By Tunde Odesola
(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, August 7, 2016)
Across the world’s seven continents and among its eight billion inhabitants, every creation story bears the same themes of void, force, and formation. The ancestries differ, the myths diverge, but the trilogy is forged on the same anvil of chaos-creation-calm. At the dusk of creation, even before the creative heat simmered, cackling, chirping, meowing, and rustling combined with the sploshing of water to sing the first music into man’s ears.
Except for their unequal distances from man, the sun and music radiate unseeable influence, like the breeze, unsighted but unmistakable; the big fireball burning 150 million kilometres up in the sky, music transporting the mind beyond bliss, and the coolant breeze tranquilising body, soul and nature.
You and I have heard a million definitions of music. In faraway England, on Twelfth Night, a profound writer did shake the world with a spear and proclaimed music the “food of love.” Across the Atlantic, another songbird in Uncle Sam’s land described music as “love in search of a word.”
I am not a messiah seeking to abolish the concepts of music; I have only come to simplify its universality and discuss Jùjú, a Yoruba music genre. For all its vocal and auditory resonance, the universality of music does not solely lie in instrumentation or tonality or philosophy: It ultimately resides in do-re-mi. This is the universal language of music. Whether you are in the cold of the West or you are in the sun of Africa, whether you sing in Yoruba, Mandarin, Arabic or English, inasmuch as you have a discerning head with as much a brain as the size of a grain, you must understand do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do to truly appreciate music.
Music is therapeutic and spiritual. In ancient Jewish history, a blast of trumpets and chant broke down the Wall of Jericho; David banished evil spirits from King Saul with a harp, just as Beethoven, over 200 years ago, composed Symphonies 2 to 8 while partially deaf; he composed Symphony 9, his ultimate masterpiece, when he was “essentially completely deaf.” At the premiere of Symphony No 9 in 1824, Beethoven could not hear the orchestra or the audience’s applause. One of the performers reportedly turned him toward the audience so he could see the standing ovation.
Whether you sing in Ikale, Urhobo, Nupe, Efik, Hausa, Ikwerre, Igbo, Tiv, Chinese or Hindu, every music is scalable; that is, it can be put on a scale or notated. Therefore, the scalability of music on do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do solfège underscores its universality. This is why an Ijaw man, sporting a bowler hat and a wrapper for trousers, would dance to a song sung by Hema Malini in an Indian film. It is also the same reason a Fulani cattle rearer would gyrate to Michael Jackson’s Thriller in a Kano forest and an Ibadan mechanic would sing a South African hit song, Jerusalema, as though he understood a word of Zulu.
In a live-and-let-live spirit, some African leaders call for caution when kindred spirits compete. Thus, Igbo elders, in their wisdom, say, “Let the eagle perch, let the kite perch; he that says the other should not perch, let its wings perish.” Similarly, Yoruba elders, in their fountain of understanding, reason that a vegetable should not chase the other out of the soup – ẹ̀fọ́ kìí lé ẹ̀fọ́ nínú ọbẹ̀.
However, happenings between two of Nigeria’s music genres, Jùjú and Fuji, seem to disagree with these proverbs. The commotion Fuji music was noted for is gradually giving way to unity, boldness and formidability among practitioners, expanding the genre’s fanbase and streamings. The same cannot be said of Jùjú music.
Growing up in a middle-class family in the Lagos of the 60s and 70s, Jùjú was a revised hymnal that preached morals more than it entertained, with Abdulrafiu Babatunde King aka Tunde King being its progenitor.
In an article titled “Nigeria’s Jùjú music: A genre’s centenary timeline,” published in The Africa Report on September 23, 2022, ethnomusicologists Chris Waterman and Paul Vernon partly traced Jùjú music to the minstrel tradition of itinerant musicians like Irewole Denge and Domingo Justus in the 1920s.
The article says, “The interregnum between the two World Wars saw the growth of several guitar-based music styles in coastal West African cities, including Lagos Island, where two repatriated Yoruba settler communities – the Saros, returnees from Sierra Leone rescued from the slave trade, and the Agudas/Amaros, the progeny of Afro-Cuban and Brazilian returnees —were living.
The former brought along with them the Ashiko drumming from Sierra Leone and the two-finger guitar plucking technique of the Liberian Kru people, John Collins notes in his book, Highlife Giants: West African Dance Bands.”
Jùjú caught on like a wildfire in harmattan, quickly making room for gángan drum, electric guitars, accordion, synthesisers, vibraphone, steel pedal guitar, “each addition a successful adventure of a particular musician”.
At Nigeria’s independence in 1960, Highlife sat majestically on Nigeria’s music throne; Jùjú was merely a member of the royal household. At the disruption of Lagos and southwestern Nigeria’s social life by the Civil War (1967-1970), culminating in the mass movement of ethnicities across the country, Jùjú found its voice, riding on the wave of the oil boom era to gain wider acceptability while the fortunes of Highlife declined after the Civil War.
How did Jùjú get its name?
Jùjú did not originate from West African magic known as voodoo. The name Jùjú fortuitously came to the music genre, like the term “Owambe” was derived from Tunde Nightingale’s call-and-response banter when Nightingale asked his female fans if they were wearing waist beads, and they would answer “owambe”. “Se owambe” is a question that means, “Is it there?” “Owambe” means it is there.
Music scholars agree that the name Jùjú was unplanned, yet providential. The scholars range from the irrepressible former Editor of Guardian newspaper, Mr Ben Tomoloju; a former Chairman, Committee of Provosts, Federal College of Education, Osiele, Abeokuta, Chief Sunday Akinfolarin Makinde; Head of Department, Mountaintop University, Nigeria, Dr Bayo Ogunyemi; and Alhaji Sulaiman Adegbenro, one of the earliest musicians who pioneered the one-man band in Nigeria, personally singing all types of songs on various scales.
Quoting the accounts of the late Professor Olatunji Vidal and Chief Tunde Alaja-Brown, Ogunyemi said, “It was during the arrival of repatriated slaves known as Saros and Amaros in Lagos that popular music began to gain more prominence. It was during this period that new trading companies also emerged in Lagos. The CFAO was one of the earliest European trading companies in the city.
“At the same time, Christian missionaries were very active on the streets of Lagos. Of particular interest to this account was the Salvation Army ministry. Unlike other Christian groups, the Salvation Army was involved in open-air evangelism known as rendezvous. During these rendezvous, one instrument that featured prominently was the tambourine.
“The manner in which Salvation Army members performed with the tambourine caught the attention of local Lagosians. They were interested in acquiring the same instrument (tambourine).
“They proceeded to CFAO to make inquiries. However, they did not know the name of the instrument. On getting to the store, they had to describe it to the sales officer. After much effort, the officer realised they were asking for a tambourine and exclaimed, “Joujou!” In French, tambourine is called “jou.” The name appealed to the Lagosians, and they began to chorus “Joujou.” Over time, “Joujou” was corrupted to “Jùjú,” and the new genre of music came to be known by that name.”
To be continued.
Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @Tunde Odesola
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