RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dr. ADEOLA FALEYE, DISTINGUISHED POET,TO INTERVIEW EBENEZER OBEY ON APRIL 18, 2021
OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
Dr. ADEOLA FALEYE, DISTINGUISHED POET, SINGER, SCHOLAR, AND NOLLYWOOD ARTIST TO INTERVIEW EBENEZER OBEY ON APRIL 18, 2021
Sunday, April 18, 2021
5:00 PM GMT+1 (Nigeria Time)
11:00 AM US CST (Austin Time)
Register here
https://www.tfinterviews.com/post/chief-obey
Adéọlá Adijat Fálẹ́yẹ graduated with a First Class (B. A. Hons) in Yorùbá Language and Literature. She won the Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀ University Faculty of Arts’ award as the “Best Overall Graduating Student” of her set (1997/1998), along with many other outstanding academic awards. She acquired her Masters’ and doctorate degrees from the University of Ìbàdàn, Nigeria (2005 and 2015). She earlier worked as the Yorùbá Editor with the Oxford-affiliated University Press PLC in Ìbàdàn (1999-2002). She is a Fellow of the AHP/American Council of Learned Scholars (2012). She is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Linguistics and African Languages, Faculty of Arts of Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀ University, Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria. Adéọlá Fálẹ́yẹ is a celebrated poet, renowned actress, and a published performer. Some of the national and international film and stage play productions she has featured in include: Lápé in Agogo Èèwọ̀ of Mainframe Productions; Ìyálọ́jà in Ikú Olókùn Ẹsin of Akínwùnmí Ìsọ̀lá’s translated play, and Olóhùn-Iyọ̀ in Wọlé Ṣóyínka’s Death and the Kings’ Horseman. To her credits also are eight audio Oríkì albums: Tótó Ọba, Ìbàdàn Ọmọ Ajorosùn, Ẹ máa tú yagba, Jẹ́ ká gbáyé pẹ́, Mo ń Bọ́ba Rèhà, Onínúure Lọ (2009-2018). She has several published journal articles, chapters in books, and published creative works showcasing her area of specialization, which is Oral Literature, Culture and Performance Studies. Her published poems and books include Ìlù, Èjọ́ Èmi náà kọ́, Ọ̀rọ̀ Kàǹkà in Kíké Olóbùró (2003), Trends in African Oral Literature, Creative Writings and Contemporary Society (2018), her edited works are Ìwé Kíkà Àsìkò (2007) and Ìwé Mímọ́ Ifá: Ẹ̀sìn Àkọ́dá Olódùmarè (2019) which is a compilation of Ifá corpus, and a very detailed text for researchers and learners.
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Cornelius Hamelberg
This Sunday afternoon (1st day of Pesach and Palm Sunday in the Christian calendar) now that I intuit the nature of the problem, my sincere apologies to music connoisseur Lord Agbetuyi for having spoken in haste with special emphasis on the tail-end of his comment which was “the deleterious effect on the sophistication of his music” and if I understand Lord Agbetuyi correctly, also possibly the deterioration or degeneration that thenceforth occurred “in the Chief Commander's lyrics” In essence I understand you to be saying that Chief Commander’s earlier uninhibited exuberance in the juju music has now been considerably chained or “tamed” by the Holy Spirit
In his own defence Chief Commander could righteously explain that in praise of God he is singing higher lyrics, just like Shulem!
And, was Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music less musical because it was sacred? What about Pharoah Sanders? Alice Coltrane? Carlos Santana ? McCoy Tyner? Herbie Hancock? Bheki Mseleku? Abdullah Ibrahim ? John Coltrane himself, to name just a few? And what about all that great Gospel Music - did it diminish Aretha Franklin or Marvin Gaye ?
