A RECRUDESCENCE OF CORE VALUES IN AFRICAN MUSIC:
Pristine Beauty of ADÉDÀMÓLÁ’s “Yabis”
By
‘Tunji Ajayi
In “KING SUNNY ADE @ 73: His Genre of Music & the African Entertainment Arts” (Cable News, September 25, 2019) I highlighted the dominance of music in the socio-cultural life of Africans. Like a troubadour, music traverses the entire psyche of Africans. In the piece, this writer had written inter-alia: “They often employ music as they work to its rhythmic beats and its soulful tunes especially to expedite physical actions at their often energy-sapping chores at farms, market places, workshops etc. Indeed to mitigate the effect of work burden on their psyche and diffuse work tension, they often shrill, oozing out musical sounds through their lips and teeth.” In Africa, music has been employed to unite. In similar vein, it was employed to motivate traditional warriors at the warfront in the olden days. Acrimonious musical lyrics may even fan the ember of disaster!
Aside from thorough application of indigenous percussive, wind and string instruments, the key factors that also make African music relevant in their social-cultural and political lives include the didactic lyrical contents, the rhythmic quality and philosophical depth of the messages. In Yoruba land for example, some music lyrical contents are laden and embellished with traditional oríkì ìdílé (descriptive names, or cognomen) so potent enough to appease hitherto impenitent warring factions, cooling strained nerves to embrace and sue for peace. Up till today, most grandparents imbued with native sense and deep love for African cultural values and tradition often latch on oríkì ìdílé to appease their sobbing toddler grandkids harnessed to their backs, as they engage in their domestic chores. The lullaby quality of such African music, embellished in their descriptive names, often lull the babies to sleep. Indeed, at the electioneering campaigns, since time immemorial, no political campaign ever garnered huge crowd of electorates without rendition of soul-stirring songs.
Good music must communicate values and teach moral lessons. It must also inform, educate and thrill. Until the incursion of foreign music and practices into the African environment and entertainment market, the hallmark of African traditional music had been its meaningful lyrical contents. A latest musical release that eminently satisfies the canon of didactic and philosophical musical artwork is from a young Nigerian musical talent, who simply goes by his first name: Adédàmọ́lá. The intrinsic beauty and values recently caught this writer’s attention; not only because it elevates the pristine beauty of African oral traditions, but also because the effort teaches good lessons to young aspiring musical artistes who truly want to impact on the audience.
Rendered in admixture of English, Pidgin and Yoruba lyrical messages, packaged in highly scintillating and percolating beats typical of the world-renowned Afrobeat musical legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the single simply entitled “Yabis” is exhilaratingly suitable for both listening and dancing pleasure of music buffs that have appreciation for African traditional values. Lavishly embellished with traditional agogo (the gong) as signature tune, the young artiste latched on deep indigenous proverbs, as commonly employed by the Yorubas - one of the largest tribes in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation - to embellish their words of wisdom. Apparently employing innuendoes to warn the political gladiators and rulers on the skirmishes and asphyxiating social and political conditions in a richly-blessed country with monumental resources, but whose citizens remain impoverished due to insensitive leadership especially since the military bulldozed their way into the polity in 1966. Adédàmọ́lá enthused proverbially in his socially conscious Afro Hip-Hop music: “Mélòó la fẹ́ kà léyín Adépèlé. Wọ́n yọ kùmọ̀, wọ́n yọ kóndó ti Sójà kékeré. Ẹní sọ̀kò s'òrùlé gbọ́dọ̀ gbọ́ ohùn onílé. Ọ̀mọ̀rọ̀ ló mọ ìdí rẹ̀, Ọlọ́gbọ́n ló mí a yé.”
