Fela Anikulapo-Kuti had close to thirty years on stage before passing on at the height of his prolific
creative career. He left behind the legacy of Afrobeat, a distinctive sound which reverberated round
the world and drew considerable attention to the music scene in Nigeria. Afrobeat was the logical
successor to highlife but as earlier mentioned apart from the Kutis, not many musicians had the
courage to push Afrobeat forward until many years after Fela left the scene. Then, artists, mostly too
young to have had first hand experience of prime Fela began to experiment with sounds which were
arranged to form a new genre now called Afrobeats.
At the turn of this century the centre of Nigeria’s music scene seemed to have swung quite decisively
to Ajegunle, a sprawling, much crowded, multi ethnic and multi cultural suburb of Lagos. Artistes like
Fryo and Daddy Showkey began to produce what can be described as dance music with the music
providing a background to dances such as galala, konto and azonto. This marked a departure from
Afrobeat and the jazz infused music of Lagbaja who performed from behind the anonymity provided
by cloth masks. It is interesting to note that the existing streams of music at that time hardly
overlapped each other as the crowds which were attracted to the Motherland, venue of Lagbaja’s
shows would not have given any thought to paying a visit to Ajegunle to catch a Fryo show and vice
versa.
The era of the ascendancy of the thumping rhythm of music coming out of Ajegunle did not last long
however before musicians like 2face Idibia and P-square came on the scene to lay the foundation for
Afrobeats. This foundation was rapidly built upon by D’banj and spectacularly by Olu Maintain
whose monster hit Yahoozee took the country and the rest of the world by storm. Yahoozee, in spite
of its controversial title which appeared to eulogise advanced fee fraud dubbed 419 had everyone
including the then USA Secretary of state, the usually unflappable Colin Powell on their feet. At this
time Nigerian popular music appeared to be in a state of flux as acts such as 9ice and even Weird MC
dazzled for a while before retreating into the background as it were. However, this was only prelude
to the emergence of full blown Afrobeats with Davido, WizKid and Burna boy in the vanguard of a
music revolution which quickly crossed the boundaries of Nigeria and became a global phenomenon
in a way that even Fela’s music was not able to do. Colin Powell moved his distinguished body to
Yahoozee but this was a low key performance compared to the multitude of recognised celebrities
and world leaders who crowded dance floors everywhere you turned your attention to, to bugga
enthusiastically with Kizz Daniel. Now, there is no corner of the world into which Afrobeats has not
penetrated. It’s foremost exponents are being invited to play in all sorts of venues all around the
world and especially at most iconic sporting events. The closing ceremony at the football World Cup
in Qatar was graced by Davido whilst the half-time entertainment at the American version of the
World Cup, the Super bowl was provided by the Afrobeats (Nigerian) trio of Burna boy, Rema and
Tems. Even the House of Windsor was not left out of the rush as Tiwa Savage was one of the stand
out performers at the the long awaited coronation of King Charles III of England, signifying the
breaching of the formidable walls of conservatism by music made in Nigeria by Nigerians.
I am not quite sure why Afrobeats has swept the world as most assuredly it has done over the last
five years and I am not sure that anyone has bothered to study this phenomenon in any systematic
manner. However, it is safe to surmise that there is a complex mesh of reasons for the rise and rise of
Afrobeats.
Highlife, like Afrobeat after it, was a polyphonic creation which captured the rhythms of musical
styles from all over the world. But, the extent of the mixing involved in these genre is nothing
compared with what you find in Afrobeats. To the mixture which birthed highlife and Afrobeat we
can add a whole lot of rhythms including indigenous music from many sources; reggae, hip-hop, rap,
even hard rock, have all found space within Afrobeats. This being the case, virtually everyone is able
to find some form of reference and association witchin Afrobeats. It is not unlikely that even more
people will be drawn into the enchanted circle of Afrobeats as it develops further along the path of
world domination of popular music.
At the time that Afrobeats began its ascendancy on the global music scene, there was a large,
Nigerian dominated African Diaspora waiting to receive it. Many of them were second generation
migrants who had been exposed to African music within their domestic space and were therefore
oriented towards Africa as far as their musical tastes were concerned. They quickly jumped on the
Afrobeats band wagon as soon as it rolled into town. The long established African Diaspora in the
Americas, the Caribbean and Europe were not tardy about coming on board and it appeared that
there was a readymade audience for Afrobeats all over the world so that there was no problem with
penetrating the market as soon as the product became available.
A very small but extremely influential group that enhanced the popularity of Afrobeats were
members of the global musical elite. Musicians such as Beyoncé, Madonna, Ed Sheeran, Justin
Bieber, Dred and Drake who have either released Afrobeats themed records or have collaborated
with Afrobeats stars like WizKid, Tems, Shatter Wale and others to popularize both Afrobeats as well
as the respective artistes globally thereby strengthening all the brands involved with these
collaborative efforts.