But of course it’s our Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey Fan Club that you’re talking about and when it comes to the Yoruba rhythms and lyrics, I concede, you know better. Much better. So far, apart from his “ What God has joined together” I have not listened to any of his evangelical evergreens. It’s only today that I have restarted my listening, chronologically and such is his prodigious output that I pray and hope I should have got to his latest by 18th April, so that I too will know what I’m talking about. ( for me it’s mostly the instrumental music that counts, the vocals too of course not so much the meanings in the Lingala, the Mandinka, the Wolof , the Twi, the Igbo, the Haitian Creole and the Yoruba lyrics )
There is a long list of musicians not even listed here who gave their life to Jesus and still continued to Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, I have in mind Debaba, of course King Sunny Ade, marvellous Ghanaian-Brit Caleb Quaye ex-Hookfoot , a host of others, but chiefly Bob Dylan who for a while gave his life to Jesus - thereby sending shock-waves throughout the Jewish nation, but in his case - and here I’m a real connoisseur without his music really shuffering a degeneration , the only difference being that his lyrics were more Gospel inspired and less iconoclastic as we can here in his “Slow Train Coming “ and “ Saved” just around the time my fanatical Igbo and Ikwerre Brethren almost drowned me not by the Rivers of Babylon, but in that river in Umuahia.
OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
This Sunday afternoon (1st day of Pesach and Palm Sunday in the Christian calendar) now that I intuit the nature of the problem, my sincere apologies to music connoisseur Lord Agbetuyi for having spoken in haste with special emphasis on the tail-end of his comment which was “the deleterious effect on the sophistication of his music” and if I understand Lord Agbetuyi correctly, also possibly the deterioration or degeneration that thenceforth occurred “in the Chief Commander's lyrics” In essence I understand you to be saying that Chief Commander’s earlier uninhibited exuberance in the juju music has now been considerably chained or “tamed” by the Holy Spirit
In his own defence Chief Commander could righteously explain that in praise of God he is singing higher lyrics, just like Shulem!
And, was Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music less musical because it was sacred? What about Pharoah Sanders? Alice Coltrane? Carlos Santana ? McCoy Tyner? Herbie Hancock? Bheki Mseleku? Abdullah Ibrahim ? John Coltrane himself, to name just a few? And what about all that great Gospel Music - did it diminish Aretha Franklin or Marvin Gaye ?
But of course it’s our Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey Fan Club that you’re talking about and when it comes to the Yoruba rhythms and lyrics, I concede, you know better. Much better. So far, apart from his “ What God has joined together” I have not listened to any of his evangelical evergreens. It’s only today that I have restarted my listening, chronologically and such is his prodigious output that I pray and hope I should have got to his latest by 18th April, so that I too will know what I’m talking about. ( for me it’s mostly the instrumental music that counts, the vocals too of course not so much the meanings in the Lingala, the Mandinka, the Wolof , the Twi, the Igbo, the Haitian Creole and the Yoruba lyrics )
There is a long list of musicians not even listed here who gave their life to Jesus and still continued to Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, I have in mind Debaba, of course King Sunny Ade, marvellous Ghanaian-Brit Caleb Quaye ex-Hookfoot , a host of others, but chiefly Bob Dylan who for a while gave his life to Jesus - thereby sending shock-waves throughout the Jewish nation, but in his case - and here I’m a real connoisseur without his music really shuffering a degeneration , the only difference being that his lyrics were more Gospel inspired and less iconoclastic as we can here in his “Slow Train Coming “ and “ Saved” just around the time my fanatical Igbo and Ikwerre Brethren almost drowned me not by the Rivers of Babylon, but in that river in Umuahia.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Agbetuyi,
A Good Afternoon to you!
I must confess that I don’t understand what you meant by “discordant tones.” "Discordant" - to your Yoruba ears?
As I write this I am tuned to the full menu here, listen-ing & hear-ing & really enjoy-ing on Spotify: Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, and wishing God’s Blessings on Chief Commander & Evangelist Ebenezer Obey & family, his tribe, his world & nation & all his music lovers to whom he has been bringing so much joy, through the years & now preaching the Gospel of Redemption through music – the food of love, Amen!
You mention how successfully the Rev Bob Marley integrated his Bible message into his reggae music, although as we all know, one of the differences between British colonialism and the French & other impies was that British missionary zeal banned what they deemed was d-evil “Voodoo drums” as a result of which we find next to no African drumming in the then British West Indies, a far cry from the tolerance and greater “permissiveness” in the French Caribbean, the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South America and Africa. In the Rev Bob Marley’s case we have to factor in the influence of the leadership of their Prophet Gad and his organisation “The Twelve Tribes of Israel “- an organisation to which I belonged in 1985 and was assigned membership of the tribe of Judah, being born on 14th July and according to their system, that should be my tribe (smile).
