INTERVIEW WITH FAMOUS AFROBEAT MUSICIAN EDAOTO ON HIS
MUSIC AND PHILOSOPHY
E.P: can we know you
Answer: My name is Edaoto
Agbeniyi from Agbeniyi Awoyokun family as you know I am a musician and I have
acted in a couple of films, e.g. I was in ABOUT TO WED:by greg odutayo, LEGEND OF
OYA directed by LEKAN BALOGUN and MALAIKA by aisha and kabira kafidipe and other stage plays.
E.P: The inspiration for
music when the you decided that it is music that could bring the satisfaction
you need in life?
Answer: Like I always said I
have always been a musician and afro beat is the genre later people began to
call it afro folk or any other name they like but the genre that called me is afro
beat with the infusion of folklores but I formed my band in June 1999 and
different people have come in some are have left but it is a thing of joy that
the band had been formed it is known as Edaoto and his Afro genius band.
E.P: we know that afro beat
music is centered on African projection of earlier musical forms and had a forerunner
in FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI what was your intention in playing afro beat with lot of
folklores.
Answer: The reason i play afrobeat is not because nigeria music is lopsided but because afrobeat called me i formed my band in 1999 and of that time nigeria music wasn't this watered down, playing afro beat on its own is a call that i answered the reason why I play afro beat is that in the
last twenty years Nigerian music has lost it form, losing the whole sense of
who we are as a people culture and music wise. So nobody works on those values
anymore because they want to play commercial music, I do not know what
commercial music is because every music is commercial with targets audience but
now to promote music you have to have big budget to promote your music. Hence most
of the musicians today tends to forget about our values as a people or projecting
the image of the core African values. I want to tell you when you cut yourself
away from the past you lose where you are coming from for the present.
My thinking is that we
should bring the past to our present so that we can further a path for our self. If you play music that has to do folklorerish
embellishment it could allow us to know
where we are coming from it is for us; for example if you look at Ghana they have
high life and fussed it with hip hop to balance
it not a total break. They move from there high life and embellish it with a
new music culture, slavery cannot remove the African culture, custom, music and
way of life. African has one of the most advance technology I do not know what
they call Ijabe, Olo, Odo which was invented by our forebears over thirty thousand years ago which was not known to the white man of course we have one of the most terrible experience of slavery in Africa but before
then we have been prince and princes,
king and queens look at the pyramid built by Africans probably
blacks in Egypt.
E.P: But this shift towards
commercial music that have no African perception is what is been celebrated by
people?
Answer: Yes except for few
musician who are sensible enough to play the fussion of this with African music
like I always said my music is purely
African am using myself as a
guinea pig in playing completely African music with Folklores embellishment in it.
E.P: you said in Ghana we
have a fussion of high life with hip hop: what stop us from using the same
method music wise in nigeria because the music that can sell and bring money
must be commercial really.
Answer: You see how people
are so hypocritical about how we attend to issues in Africa let me share an
example, they was a big man who came to watch my play and as I came down from
the stage he called me and told me you play good music solid African music, I
said talk to my manager if you know we
play great music since you are a multinational why have you not promote us by given us shows he said their boss in the office knows we play good
music but would prefer to promote those that have been played on the radio. He said we don’t have
followership.
Now my take I don’t have any
problem with those artist that promote such music but it is the system that birth
to them, the system that gave them the ground to triumph, the system that nourish
the ground but if the system has been properly tailored to promote progressive
music that is riched with African
music but it is unfortunate that the artist are not the problem but the system.
If you see the energy put into the music perhaps if the system has been
tailored to promote African music the guy would have done something great, when
they sang remove your part, and trouser you won’t want your children to listen to it but this are the
guys that are contacted to play at parties and giving massive promotion and
support we are not truthful to ourselves.
They promote sex, gambling,
drugs, gangsterism through music but I have no problem with them.
E.P: What project are you
involved in music wise?
Answer: I have several albums
including about eight albums with akeem lasisi of punch news papers of course you
were at LNG CORA BOOK Party and you saw me on stage with the poets. I am the
must featured musician with Nigerian Poets
akeem lasisi was the first person to
take poetry to television with me the first one about 15 years ago. we released
critical speaking through mania records,
my band as always be on tour South Africa, central Africa and the US and my music is always online just google
my name you will get my music, the
current programme we release a new album
today titled RORA it is online we play every first Thursday at freedom park in Lagos
E.P: Your altitude to Government
patronage of the art?
Answer: I am a great critic of
every government in Nigeria because there are anti-people but the last
seventeen years of civilian rule as been
the worst, anybody expecting something from Nigeria government is deceiving himself.
We have politicians whose
recurrent expenditure is greater
than the capital expenditure they have
been the most dangerous we have seen in
Government APC and PDP are the same, no ideology the
same sets of people.
E.P: What inspires you when
choosing your songs?
Answer: I don’t drink when I
want to write my songs/ music, my muse brings
my music to me because of things that happens around me so the inspiration
just come naturally from my environment through my muse.
Answer: I will tell them to
fight on because what I see all around me is suffering strangulations and lies
everywhere, if you listen to my music you would see me sing about our struggle
as a people under oppressive government and policies.
