material gain; the sacrifice for fighting for the ignorant. The path abandoned by Reuben Abati and the like.<br />
<b>Nurudeen Lawal </b><br />
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Read Hero at http://zodml.orgAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278888543043077465.post-13126556211405103862015-04-10T18:11:00.000-07:002015-04-10T18:11:03.539-07:00Arts: For What Sake?Some say arts is for arts’ sake, that is, arts does not extend beyond the matter of aesthetics. On the other side, some believe there is nothing like arts for arts’ sake, arts is for society’s sake.<br />
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<i><b>Aesthetic experience is enjoyment for its own sake, is complete and self-contained, and is terminal, not merely instrumental to other purposes—John Dewey</b></i><br />
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<i><b>In the world today all culture, all literature and art belong to definite classes and are geared to definite political lines. There is no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes or art that is detached from or independent of politics—Mao Tse-stung</b></i><br />
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For us, arts is both for its sake and the society’s. To say that arts is not for its sake is to deny the ‘innocent’ appreciation of arts for its aesthetic value and to say arts is just for arts’ sake and nothing more is an inconclusive assertion, the one that denies the ‘committed’ nature of arts. Without denying the centrality of aesthetics in arts, we strongly assert that arts goes beyond the façade of aesthetics. Arts, robed with the toga of aesthetics, contains critical contents, for those who can see, and who want to see. Arts and society influence each other. Arts speaks to society, society speaks to arts.<br />
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ArtsandSociety.Com is built on this aesthetic-functionalist approach. Thus, it’s a platform created for critiquing the Nigerian society through its arts; appreciating the beauty and analysing the content.<br />
Here we value the beauty and the function does not elude us. Ours is a balanced approach. What is your opinion?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876545854424458263noreply@blogger.com0