Just imagine if it could be like that for Nigeria, tribes allocated according to the signs of the zodiac , all the people born under the astrological sign of Cancer : Yoruba, Gemini: Igbo, Taurus: Hausa, Sagittarius; Fulani, Virgo: Kalabari…that would solve the tribalism issue because we would all then be equally divided, even if statistically most people are born nine months after the rainy season and above all, we would have many tribes co-existing within the same family. Real unit-y
I suppose that at this stage, an essential difference between Bob Marley and the Nigerian musical proselytizers of the Gospel message is that Bob celebrated freedom, took mighty puffs of the ganja, the holy sacrament and church bread of the Rastafari and in the name of humanity and as the trumpet of his” Jah” used his voice as an instrument, to sing against all forms of oppression…
I still don’t get it that the Great Chief Commander and King Sunny Ade should compromise or succumb to watering down their full artistry because of what they are moved to imagine the Almighty would disapprove of when making their joyful noises unto the Lord.
I should just like to add that I understand that a fuller appreciation of Chief Commander’s lyrics contributes that much more to a fuller appreciation of his music - in the same sense that e.g. Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen or even Joni Mitchell or indeed “The Last Poets”, Gil-Scott-Heron and all the Rappers thereafter would not amount to that much if we subtracted the impact of their lyrics from the totality of their music.
I understand that that’s the same point you are making about e.g. Ifa poetry, Yoruba poetry, even English poetry or poetry written in English , that an in-depth understanding of the Language , the inner language and its development would be necessary just as we did with our study of the English Language , at least since the time of Chaucer (smile). Ditto Sanskrit, Pali, Hebrew, Arabic, Ebonics, because translations, even great translations can never approximate the original
By the way, what more should we have to say about Carlos Castaneda’s doctoral thesis - as a work of science fiction ? It’s another case of “Give the devil his due”, isn’t it, Lord Agbetuyi ?
Cornelius Hamelberg
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
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More info Lord Agbetuyi,
A Good Afternoon to you!
I must confess that I don’t understand what you meant by “discordant tones.” "Discordant" - to your Yoruba ears?
As I write this I am tuned to the full menu here, listen-ing & hear-ing & really enjoy-ing on Spotify: Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, and wishing God’s Blessings on Chief Commander & Evangelist Ebenezer Obey & family, his tribe, his world & nation & all his music lovers to whom he has been bringing so much joy, through the years & now preaching the Gospel of Redemption through music - the food of love, Amen!
You mention how successfully the Rev Bob Marley integrated his Bible message into his reggae music, although as we all know, one of the difference between British colonialism and the French & other impies was that British missionary zeal banned what they deemed was d-evil “Voodoo drums” as a result of which we find next to no African drumming in the then British West Indies, a far cry from the tolerance and greater “permissiveness” in the French Caribbean, the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South America and Africa. In the Rev Bob Marley’s case we have to factor in the influence of the leadership of their Prophet Gad and his organisation “The Twelve Tribes of Israel “ - an organisation to which I belonged in 1985 and was assigned membership of the tribe of Judah, being born in July and according to their system, that should be my tribe (smile). Just imagine if it could be like that for Nigeria, tribes allocated according to the signs of the zodiac , all the people born under the astrological sign of Cancer : Yoruba , Gemini: Igbo, Taurus : Hausa, Sagittarius ; Fulani , Virgo : Kalabari…that would solve the tribalism issue because we would all then be equally divided, even if statistically most people are born nine months after the rainy season and above all, many tribes co-existing within the same family. Real unit-y
I suppose that at this stage, an essential difference between the Bob Marley and the Nigerian musical proselytizers of the Gospel message is that Bob celebrated freedom, took mighty puffs of the ganja, the holy sacrament and church bread of the Rastafari and in the name of humanity and as the trumpet of his” Jah” used his voice as an instrument, to sing against all forms of oppression…
I still don’t get it that the Great Chief Commander and King Sunny Ade should compromise or succumb to watering down their full artistry because of what they are moved to imagine the Almighty would disapprove of when making their joyful noises unto the Lord.
