It was not only about drumming. Organisers of the yearly African Drum Festival in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, held a conference tagged: Drumming for advancement, a workshop and an exhibition at the Olumo Rock. The three-prong event featured renowned scholars and drum experts from across the continent. It was initiated to explore the drum as a tool for education, socialisation, cultural and economic advancement of Africa, Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME reports.
Renowned scholars and drum experts, including 91-year-old ex-Rex Lawson’s drummer Pa Tony Odili, were among participants who spiced up this year’s African Drum Festival in Abeokuta with intellectual flavour. At a conference, they examined the drum as a tool for education, socialisation as well as cultural and economic advancement of the continent.
The presence of monarchs, such as Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi; Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, and Obong of Calabar, Etubom Ekpo, underscored the drum’s critical place in Africans’ socio-economic life..
Also there were Ogun State Governor Senator IbikunleAmosun, Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed and Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka, who directed the conference.
The theme was Drumming for advancement, with a sub-theme: Drumming for socio-economic development.
In line with the concept of the conference, the session provided a veritable platform through which the very nature and character of drum and the vocation of drumming were distilled to rediscover its potentialities as a significant instrument for advancing the cause of the society.
Setting the tone for the discussions, Soyinka raised the alarm that a thick cloud hangs over the indigenous creative and festival events in Nigeria due to religious extremism, violence and instability. In his prologue, From Olatunji to Marsalis, Soyinka related the profound feelings of the familiar in the works of Fela Sowande and the reason for selecting his memorabilia for exhibition at this year’s festival.
He gave three anecdotes – which centred on the musical works of Babatunde Olatunji, Quincy Jones and Winston Marsalis – to discuss the possible lack of understanding of the true nature of the African drum by most African-American artists who, though are descendants of Africans, are not able to grasp the intricacies of the African drum and its multi-rhythm uniqueness. This, he described as ‘poly-rhythm’- the absence of which deprives their music of the true ‘African pulsation’.
A revered Nigerian musician of BLO fame, composer, repertoire expert and consultant, Laolu Akintobi (Akins), said African drums have names and their texture determines their tonality, adding that the procedure of making a drum determines the rhythm it produces. He stressed the importance of education via drums.
In his paper titled: Sustaining drumming culture via structured education, he stated that drumming should be inculcated and entrenched into the younger generation so as to preserve the culture of drumming.He identified different types of drums, noting that African music producers use the rhythms and tonal sounds of African instruments to produce music that is commercial and globally acceptable.
A member of the famous Osogbo Art School, Mr.Muraina Oyelami, identified lack of reference materials for teaching drum and drumming in schools as a hindrance to an effective transmission of knowledge about drums, while lamenting the lack of interest by publishers to publish his manuscripts.
Oyelami, who was also a founding member of the late Duro Ladipo Theatre Company as an actor and a musician spoke on production of digital documentation of an educational audio-visual facility and publication of Bata Drumming Techniques and Notation, a document he has been longing to publish. To drive home his points, he gave a brief demonstration of the speech patterns of the Dundun drum.
Prof. Jeleel Ojuade, a master drummer and expert dancer, classified drums into three groups – ideophones (these are self-sounding instruments), aerophones (these are instruments such as flutes, trumpets, saxophones) and membranophones (these are the drums made from animal skins).
In his paper, Drumming for socio-economic development: The application of Dundun and Bata drums, Ojuade said that drums possess innate language through which messages are transmitted in African societies. “Drums possess ‘sound codes’ which only the initiated can understand,” he said, using Yoruba Bata and Dundun drums to illustrate the essence of drums in African cultures. He noted that drumming is one of the ways value is brought out of any socio economic endeavour without words, but observed that Nigeria is not harnessing the economic capital of the drum. He therefore appealed to the Federal Government through the Minister and other stakeholders to salvage the African culture through the promotion of drum festivals such as this.