Yoruba language is very rich, especially with its lexicon and applicable elements of figures of speech like aphorism, euphemism, hyperbole, simile, metaphor, metonymy, play on words by applying alliteration and assonance, etc. According to the proverb: Mélòó la fẹ́ kà léyín Adépèlé often completes with the predicate, viz: “Tinú irún, t’òde ọ̀’jọ (ọgọ́jọ), èjìdín-nírínwó èrìgì ló f’eyín mulẹ̀ láìyọ”. It may be applied to discuss the gravity of a foreboding and suffocating situation. In this context, Adédàmọ́lá seems to be lamenting about the intractable and overwhelming problems of Nigeria and wonders if they are not too numerous and monumental to discuss. In the above proverb, those who have interlocking multiple teeth - a dental oddity, are often euphemistically referred to as Adépèlé. Thus, the upcoming but perceptive artiste with native sense likens Nigeria’s multifarious problems and oddities to “ehín Adépèlé” viz Adepele’s lopsided teeth that defy accurate count.
In a traditional percussive groove, the artiste latched on another deep proverb, adding that anyone who throws stones or missiles on the rooftop invites the house-owner’s voice of complaints. According to this greatly talented budding artiste: “Ẹní s’ọ̀kò s'òrùlé gbọ́dọ̀ gbọ́ ohùn onílé.” A truism indeed! Apparently knowing full well that only the “deep calls to the deep” and that philosophical words of wisdom could only be fathomed and clearly understood by the witty ones, he added: Ọ̀mọ̀rọ̀ ló mọ’dí rẹ̀, Ọlọ́gbọ́n ló mí a yé.” He seems to be telling his audience that his lyrics would always be embellished with words from his trove of wisdom. Adédàmọ́lá, having played on words by applying assonance and alliteration, again latched on another deep Yoruba idiom; “Àlàkan'lẹ̀ ni t' Òṣùmàrè, followed by a banter and modern-day youth cliché in “Àlàkan'lẹ̀ ni t' Òṣùmàrè, Wọ́n ní kí ẹ fií lẹ̀ fún-un. Àgbà awo ló fẹ́ enter the place, Ẹ yá'ra ṣí'lẹ̀kùn” He apparently likens himself to a rainbow which often glows in its radiant and resplendent colours from the left to the right axis of the sky. Adédàmọ́lá euphemistically says he is “agba awo” a high chief in African music; who wants to enter the scene with his magic wand and thus requests that the musical entertainment door and the podium be widely opened for him and his didactic music to gain royal entry. He added proverbially that the “message carrier often has reverential fear and respect only for the master for whom he bears message and not the person to whom a message is to be delivered.” In a staccato of heavy percussive instruments sounding like the voice of an enraged elephant, Adédàmọ́lá “the deep” interlaced his mesmerizing tunes with a medley of multi-layered tenor, bass and solo guitars while he enthused in a rhyme: “Ẹní rán mi ń'ṣẹ́ n mo bẹ̀rù. Ẹ̀yin tó kù No level”. He latches on another deep Yoruba philosophical truism:“Màrìwò ń ṣ'ẹ̀ṣọ́ nínú ìgbágó” It is an irony that even in the midst of thorns and thistles, the palm frond revels in its shimmering honour. This is so because all its edges are ridden with sharp and dangerous spikes. A didactic message indicating that greatness in life may not be easy as it often requires forbearance of pain and discomfiture.
Typical of his mentor, Fela Anikulapo Kuti the music legend, the budding musical talent, reeling out the historical antecedents and ancestral pasts of the Yorubas, and indeed the black Africans, he delivers his message albeit in laconic but acerbic tone. He added that black men who are the descendants of Odùduwà as ably symbolized by the Orí Olókun, originally came from Ile-Ife, their ancestral home, before the pig-headed ones, viz, Olóríkunkun - (like Professor Wole Soyinka the Nobel Laureate juxtaposed Olóríkunkun and Orí Olókun in his “You must set Forth at Dawn”) - were forcefully demanding undeserved royalties (ìṣákọ́lẹ̀). This statement could also be giving a hint to the young artiste’s birth in the ancient and ancestral city.
Truly, just like the modern-day Nigerian politicians, the colonial masters also extorted Africa for far too long, which has partly resulted of her underdevelopment. Though, like his mentor Fela hollered in his “Colonial Mentality”: “Dem don release you now, but you never release yourself” Even after long years of freedom from slavery and the jackboot of the colonialists, Nigerians still extort their fellow Nigerians. Thus, Adédàmọ́lá laments in derision the gory situation: “Ilé Ifẹ̀ l'Ọmọ Oòduwà ti f'Orí Olókun sọ 'lẹ̀ k’awọn Olóríkunkun tó f' agídí ọkàn-àyà gba'ṣákọ́lẹ̀.