I should just like to add that I understand that a fuller appreciation of Chief Commander’s lyrics contributes that much more to a fuller appreciation of his music - in the same sense that e.g. Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen or even Joni Mitchell or indeed “The Last Poets” , Gil-Scott-Heron and all the Rappers thereafter would not amount to that much if we subtracted the impact of their lyrics from the totality of their music.
I understand that that’s a very important point you are making about any miscreant or charlatan who should want to specialise in Ifa poetry without an in-depth understanding of the Yoruba Language and its development just as we did with our study of the English Language , at least since the time of Chaucer (smile) Ditto Sanskirt, Pali, Hebwre, Arabic
What more should we have to say about Carlos Castaneda’s doctoral thesis - as a work of science fiction ?
It’s another case of “Give the devil his due”, isn’t it, Lord Agbetuyi ?
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Cornelius Hamelberg
With the glorious Yoruba drumming as your own background, how do we begin to compare Cuba’s Salsa percussion or Mongo Santamaria or Tito Puente ( Puerto Rico) or Sabu Martinez or the Cuban piano with any rebel chiki-chaka reggae percussion that you could dream up ina Jahmaica? OK, with Cecil Taylor’s approach to the piano, his hitting those 88 keys as if he’s playing some percussion, the closest to which we possibly have Monty Alexander. I suppose that the Garvey influence increased after Jamaican Independence, but reggae is so dominant - Cuba has not made much in-ways - it’s all Jamaica’s own - and since every instrument in a reggae band is distinctly percussive, maybe we should not compare, it’s to each its own, Haiti has it’s own and so does Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago...everybody has his own Sebene //sebenology
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
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More info With the glorious Yoruba drumming as your own background, how do we begin to compare Cuba’s Salsa percussion or Mongo Santamaria or Tito Puente ( Puerto Rico) or Sabu Martinez or the Cuban piano with any rebel chiki-chaka reggae percussion that you could dream up ina Jahmaica? OK, with Cecil Taylor’s approach to the piano, his hitting those 88 keys as if he’s playing some percussion, the closest to which we possibly have Monty Alexander. I suppose that the Garvey influence increased after Jamaican Independence, but reggae is so dominant - Cuba has not made much in-ways - it’s all Jamaica’s own - and since every instrument in a reggae band is distinctly percussive, maybe we should not compare, it’s to each its own, Haiti has it’s own and so does Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago...everybody has his own Sebene //sebenology
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Agbetuyi,
Tusen tack - thanks a million, as they say in Sweden. This your response is deeply appreciated. I’m going to send it verbatim to my old friend Professor John Collins, in Ghana, because you are so succinct - on the mark – that I think that he would appreciate it too, as a musicologist, player and producer.
In the countryside I often listen to the birds endless dialogues (they are always busy courting, in early spring )– and as Rev Marley sang, “if your listen carefully now , you will hear” , will hear and understand what they are saying, understand like Solomon or understand and enjoy like Lord Agbetuyi, Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey’s Ifa lyrics...
Syncopation is of the essence.
Percussion number two: the piano.
About my perception that nearly all the instruments that are capable of making a sound - staccato – clapping your hands, including the voice, like Victor Borg or John Okai performing his poetry or Leon Thomas, or scat-singing like Dizzy Gillespie and Bhimsen Joshi or even the toothless chimpanzee that chatters, the flute (ah Johnny Pacheco!) and the guitar which sings can be used in a percussive way. All this I admit is maybe stretching definitions and meanings of words to the nth musical extent.
BTW, with all that jungle drums and piano like the River Congo, the Zambezi, the Mississippi and those ol’ New Orleans rhythms flowing through our arteries, I wonder why e.g. Don Williams, Jim Reeves, Kenny Rogers and all that country music is so popular in Nigeria ?