An Ibadan-based research scientist, Consulting Engineer and Culture Activist Dr.Tunde Adegbola stated that the bandwidth needed to communicate in Yoruba language is 10 times less than that needed for other languages because one can lose the consonant and vowel sounds alternatively in a speech and still be understood.He said that the objective of his paper, ‘Probabilistically Speaking: A Quantitative Exploration of Yoruba Speech Surrogacy’ is to demonstrate that history is not a joke based on the use of musical instruments such as drums and flutes, which express the tonality of the Yoruba language. He recalled that in the past, speech surrogacy was the mode of communication in African communities, adding that the tonality of Yoruba drums is mathematically and scientifically demonstrable.
A public speaker and pan-Africanist, Dr. Bukola Bello Jaiyesimi, stated that drumming gives life and must be preserved just as culture preserves life. According to her, drum is not accorded a place of importance in our society, hence, people with talent in drumming engage in other more lucrative jobs while others go out of the country, resulting in brain drain. She, however, questioned the place of gender in the drumming and reiterated that women can contribute to the socio- economic advancement of our nation through drumming. Citing examples of schools such as the Women Drum Centre in USA, Jaiyesimi called on government and the private sector to continue to support the arts in order to contribute effectively to the nation’s economy.
Speaking on “Swange Music and Socio-Economic Importance: The Jovena Swange Band of Gboko in Perspective”, Mr. Solomon Terkura Adaa, a master drummer, observed that there had been a paradigm shift in the music industry in recent years where youths moved from disco night clubs to focus on cultural dances choreographed for swange music in Benue State.
According to him, swange music has been in existence as a form of socialisation for a long time but it did not have a dance expression until a choreographer of Yoruba origin evolved the dance in the course of a workshop. “Swange music has over 100 dance groups in the country and every evening they dance to entertain people,” Adaa said, highlighting the didactic messages passed through swange music, which helps in the social correction of the younger generation.
Swange traditional performance entertains, educates and has the potential to help the youth earn some income and contribute to the economy of the nation, he said.
Dr.Sylvanus KwashieKuwor, a master drummer and scholar at the University of Ghana, Legon, said drumming should not be made to suffer on the altar of modernity as both could be synergised to formulate a holistic aesthetic. He identified Economic Values, Cultural Values and Aesthetic Values as the three major pillars of his paper, noting that drumming can be vocalised and textualised. To him, education is not only about books because education is experiential.
Other participants who spoke at the plenary included Wanle Akinboboye, Dr. OluAdeniran, Tunde Kelani, Akin Adejuwon,GregoireKabore, Landry Louoba, Bokossa Cocou Armel and Brenda Uphopho. Akinboboye suggested that Ogun State should build adrum festival resort located around the beautiful hills onShagamu-Abeokuta Road because of the availability of expanse of land to accommodate hotels, arts centers and cinema houses that are necessary to drive tourism.
The workshop segment was coordinated by Peter Badejo – an international African dance ambassador, while Isioma Williams and Emmanuel Ikwue both master drummers and drum instructors were resource persons that assisted in coordinating the workshop. Stand-by troupes such as Footprints of David, Eko Brass Band, Atunda Entertainment and Ogun State Cultural Troupe gave performances.
There were demonstrations, during the plenary session, by Salisu Mashi, AbegwaAlu, Goiserey Louoba Landry and Mukanyandwi Claudine – all master drummers from various parts of Africa. The session also accommodated honoured performances given by Pa Anthony Odili (Nonagenarian ex-drummer of the late Rex Lawson); Ajewole Oniluola (octogenarian ex-lead drummer of Ayinla Omowura Band); and Mallam Magaji Mahuta (octogenarian ex-drummer of Mamman Shatta Band.
Also, an exhibition featuring collections of literary works by Fela Sowande was opened at the Olumo Rocks to celebrate the life and time of the great icon, to critique Yoruba heritage and tradition through Sowande’s works, to develop new audiences for Yoruba art and culture in Abeokuta and beyond, among others.