He went on with a stern warning: “Ewú ń bẹ lóko lóńgẹ́, A wí wí wí fún wọn kí wọ́n tó tẹ́, Àtọ̀húnrìnwá ń f'ara ni wá ọjọ́ ti pẹ́, Wọn ò lè pe ajá l' ọ̀bọ fún wa mọ, Ó tó gẹ́, Ó tó gẹ́. His message warns sternly that danger looms, apparently, if long years of extortion of man by man do not abate. Adding that the warning had been offered for far too long and there is need to change for the better, before the extortionists would face public odium. Thus his laconic: “Ó tó gẹ́, Ó tó gẹ́” meaning enough is enough of extortionate rulership and subjugation of the downtrodden masses by the impervious and impenitent ruling class.
His warning seems apropos especially since the fleecing of public funds with reckless abandon, by the avaricious politicians has impoverished Africa’s most populous nation; thus causing infrastructural deficit, youth unemployment, hunger and squalor which has now bred brigandage, banditry, kidnapping and other social vices. This must have made the perspicacious upcoming artiste lament loudly that even the price of common food for the peasants, viz Gaàrí – (Cassava flakes) had soared beyond measurable proportion: “Apo meji aabo labo kan gaàrí”. Adédàmọ́lá hollered in pain: “Tẹ́tí gbọ́ as I dey nack the yabis, Àpò méjì àbọ̀ l'abọ́ kan gaàrí, A ń bá wọn sọọ́ tipẹ́, Ṣùgbọ́n wọ́n kọ̀ tì wọ́n yarí” which literally translates to mean: “Listen as I am throwing my Yabis, ordinary Gaàrí’s price has now become so prohibitive, even though we have been warning the system but it is impervious to advice.” Adédàmọ́lá then asked a rhetorical question: “Ṣé ó yẹ k’Ológìní p’Àgùntàn kí baálé tó tají?” - Should the cat murder the sheep before the house head wakes up from fitful slumber?” Ostensibly, he is drawing an inference and asking if the country really needed to sink totally into the abyss of disaster before the leadership rises to the occasion to temper the festering disaster, before it pushes a beleaguered nation further into a total nadir. – What a timely nudge urging the lethargic and impenitent hearts!
Good music should be free from obscenities, vapid talk, insipid expressions and vulgarity especially to educate the children with their impressionable minds and the adults alike. His philosophically rich inspiring lyrics, idiom-laden expressions etc., would also contribute to the revival of Yoruba indigenous language and dialects which are fast effacing due to unbridled attachment and elevation of foreign languages to the detriment of the indigenous local languages. Adédàmọ́lá evidently is a budding musical talent on the threshold of stardom in the ever growing Nigerian entertainment firmament, especially with his uniquely intriguing musical style whose fulcrum includes didactic musical messages and lavish application of deep Yoruba idioms and lexicon. His sweeping fluidity of expression in Yoruba and English languages to embellish his messages with modern rapping may make his musical art work a bestseller if he continues in this exhilarating manner. A sociology graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, Adedamola Ajayi is also an avid producer, music composer, multi-instrumentalist and lyricist soon to cause éclat on African musical and entertainment podium. Working on another single entitled Àfojúdi, it is hoped that he would apply his best talents to make Àfojúdi a big hit like Yabis which first debuted on one of Nigeria’s popular Radio Stations, Rock-City 101.9fm Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria this August 2021. The African entertainment market should therefore keep their eyes and ears open in anticipation of this genius with burgeoning but latent talents who will certainly stir the world of African music with profuse but sizzling releases in the years ahead. May the artiste do this, after all, like William Congreve, an English playwright and poet, would say in his Hymn to Harmony, good “music alone with sudden charms can bind the wandering sense, and calm troubled mind.”
+COURTESY: Ohio Wesleyan University Press, USA..
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*Tunji Ajayi, a creative writer, author, biographer and audiovisual documentary producer writes from LC-Studio Communications, Nigeria (+2348033203115, +2348162124412)
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