From last night to this afternoon, I’m so remorseful about every ugly thing that I have ever said recently, when in my more sober moments I recollect this prayer that begins with Elohai Netzor:
“My God, guard my tongue from evil
and my lips from speaking deceitfully.
To those who curse me, let my soul be silent;
and let my soul be like dust to everyone….( etc etc
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
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More info Lord Agbetuyi,
Tusen tack - thanks a million, as they say in Sweden. This your response is deeply appreciated. I’m going to send it verbatim to my old friend Professor John Collins, in Ghana, because you are so succinct - on the mark – that I think that he would appreciate it too, as a musicologist, player and producer.
In the countryside I often listen to the birds endless dialogues (they are always busy courting, in early spring )– and as Rev Marley sang, “if your listen carefully now , you will hear” , will hear and understand what they are saying, understand like Solomon or understand and enjoy like Lord Agbetuyi, Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey’s Ifa lyrics...
Syncopation is of the essence.
Percussion number two: the piano.
About my perception that nearly all the instruments that are capable of making a sound - staccato – clapping your hands, including the voice, like Victor Borg or John Okai performing his poetry or Leon Thomas, or scat-singing like Dizzy Gillespie and Bhimsen Joshi or even the toothless chimpanzee that chatters, the flute (ah Johnny Pacheco!) and the guitar which sings can be used in a percussive way. All this I admit is maybe stretching definitions and meanings of words to the nth musical extent.
BTW, with all that jungle drums and piano like the River Congo, the Zambezi, the Mississippi and those ol’ New Orleans rhythms flowing through our arteries, I wonder why e.g. Don Williams, Jim Reeves, Kenny Rogers and all that country music is so popular in Nigeria ?
From last night to this afternoon, I’m so remorseful about every ugly thing that I have ever said recently, when in my more sober moments I recollect this prayer that begins with Elohai Netzor:
“My God, guard my tongue from evil
and my lips from speaking deceitfully.
To those who curse me, let my soul be silent;
and let my soul be like dust to everyone….( etc etc
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB29829339AEA8A58D60E5A9BFA67D9%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Agbetuyi,
I listened to Mystic Man everyday for two whole weeks in Ahoada, didn’t much like Peter Tosh’s doomsday “The Day the dollar die” and I’m 100% sure nor did any of my Ghanaian, Indian and Pakistani fellow-travellers & hustlers whose fate at that period was so inextricably linked to the ups and downs, and preferably (prayerfully) the steady ascension of the dollar in those days known as “Dollar Akbar” especially around 1981 when one naira was going for £1 Sterling as the official rate of exchange for which reason so many good folks were finding their way to Nigeria as the Mecca during those wonderful oil boom years, some to seek fortune and fame, to hustle and trade, the ashawoes and palm-wine tappers so sell their wares and me at least in search of some relevant cultural experience. So, if anything we did not want the dollar to die, even if it was going to resurrect without much delay and ascend sky-high thereafter and never to come down again - no contradiction with positive vibration Rev Marley wailing in the rub-a-dub style,
“Most
people think
Great God will come from the sky
Take away
everything
And make-a everybody feel high
But if you know
what life is worth
You will look for yours on earth
And now
you see the light
Stand up for your rights, Jah!´”
I wonder to what extent Chief Commander Evangelist Ebenezer Obey agrees with Bob about “Movement of the People” and Tosh’s Stand Firm or Feed Worm
And whilst we are busy raving about reggae and waving the Jamaican flag Burna Boy and Wizkid have just grabbed their first Grammys in Fela’s genre, The Afro-Beat which I’m told in the club scene is second only to Rap & Hip-Hop in the United States. How much drumming is there in Afro-Beat, I wonder. At least it produced one of the most versatile, percussive drummers, Tony Allen…..
