enson Idonije, cultural icon, music critic, broadcaster and writer shared his thoughts with us on documentation as it affects music in Nigeria, the formula for making music with global appeal and the unethical practices in modern broadcasting business. We also got to learn about how he began his romance with music and how this romance continues as his grandson; Burna boy takes on the grand stage in Nigeria. Excerpts below His Romance with Music My romance with music started quite early in secondary school where we had a sierialeonean music teacher who volunteered to teach a few of us who were interested in music. I recall there were only four of us who yielded to this call then and we had to make out time, as it wasn't in the school curriculum. I learnt to play the organ and that foundation opened up my appreciation for music. I liked the radio a lot and fell in love with jazz. I did a lot of listening to Willis Donovan, presenter of Music USA who was an authority on jazz, he knew the musicians, attended their rehearsals and recording sessions and the programme was on every night, syndicated across the world. He used to ask questions which I answered and collected my prizes from the USA embassy in Lagos, infact I became the head of a chapter of Friends of Music USA. Those were the early days until I went in to broadcasting as an engineering assistant and then converted to programmes where I was in music department producing programmes and presenting until I met Fela and we both connected because both of us were jazz lovers. I tried to play saxophone at some point in time and that was the time I was courting my wife but then there were misgivings about being a musician at that point so I had to lay low and do all that was necessary to marry my wife. I may have been a good saxophonist.
B
Benson
Idonije
Documentation Documentation on music in Nigeria is very poor and that's why I acknowledge the efforts of CORA who are pushing for the documentation of the arts in Nigeria. Most of the documents we have on arts and music in Nigeria is written by foreigners and I have read most of these books, it is usually passive though the story is told. They hardly cross check information, they write what they are told, dates and ?gures are mixed up but when we write we have the bene?t of insiders who understand the culture and context. I also didn't realize the importance of documentation until recently and right now I am working on a book on Fela because you hardly have any information on the years before the Afro-beat era. I intend to write about the 60's before he came mainstream. I was with him during those years though what I am working on is not restricted to those years alone. The biggest set back to documentation efforts is that we don't have a reading culture. There are a couple of books that have been written but people do not have any knowledge of these books. Documentation is very important especially for our young artistes who need to understand what has happened before, know what elements made certain genre popular learn more about African music especially now that African music gives them an edge to claim stardom. This is the time they should be reading about our various traditional genres to be who they are; apala, sakara, juju, fuji, highlife etc Though there is a need for reissues of these materials (music forms) but the main crux is to get the electronic media to devote broadcast time for indigenous music form on a daily basis. What people hear they ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????9????????????????????????????????????????????????????????((0