THE PORTRAIT OF A TRAIL BLAZER
(Hypnosis 9)
Essays On The Mystique Of KSA The Sage
By Tunji Ajayi
Prologue to Hypnosis 9:
Few issues emerged after writing and featuring Hypnosis 8 that require clarification. A reader had asked how it was possible to write in a moving bus; while another yearned for the release of the new KSA memoir being serialized. First, the Hypnosis 8, viz: “The Inner Recess of a Consummate Fashionista” was written in a moving bus en route Ebonyi State last week Friday. But permit a little digression.
Nigerians have two major enemies. The first enemies are the rulers who often subjugate them and subvert their wishes, thus placing them under the jackboot of those elected by them, and are supposed to care for them. (See my Tarrying & Tardiness: Lessons from Babes and Suckling, Oct. 28, 2019). However, Nigerians’ second enemies are the Nigerians themselves. Yes. Even if their first enemies do not create problems for them, they will create problems for themselves. Unlike the past Christmas/End of the year seasons, this year did not witness the usual fuel shortage and attendant price hike. But surprisingly, commuters on inter-state trips suffered hell in terms of unnecessary transportation fare hikes. For example, a mere one hour flight fare from Lagos to Abuja, or to Enugu etc, which used to be about N27,000 (single trip) suddenly jumped to between N65,000 and N75,000, while road trip from Lagos to the Eastern part of the country which used to be between N6,500 and N7,000 suddenly jumped to about N15,000. Nigerians love to extort themselves. A great pity!
As I could not afford the flight cost, I went by the so-called luxurious buses for which I grudgingly paid a whopping N13,500 for a trip from Lagos to Ebonyi State. I thought my problem was over. No. I had pointed out my bag to the conductor to place in the bus boot. It contained very light materials - the (DVD) Video Documentary on a foremost Cultural Dance Troupe in the city; scheduled to be formally launched barely 48 hours after my take off. To my chagrin and dismay, the transport company would not ferry me unless I paid additional N13,500 for the bag! My offence? I was travelling during a busy festive period and therefore should be extorted, just like other passengers who suffered similar fate. As the public launch had been slated for the date and well planned for by the Dance Troupe, I accepted the issue as a fait accompli and paid a total transport fare of N23,500 – After all, whatever cannot be avoided must be borne.
Lanre Azeez, a great lover of KSA, who initiated and established a Fans Club Facebook Page entitled King Sunny Ade (Ariya Kingdom), now with over 15,000 members stunned me as a person. His case also confirms the veracity of my earlier claim in Hypnosis 6: Tragedy in Comedy; that those who love KSA could go to any extent to show their unfettered love for him. Indeed, people like him and his compatriots in similar fans club like the KSA Fans Club Worldwide, KSA Juju Maestro Fans Club Worldwide, KSA W/Wide Fans Club etc are worthy of double honour. I do pray that KSA would one day have a rendezvous with these great fans that have showed him shimmering love for decades without counting cost. Writers don’t quibble or descend into ambivalence. Love thrives more when reciprocated. Yes. Great lovers of KSA are not necessarily comprised of those who “spray” him money on the stage. Great fans express their love in different manners.
Lanre Azeez had asked me how it was possible to write “The Inner Recess of a Consummate Fashionista” inside a moving bus. You may please permit me to answer him thus: Not every maxim remains a truism. They are often susceptible to the vagaries of time passage and changing circumstances. But there is a maxim I had found apropos and inviolable. It goes thus: “When there is Will, there is a Way.” Yes. Recall I made a promise in Hypnosis 7 – “A Comedy of Togetherness” that I would meet fans on this page again the following week. Circumstances surrounding my trip via the road instead of by air as planned almost crushed that promise to rubble. But for me, the honour of a man is inexorably tied to his ability to keep promises. For me, a promise is a debt. Never respect any man who doesn’t keep promises. Yes. Admittedly, how I wrote in an Okeyson Bus from Lagos to Ebonyi State was a huge task. Because I paid a extra whopping N10,000 grudgingly after bargaining for an extra seat, I wanted to maximize my payment. I placed my LC-Studio’s DVD Documentary bag on the “bought” seat. I thus had space to maneuver my lap top.
But what about typing the essay? I make bold to say that I am a wizard on either the typewriter or computer keyboard. Yes. I did not just pass the advanced Typing at 50 w.p.m. many years back. It was done with a distinction! The over 500-page book on King Sunny Ade was wholly typed by me. Any Secretary or Typist would have become fed up and rejected typing it for me. I have retyped and retyped for years to have an excellent and enchanting story. I have never given anybody to type even my newspaper features. I am hardly satisfied easily with a piece of writing. Perhaps, just like our man KSA who, unknown to many fans, often re-records already recorded and packaged albums to suit his fans at whatever cost. I can beat my chest that he did so for the album Kool Samba in 2000. My only albatross was cudgeling up my brain for ideas and appropriate words in a noisy, moving vehicle. But the aphorism held sway: “When there is will, there is a way.”