Well, I just found out that psychopath and sycophant almost rhymes with syncopate and hope to find out, what you would like to be left alone with, if you were to be moored, alone on a desert island for all eternity and had to choose a music instrument, a book, a person (human being) an hour of recorded music, your favourite food to be falling daily like manna from heaven. For me the answer to the last question would be moin-moin. All this, one way of getting to know somebody better, nothing to do with academic togas and other magnificent thoughts…
I agree with your every word about the over-generalisations that often lead to unfortunate stereotypes but yours truly if also speaking personally when he says that there’s a little rhythm and beat of the drummer that any African including yours truly brings to the guitar - not just the soundboard of the acoustic guitar or the guitar of Sonny Sharrock and James Blood Ulmer, to the extent that I would like to play timbales when things are really hot.
BTW, I’m feeling like areal House Negro just now as I say let us pray for President Buhari who has just taken off to London for a routine medical check-up, that he will soon return to Nigeria hale and hearty again. In his absence, let's also pray for V-P Yemi Osinbajo who will be manning the fort….
Since music has a language of its own, Does it also shape the way we play –and the way we feel?
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
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More info Lord Agbetuyi,
I listened to Mystic Man everyday for two whole weeks in Ahoada, didn’t much like Peter Tosh’s doomsday “The Day the dollar die” and I’m 100% sure nor did any of my Ghanaian, Indian and Pakistani fellow-travellers & hustlers whose fate at that period was so inextricably linked to the ups and downs, and preferably (prayerfully) the steady ascension of the dollar in those days known as “Dollar Akbar” especially around 1981 when one naira was going for £1 Sterling as the official rate of exchange for which reason so many good folks were finding their way to Nigeria as the Mecca during those wonderful oil boom years, some to seek fortune and fame, to hustle and trade, the ashawoes and palm-wine tappers so sell their wares and me at least in search of some relevant cultural experience. So, if anything we did not want the dollar to die, even if it was going to resurrect without much delay and ascend sky-high thereafter and never to come down again - no contradiction with positive vibration Rev Marley wailing in the rub-a-dub style,
“Most people think
Great God will come from the sky
Take away everything
And make-a everybody feel high
But if you know what life is worth
You will look for yours on earth
And now you see the light
Stand up for your rights, Jah!´”
I wonder to what extent Chief Commander Evangelist Ebenezer Obey agrees with Bob about “Movement of the People” and Tosh’s Stand Firm or Feed Worm
And whilst we are busy raving about reggae and waving the Jamaican flag Burna Boy and Wizkid have just grabbed their first Grammys in Fela’s genre, The Afro-Beat which I’m told in the club scene is second only to Rap & Hip-Hop in the United States. How much drumming is there in Afro-Beat, I wonder. At least it produced one of the most versatile, percussive drummers, Tony Allen…..
Well, I just found out that psychopath and sycophant almost rhymes with syncopate and hope to find out, what you would like to be left alone with, if you were to be moored, alone on a desert island for all eternity and had to choose a music instrument, a book, a person (human being) an hour of recorded music, your favourite food to be falling daily like manna from heaven. For me the answer to the last question would be moin-moin. All this, one way of getting to know somebody better, nothing to do with academic togas and other magnificent thoughts…
I agree with your every word about the over-generalisations that often lead to unfortunate stereotypes but yours truly if also speaking personally when he says that there’s a little rhythm and beat of the drummer that any African including yours truly brings to the guitar - not just the soundboard of the acoustic guitar or the guitar of Sonny Sharrock and James Blood Ulmer, to the extent that I would like to play timbales when things are really hot.
BTW, I’m feeling like areal House Negro just now as I say let us pray for President Buhari who has just taken off to London for a routine medical check-up, that he will soon return to Nigeria hale and hearty again. In his absence, let's also pray for V-P Yemi Osinbajo who will be manning the fort….
Since music has a language of its own, Does it also shape the way we play –and the way we feel?
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Agbetuyi
Indeed, “Male and female created He them” a good reason why you would much prefer to be moored with a person and not just “man’s best friend”. I stipulated “human being” because I know that if I asked e.g. our local pastor he’d probably say that he would like to be moored for eternity with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. In your case I can well imagine you being voluntarily or involuntarily moored with Sun Ra or shackled with Vincent Van Gogh or Lee Perry, each of them quite a cosmic figure, you and just one of them like Lotus-eaters welded together on some Island in the Sun
Indeed chords, going back to Joao Gilberto and his quiet charm...
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