In those long gone days of analogue transactions, you had to walk into a shop and go through the
physical transaction of buying a record. Now you can buy your music at the touch of a screen. This
has made it easy for purchases to be made and tracked in real time. We know that Afrobeats musical
tracks are setting records in terms of sales in different parts of the world. The progress or otherwise
of the sales performance of records are now monitored in a way that it could not be done in the days
of highlife when in addition, all sales were strictly local. Today all the music streamed on Spotify,
Boom and other streaming services is paid for in foreign currency so that the leading exponents of
Afrobeats became instant multi millionaires, not in the local currency but in American dollars. This
has lifted them out of the local gig scene and catapulted them onto the most iconic stages of the
world. These music venues are being packed out by crowds which do not seem to get enough of the
musical offerings of their heroes and the financial fallout from this is simply fabulous. These stars are
not only rich but are famous, well beyond the fifteen minutes of fame allotted to the modern human
beings by Andy Warhol. Being an Afrobeats star has therefore become a massive deal and the path
to all that fame and fortune is littered by the broken and torn bodies of those who failed to make the
grade.
Mohbad was definitely not one of those who failed to make the grade as the torrential outpour of
grief which followed his demise testifies to, so eloquently. He did not get to perform at the 02 arena
and no makeshift stage was erected for any performance at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as was
the case with WizKid but given the trajectory of his all too brief career, such performances were
going to be a feature of his career had he lived. He had demonstrated enough talent in every aspect
of stage craft to suggest that he was destined for the top and a seat with the big boys had he lived.
This is why he was mourned so passionately with candle light parades in his honour in places all over
the world, in places where he had never been but where his musical foot prints have left indelible
prints. To borrow the words of Shakespeare, nothing became him in life as in the leaving of it but it
has to be said that it was the things he did in life that led to his glorification in death. People from all
over the world had been touched by the power of his musical genius and wanted more of it.
Unfortunately, there can’t be anything more from Mohbad.
There have been so many angles to the life of Mohbad that his passing is shrouded in mystery,
mystery which could not be resolved after his internment and has led to the exhumation of his body
in an attempt to answer a plethora of questions to be asked by a post-mortem examination, the
results of which are awaited with bated breath, especially by the multitude of people who are
convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that there is more than meets the eye in the matter of
Mohbad’s sudden death. It has not been difficult for me to resist the urge to add my own speculation
to what is already on ground.
By dying at twenty-seven, Mohbad has been enrolled in a unique club of artistes who share the
unfortunate distinction of dying at that age. Another distinction shared by the people in this club is
their undoubted musical genius. The first and perhaps the most intriguing member of the club is
Robert Johnson, an itinerant blues guitarist who wowed audiences principally in the Mississippi delta
in the nineteen thirties. His greatest claim to fame however resides in the story told about him to the
effect that he sold his soul to the Devil to acquire his virtuosity on the guitar. An aspect of this story
which I find most intriguing is the insistence that this transaction took place at a crossroads, the
residence of no less a presence than Esu Larooye, one of the gods associated with creativity in the
Yoruba pantheon of gods. Johnson was Afro-American and this fits very nicely into this narrative.
Johnson also loved his guitar, whiskey and married women with great passion and the expressed
suspicion is that he was poisoned by a jealous husband. As no post-mortem was carried out on his
body, this suspicion has never been confirmed and the answer has been interred with him in a grave
the whereabouts of which can only be guessed at.
No such fancies have been associated with other members of this club but they are nevertheless still
eminently worthy of mention. Artistes, especially those at the very top live on the edge where there
is very little space for other people. They may be surrounded by a retinue of hired help but are
forced into loneliness which colours their everyday existence. Many of them are haunted by their
extravagant musical gifts with which they can hardly cope. They then turn to alcohol, drugs and sex
to damp down the fires burning inside them. In doing so, they leave themselves open to the charge
of recklessness and personal endangerment which may alienate them from a lot of other people.
Jimi Hendrix, probably the greatest rock and electric guitarist that ever lived died at twenty-seven. So
did Janis Joplin, one of the most famous female vocalists of all time and definitely the best of her
generation. Another illustrious member of this club was Amy Whitehouse, another extravagantly
talented singer who left far too early in her career. One of the outstanding groups in an era of iconic
groups was the Rolling Stones. It was put together by the multi-talented Brian Jones whose
dissonance led to his expulsion from the Rolling Stones which he had founded and drowned in his
own swimming pool aged only twenty-seven. Other members of the band including Mick Jagger
who for good measure welcomed his eighth child at the age of seventy-nine are still rocking and
rolling on stage.
Like all those talented musicians, Mohbad has gone the way of all flesh way too early. The cause of
his death is yet unknown but his many admirers can be consoled by the body of work which he left
behind as evidence of his having been here and done something remarkable with the little time at
his disposal.
