Gbagyi music is that which is done on the various Gbagyi traditional music instrument that produces those distinctive rhythms that cannot be confused with any other genre of music
By Alex Byanyiko
Music is a universal language. It does not matter much the language or the instrumentation that is used. Once done well, and it has a beautiful rhythm, people will love it and dance or nod their heads to it.
There is no single genre of music that appeals to everyone on earth. While some are more generally accepted, others are enjoyed more by a certain group of people.
Most genres of music started from a certain part of the world. For instance, rap music, which happens to be my favourite genre “began at block parties in New York City in the early 70s, when DJs began isolating the percussion breaks of funk, soul and disco songs and extending them.” At that time, it was ‘local’ to the people of New York City. In fact, rap was said to have been initially dismissed “as a fad until it proved its commercial viability in 1979 with the release of the Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’ and then in 1980 with Kurtis Blow’s ‘The Breaks,’ a top 5 hit that eventually went gold.”
Just over 40 years since it was ‘invented,’ rap is today a worldwide phenomenon, loved by all manner of people across racial, religious, age and social classes.
Rhythm and blues, popularly known today as R&B song, is said to have originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. Then this genre of music was ‘local’ to African-American people until it “exploded in urban centres like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Los Angeles – all of which had seen increased Black American presence due to the Great Migration.”
I remember that from the early 90s when I grew in love with music, R&B was also popular all around the world. Today there are billions of people across the world who enjoy R&B without having the slightest idea where and when this genre of music originated from. Today, R&B is international. A couple of decades ago, it was ‘local.’
High Life is one genre of music that I bet most of us here in Nigeria, born in the late 70s, through early 80s and 90s, would think originated from the eastern part of Nigeria by the Ibos. However, this very popular music “originated in Ghana in the late 19th century, later spread to western Nigeria, and flourished in both countries in the 1950s.”
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Anyone old enough to have listened and enjoyed the music of Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, a man from Anambra state, Nigeria, would probably have believed that he ‘invented’ highlife music or, at least, was among the inventors of such genre of music. There was a time this kind of music was ‘local,’ today it’s international.
This is not a research work on the origin of the various music genres as we know today, but I took my time to bring all these examples just to make you understand that every music genre was ‘local’ at some point in time before gaining wide acceptance, nationally and then internationally.
Many of us who are over 30 years would remember that foreign music such as rap, R&B, pop, reggae, rock and roll, soul and others dominated the airwaves across the world, including Nigeria, until now that Nigerian music is also a global commodity.
There was a time that Nigerian artists were considered as ‘local’ and Nigerians would prefer to bring in foreign artists like Jay-Z, Queen Latifah, KC & Jojo, Boys II Men, Soul For Real, TLC, Angie Stone, Aliyah, Brownstone, Escape and others like that on some outrageous fees while treating their own Nigerian artists like trash. This self-deprecating attitude continued until the legendary Kehinde (Keke) Ogungbe and Dayo (D1) Adeneye founded their world-famous Kennis Music in 1998 and, today, Nigeria has music icons like 2 Face Idibia, Davido, Simi, Tiwa Savage, Yemi Alade, P Square (who later sadly went their separate ways) and the list keeps growing.
Today, Nigerian music is a global commercial success to the level that many foreign artists want to have a Nigerian artist or flavour on their songs. This happened because some good heads realized that it could be done, and they took deliberate actions towards making it happen.
Coming home with my point is about the music of the Gbagyi people: a tribe large enough to have occupied 4 states in Nigeria plus the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, cannot be considered as small.
If you have met two or three Gbagyi people in your life, you would agree with me that they are beautiful and gifted in so many ways. They have a culture and tradition that is incredibly creamy and rich, yet, they watch their traditional music dying without any serious attempt to rescue it.
On many occasions, our elites simply come and talk, and pontificate, and explain why it is important for us to cherish our history, culture and tradition, and yet they hardly put their money where their mouths are!
Most times I wonder if some of them really believe themselves when they talk.
There are many issues, but here I want to focus only on the heart-shattering negligence of our Gbagyi music. And please don’t tell me that you have many Gbagyi songs on your iPhone, tablet, computer, and or other fanciful audio devices. Tell me the last time you invited any Gbagyi musician to your wedding and, or other ceremonies – how much did you pay them? They sing and you all dance and enjoy their music, but have you ever cared to know how many music albums they have in the market? If you had occasions every year for ten years, would the money you pay those Gbagyi musicians be enough to make them go to the studios, record a good song, shoot an internationally standard music video and promote it?
I have been to some occasions where Gbagyi musicians were invited quite alright, but hardly given enough time to even perform. What can be more demoralizing than this? I even heard some people say “just buy them some beer or palm wine and give them little transport fare and they will come and perform.”
Do we wonder then why we have very few Gbagyi musicians today? Do we wonder why our youth are hardly ever interested in playing all the beautiful Gbagyi traditional music instruments?
And please, don’t point at Shekwolo ‘Mr. Sheks’ and many others like him. They may be gifted musicians, but they are not singing Gbagyi music. They are simply singing whatever genre of songs, sometimes in Gbagyi. The fact that they are Gbagyi and sometimes they sing in Gbagyi does not qualify them to be Gbagyi musicians. Gbagyi music is that which is done on the various Gbagyi traditional music instrument that produces those distinctive rhythms that cannot be confused with any other genre of music, just like a rap song cannot be confused with R&B or pop.
Some of us are so ignorant as to classify such songs as ‘local’. Well, I believe by now we can appreciate that everything we see today – every piece of art, technology and science began locally, before gaining universal acceptance.
While cultures and traditions are dynamic just as human nature is, there is a need for us to maintain certain aspects of our culture, especially our arts, and also consciously project them to the world, then it can become a universally accepted piece of art for the enjoyment of all.
Music is one of the core means of promoting culture and tradition. And I have listened to many Gbagyi musicians. Their songs are lyrically rich and deeply poetic. To make them more appreciable is just to interpret such lyrics on the videos for those who don’t understand the language. I am confident that just the ways many of us in the north enjoy and sing some Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa songs, the same way we can make others enjoy gbagyi songs. After all, most of them have beautiful rhythm, their vocals are so captivating and Gbagyi dance steps are one of the most unique and refreshing ones in the world.
I choose not to talk about the fact that most of our Gbagyi musicians are not educated, because there are many iconic artists in the world who are not educated too.
While my thoughts on this are not exhaustive here, I would like to end this piece by challenging every one of our elites, and indeed every one of us… It is possible to add value to our Gbagyi music by the way we treat the musicians and their arts. It is possible to bring ourselves up to the level where Gbagyi music can be universally celebrated and can compete favourably with any other type of music in the world.
We all should understand that the value we ascribe to our music and musicians is tantamount to the value that we have for ourselves as a people.
If Ladi Kwali could become a world-famous figure creating her pots ‘locally,’ many of our musicians can also become world-famous artists. And they can, without adulterating their music with strange instrumentation in the name of ‘modernization’.
We need to be comfortable with our music in the face of others, love and cherish it, support and promote it, and we will see it become international, from a local standpoint.