- Title: NIGERIA: HIGHLIFE MUSIC GETS NEW LEASE OF LIFE IN LAGOS
- Date: 10th March 2003
- Summary: VARIOUS OF FATAI ROLLING DOLLAR PLAYING WITH BAND AT THE HIGHLIFE REVIVAL CONCERT PEOPLE APPLAUDING
- Embargoed: 25th March 2003 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LAGOS AND VARIOUS UNKNOWN LOCATIONS, NIGERIA
- Country: Nigeria
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA6YITHCCWSHC3RRGAW6N2MWT99
- Story Text: For years highlife music has been dead in Nigeria, but in Lagos the music genre of yester-year, is getting a new lease of life and making all ages get up and dance.
Highlife music is considered a fusion of Jazz and ethnic-afro sounds.
The children of Munshi, a small suburb in Lagos, are about to have a treat. The 76-year-old Fatai Olagunju or Fatai 'Rolling Dollar' to his fans, regularly puts on a show for the neighbourhood's youngsters.
The music he plays is called 'Highlife'. Highlife originated in Ghana and had a great impact in the music scene throughout West Africa. Fatai gained fame by popularising the genre in Nigeria during the 50's and 60's.
The late musical legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti also used Highlife to develop his famous Afrobeat sound. Fatai's impromptu jam sessions are just one step in his mission to bring back the glory days of highlife.
In 1967 Nigeria went to war against itself. The conflict between Nigeria's central government and the breakaway region of Biafra lasted for almost three years. Over two million people died. Among the dead were some of Fatai's fellow musicians and friends.
"It was civil war which bring down high-life," Fatai Rolling Dollars remembers. "Because our boys who were playing high-life joined the army, some joined air force, some joined navy, some joined ground force, that's why the high-life come down."
Fatai Rolling Dollar is staging a come back. He launched his latest Highlife album - Fatai Returns - in December 2002.
He was spurred on by nostalgia, and dissatisfaction with current musical trends.
"You know what made me come back?" Fatai asks: "What am hearing in town. With music of nowadays am not too satisfied it can't teach our children coming on, it can't teach them a better thing they talk nonsense which in our own time they don't allow anyone to sing such things, that's why me I think over and say now I will go over with force and I did."
Benson Idonijie is a veteran radio presenter. He's also the co-ordinator of the High-Life Revival Project. They organise a monthly party where only highlife is played but everyone's invited.
"Is not all just music, during the program I try to discuss high-life, discuss it's essence, discuss where it coming from, discuss what it can do to them, repeat the fact that the past should be able to influence the future," DJ Idonijie says.
These days hip-hop, rap and R&B are the most popular types of music with young Nigerian listeners. But this hasn't stop Lagos youth from checking out the music - and the man - that once kept their parents glued to the dance floor.
"For me, Highlife music is something that takes me back to, like you see when I was dancing, I was thinking about my Mum and my Dad, you know, the things they used to do at that time," a young woman called Titi says.
Fellow male dancer Tunde Ogolie, explains: "It's music of the soul, its music, you start it has a beginning, middle and an end, it's a complete story. Every song of high-life that you listen to is a complete story."
Paul Play Dairo is an up and coming musician with a difference. Using modern sound equipment, he's fusing high-life with rap.
"I'm one of those people who believe that high-life can really come back to the main stream." Dairo says confidently: "I believe we can try to bring the interest of the young people, and the only way to do that is to try and fuse it with a little bit of element of R&B and hip-hop music so that the young people can also appreciate."
A local radio station is also joining in the fight to bring highlife back. Mike Oyesuji presents a six-hour high-life program weekly on Lagos's Metro FM.
"We discovered that many people don't know what high-life sounds like and we want to reach to as many people as possible to understand what is high-life," he says.
If the determination of the fans is anything to go by, then Fatai Rolling Dollar and highlife music may just have a second chance.
And why not? Some say music is the food of life. If that's true, then high-life may just be the ingredient Nigeria needs for a truly balanced musical diet. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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