simonkolawole! by simon kolawole
If only Ebenezer Obey’s mum knew! When her son said he wanted to be a jùjú singer, Madam Abigail Oyindamola protested vehemently. “In our family, we don’t sing people’s praises. Instead, they sing our praises,” the proud Egba woman reportedly told him. Not only did Obey go on to sing people’s praises, his own praises were also sung everywhere as he reinvented jùjú music. But you have to admire the pride and self-assurance of the mother whose first husband had abandoned because of childlessness after 20 years of marriage, who picked up the pieces, went on to marry the carpenter she had engaged to build the roof of her house, and finally had Obey with the “accidental” husband.
I grew up an omnivorous consumer of music, foreign and local. With no Spotify or YouTube, radio and record stores were the…
Source: Thisday Newspaper