Solution? I recalled that in drama, the object of playing a part is thinking yourself into it. Thus, to act a mad man role, simply become a mad man momentarily at that point. To act an imbecile, be an imbecile at that point. Thus, ignoring the noise around me, as the bus moved ahead on our bumpy, crater-ridden roads, I simply, albeit psychologically found myself in a ‘silent Library’. I placed my computer on its appropriate place. After all it is called a lap-top. I lifted my back off the seat of the moving vehicle and freed my body, thus resting on nothing. My fingers touching nothing but the keyboard. And that was the magic! Thus, the Hypnosis 8 was written inside a moving bus en route Ebonyi State last Friday, as I hurried up to meet the deadline of Ohio Wesleyan University Press. I did. I kept my promise. Yes, journalists are trained to work unholy hours and meet deadlines. A lesson? No mountain is insurmountable when the will exists. But my worry? Nigeria is no longer a reading community. I don’t know how a mind ever develops without avid reading. And I do not know how a nation ever progresses without people with developed minds. We only “read” and praise-sing facebook photographs and Google nowadays. And that may not promote scholasticism and knowledge. It is better to be a stark illiterate, unable to read or write, than being literate and loathe wide reading. After all, according to Francis Bacon, reading maketh man. Let’s now enjoy Hypnosis 9 as written by me in KSA’s Autobiography, Hooked To Music (1996):
The Portrait of a Trail Blazer (Hypnosis 9)
I remember in 1984 when a Nigerian-born legend was prominently featured in Life, one of the most widely-read pictorial magazines in the world, - he was the only African to be so featured. I became very proud and elated. But this same sage – an astute believer in excellence who has consistently implanted a philosophy into the minds of an average youth: “be the best of whatever you are” – would not stop yearning to outdo each of his successive feats, he consistently earns more international accolades and laurels.
The trailblazer, Nigeria’s King Sunny Ade, the musical institution and great impresario who towers above his musical peers like a colossus and who, like a troubadour, has traversed the world with his musical wizardry.
In one of the editions of one of New York’s widely-read magazines, Current Biography, vol. 55, No 11, which featured 14 world renowned personalities like the erstwhile American President Bill Clinton, the Chairman Palestine Liberation Organisation, late Yassir Arafat, the British rock singer and songwriter, legendary David Bowie, the world renowned graphic novelist, cartoonist and playwright Lynda Barry, among others; our maverick music star, King Sunny Ade was the only African featured in the magazine. Aside from being the first African personality to feature therein, the cover was conspicuously adorned with his imposing photograph.
The edition was apt in reiterating that the musical giant “has in the last decade established a secure niche for himself in the international music market.” The popular magazine noted that KSA’s British record producers hoped that “he would do for African music what Jamaican Bob Marley had done for reggae”.
Indeed, that KSA has become one of the most sought stars for interview in the last three decades by the British and American media amounts to stating the obvious, as his every Europe or American trip has always provided unique opportunities for the European and American press to turn their array of klieg lights on the maverick musical colossus. The foreign print media have not been left out in the unceasing scramble to secure interviews with the icon. The New York Times, the Village Voice, the New York Daily News, Newsweek, the New Musical Express, the Guardian, and a host of other tabloids, have over the last three decades surreptitiously identified the bizarre talents of this genius.
His exploits in the musical world have amazed world-renowned producers, promoters, and showbiz executives. According to a magazine, Current Biography, “Executives at Island Records, a British Company that had earlier introduced reggae and Bob Marley to the world were among those in the West who were taken by King Sunny Ade’s sound . . . Island was also apparently impressed by the sales of KSA albums on his own label, each had reportedly sold an average of 200,000 copies; That was in 1983.
The unique nature of the powerful lyrics backed by the profuse use of electrifying guitar-works and other allied sophisticated and prestigious Westernized electronic musical equipment, provide a highly scintillating staccato effect on his sound production that holds his audience spellbound, wondering about the finesse of his musical arrangement and the beauty of his music.
Hear Henry Kaiser, a frontline music analyst; who profiled KSA for Guitar Player: “Moreover, KSA had revolutionized the juju guitar sound by working with a frontline of several guitarists and by incorporating a Hawaiian steel guitar as a lead instrument. He had also introduced the vibraphone to juju, electrified the talking drum (a lead instrument in its own right), and appropriated the common Western recording technique of remixing songs on multi-track tape recorder to emphasize certain instrumental passages rather than relying on the band itself to produce the desired effect. Finally, KSA introduced into recorded juju the Nigerian practice of segueing from one song to another without a break during live performances.´
To lend credence to the above assertion, the New York Times writes: “His rolling, hypnotic rhythms work best when they have room to stretch out and develop in concert”.
Over the last five decades, KSA’s popularity has grown tremendously both at home and abroad. Hear Martin Meissonnier of Rolling Stone about him: “He can’t really move about at daytime. Some time ago, when we were passing through customs, three hundred people carried him through, screaming. It is really amazing. He is very, very popular. Policemen recognize him immediately. Even the armed robbers, they don’t touch him”.
His philanthropic gesture is unparalleled. It has remained a trailblazing effort to have set up a KSA Foundation in 1994 in his own bid to lend financial assistance to both young and old artistes. Into this Foundation, he has staked millions of Naira. KSA, the sage is indeed, a trailblazer.
*By Tunji Ajayi in “Hooked To Music” – King Sunny Ade’s Autobiography, 1996
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