Three Scores Of Highlife Music

The meeting point for our interview that Thursday was the Stadium Hotel at Iyun Street, Surulere. Stadium Hotel sounds familiar to those who knew what enjoying life was in the 1960s and 1970s in Lagos. It was just the right place to be at weekends or during the week after work in an era when balancing work and life was real. It was the hotel were men and women regardless of class twist their waists and wiggle their bodies to fine tunes of highlife music.

That afternoon, Stadium Hotel stood resplendent in the scorching August sun. But there is really nothing left of 1960s glory as the building is already sinking into decrepitude. The white walls are already turning grey but the stones hemmed into a portion of it, which have gathered dust, speak of the quality of craftsmanship of the architectural design.

I walked past a decrepit band bus that still proudly bears the insignia of the man I was billed to talk to, Victor Olaiya, into the windy hotel courtyard. I was an hour early. The interview was scheduled for 4pm.

There was no one in sight to talk to as I settled into one of the two chairs arranged at the lobby. An iron bar separates the receptionist from the sitting area. I stood up to peep into the empty room, no one was there, except a TV tuned to AfricaMagic.

A couple of minutes later, a dark-skinned man in a blue shirt walked past. I sensed he is the hotel manager.  “Excuse me, sir” I said. “I would like to see Baba Victor Olaiya. Are you the manager here?”

“There are many managers here,” he says. “I am just one of them. He will be here by four. He has an interview at that time.” I didn’t bother to introduce myself as I discussed with him issues bothering on the hotel management, electricity and business generally. Our conversation was cut short by a woman who needed his attention. And I was alone again. Waiting.

But a few minutes to four, that familiar voice bellowed from a corner of the building where the car park is. It was the famous Victor Olaiya, accompanied by a man. He stands tall in a flower patterned shirt. His frame is not bent. Nothing gives him away as a man who will turn 80-years-old in December except his grey hair.

Gangling Olaiya strolls towards the tree were seats had been arranged for us to have the interview with his trumpet and a white handkerchief in hand. The white handkerchief he later tells me is a legacy he got from Louis Armstrong when he performed with him in Nigeria in 1960s. In September, it will be 60 years he had been playing the Highlife Music.

Dr. Victor Olaiya as he is fondly called is one of the living legends of highlife music. His name is synonymous with highlife in Nigeria just as E.T Mensah’s name is with that brand of music in Ghana. At a point in his career, he did many songs with E.T Mensah.

The thematic preoccupation of Olaiya’s music cuts across social issues including war. In one his tracks he titled ‘Africa’ he focuses on the bad effects of war in Africa and the need to stop the unnecessary bloodsheds. As a veteran of the Nigerian civil war himself, Olaiya tells me he used to entertain soldiers on the Nigerian side with his music to cool down the tension. But then, his thematic concerns are not just about war, there are those that bother on life in Lagos at Itafaji, Racecourse CMS and the general Eko Area.

This is expected of a man whose family has a strong tie to and a large clan in Lagos. As a prominent family, the head of the Olaiya clan, Late Daniel Adegbite Olaiya, was opposed to his taking up a career in music. Hence he did not make his intention known early and his love affair with music was under wraps for a long time until a newspaper report gave him out. He had been selected to perform at a State Ball.

“When I crossed over to Lagos in search of a greener pasture,” he recalls with a laugh, “my family is a very prominent one and wouldn’t want to hear that I went into music. They believe that anybody who plays music in this part of the world must be a drop out or inconsequential. That’s why I kept my performances as top secret from my big brothers who were sending me to school at the time.

As providence will have it, one day after the morning prayers, the head of the family, Late Daniel Adegbite Olaiya took up the Daily Service, reigning newspaper, and Daily Times at the time. He saw the headline: ‘Victor Olaiya Selected for State Ball’. Then he called the whole family. It was as early as 6.30 or 7am. He was like: ‘kini awon ri yi o’ (What have we seen?). He called me and when I saw the newspaper with him and the story on me, I was shivering. That is something I had never thought will come to light that soon. My calculation was that after some years to pack my baggage because at the time I was applying for some scholarships overseas. I got one later but the money wasn’t forthcoming. I had thought that by the time I quit the music profession, that would be the time my secret would leak to the family but it matured much earlier.”

He was later encouraged by the Family head not to shiver after he had been interrogated. “Are you this victor Olaiya, is this your name? The Family head asked me. ‘Are you into music?’ ‘Are you the one selected for the State Ball?’ At that time, I hadn’t the faintest idea that I was nominated for State Ball. I didn’t know it was that morning I got to know through the newspaper report. I told him it was me. The family had to pray for me. It was there and then that I got my liberty,” he says.

Olaiya’s nomination for the State Ball triggered a serious protest from other existing and popular artistes like Bobby Benson. “Without prejudice,” he tells me frankly, “I was the reigning musician at the time. My band was very popular. I think I was selected on merit. Other musicians ganged up and staged a protest against me carrying placards. The parliament then was at Racecourse. Late Bobby Benson and other big musicians carried banners and demonstrated. I understand some of the placards read: ‘Why must it be Victor Olaiya?’ I didn’t see them but so I was told. From that day, the governor started protecting me because he suspected they might gang up to waylay me on the way or make it impossible for me to see that day.”

After getting the letter of nomination from the government, Olaiya and his All Stars Band embarked on rigorous rehearsal to improve on his composition because he knows he dare not fall short of expectations not with the show of jealousy from his contemporaries. “I tried to keep the standard,” he says. This explains why his songs are enduring a virtue that may be lacking in present generation of Hip Hop musicians.

“I don’t think the musicians are doing enough,” he says of this generation of musician. “To justify the cry the music that is prevailing now. Most of my professional colleagues, I don’t think they are doing enough to justify the noise or publicity they receive nowadays. Because in my time, each time it was 2’o clock and we close to go and eat. We have about two hours rest and go out for rehearsal and we will rehearse till 9pm because in those days we don’t perform everyday and we will not start performing until about 9 or 10pm presumably at weekends. We are working so hard. I believe in the saying that hard work is 95 percent four percent is luck. It is only one percent who knows what they are doing and I struggled to belong to that one percent.”

A good music composition for Olaiya must be full of good rhythm, poetic, educative and then full of harmony. With three scores on stage, Olaiya still composes songs and he plans to do collaboration with Tu Face Idibia in conjunction with Spinlet and Premier Records. Olaiya’s choice of Idibia is informed by his ability to stand out as a contemporary musician. “I like Idibia’s songs. The first time I listened to it, it was so catchy. The track was the ‘African Queen’. It was fascinating and so full of good rhythm and the cord progression was good. I told them to go and buy me a copy of the music because I asked who made that kind of music? It has been a long time and it is very rare,” he says.