Victor Uwaifo has a string of firsts as taut and sound as those on his guitar. Among others, he is the first to break the mould of Nigerian bandleaders being either trumpeters or horns-men; Nigeria’s first true master guitarist and one of the best in world contemporary popular music. He is also the first to give a leading role for the guitar in Nigerian popular music; the first Nigerian musician to play a double-necked guitar; the first to have his record on the BBC Home Service chart-in 1966 (that hit went on to become the first Gold disc in Africa and, remains the only Gold disc in West Africa, because it was the only 45 rpm record Gold Disc before the format was phased out) and the first-ever Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Tourism in Edo State.
It’s no wonder then that Uwaifo exhibits a streak of confidence in his art as he declares candidly and uncompromisingly, “I am not just a master guitarist; I am an institution as an instrumentalist, mostly on the guitar and flute and, basically in all spheres of life.” He might not be modest, but he has risen from being a guitar boy into a guitar maestro, genius and national musical icon.
Guitar Boy
For nearly five decades Uwaifo has continued a creative love affair with the guitar that has flourished. He has produced an exhaustive and varied catalogue of world famous contemporary popular music as well as structural innovations to the musical instrument.
Uwaifo recalls that he did “manual labour” to earn money to buy his first guitar in the 1960s. A decade later, he produced and released a tune, ‘Guitar Boy’, which became one of his greatest hits and national bestseller of the 1960s. Uwaifo had every right to tag himself the Guitar Boy back then. He is still an active instrumentalist and continues a famous musical and artistic life! His influence on guitarists in other genres of Nigerian popular music is enormous. “I inspired Sunny Ade and other juju music guitarists to stand up and play as against sitting down to play the guitar,” Uwaifo asserts.
He developed into a confident innovative master guitarist and showman. His repertoire of choreographed stunts include a stylish sequence of aerobatic somersaulting, complex body gyrations, dancing, doing the splits, playing behind his back and even with his teeth. “I bite my guitar,” he declares with relish. He attributes his physical fitness and ability to perform these tasking stunts to body-building, which he started as a secondary school student at St. Gregory’s College, Lagos. At school then he established a high jump record of 6 feet 6 inches that still stands.
Victor Uwaifo’s trademark as a guitarist include a sustained fluency in extended solos; multiple ripples of melodic sounds and harmony interlaced with percussive chords. Marvelous multi-layered guitar solos distinguish two of his greatest hits, ‘Joromi’ and ‘Guitar Boy’.
Joromi
His ingenuity with the guitar has also inspired him to design different types and shapes of the instrument. Unique to these Uwaifo wonder guitars is a combination guitar and keyboard he named Joromi.
The Guitar Boy of yesteryears is now a 70-year old Hon. Sir, Dr Victor Efosa Uwaifo JP MON. After his secondary school education, he won a scholarship to the Yaba College of Technology where he obtained a National Diploma with Distinction in Graphics. He obtained a first class honours degree in Fine and Applied Arts from the University of Benin in 1995 and went on to earn a Doctorate degree. Currently, he is Chairman of Joromi Organisation, Chairman/Director of Joromi TV (JTV) and Recording Studio. and the Victor Uwaifo Art Gallery in Benin City.
Uwaifo became a Nigerian popular music icon and international superstar in the 1960s. A many-faceted pioneer, he has contributed his own distinct musical flavour to the genre of Nigerian popular music called Highlife. His megahit ‘Joromi’, that made the BBC chart in 1966, propelled him to monumental and permanent fame. It became Africa’s first Gold disc and, over the years, Uwaifo accumulated 12 other Gold discs.
‘Joromi’, however, remains special. Its lyrics and theme, like the bulk of Uwaifo’s music, is deeply rooted in his native Benin culture. “Everything about my sound and rhythm is Benin,” he explains. “Ekasa is a rattle you tie around your ankle when you dance. The sound creates the Ekasa rhythm, which is similar to the sound of a locomotive engine. The only time they dance Ekasa in Benin is during the crowning of a new Oba (King). Some of my songs are also traceable to certain Obas and their eras. It is a way of documenting history through music.” The story of Joromi is an intriguing Benin fable. According to Uwaifo, “Joromi in Benin mythology was a wrestler, a world champion who after conquering the whole world decided to go to hell and fight the Devil with seven heads.” It is no wonder that Uwaifo named his first studio in Benin, opened in 1978, Joromi.
Legend
His background as a trained artist contributed to his creative process as a musician. “Art has form, music has form,” he explains, adding: “Art has colours and the colours have relativity with sound. Sound and colours are in harmony. If you take the harmony one by one, you have do re mi fa so la ti do…do, you represent with black, re-red, mi-blue, fa-green, so-neutral/white (which is no colour), la-yellow, ti-violet, do-you go back to the same octave. Then you can mix several colours to begin to have other families of colours. These are just the basic things. Music, art, writing, creativity, are all the same thing. They are all interwoven, co-cyclic and they work in motion and action. Once you can see art on a deep level, you can also see music.
Music has form and structure just like in architecture. You cannot put certain sounds in wrong places. Even if you are doing abstract art, the deliberate distortions must make sense.” What are the flavours of his unique sound and rhythms? “To explain the different forms of my music, I gave them different names. They have different time signatures and interpretation. Their rendition is also different. That’s why I identified them as Akwette, Sasakosa, Mutaba, Ekasa, Titibiti, and so on.” What about his approach to instrumentation? “I inter-marry African instruments, Benin instruments, percussion and other instruments with contemporary musical instruments to make African sounds. And I still retain the authenticity of the African sounds. That is the beauty of it.” How does Uwaifo classify his music? “Some of my music is Highlife. All other music whether the Ekasa or Titibiti and, all other ones put together from the East and West of Nigeria are under the same umbrella of Highlife. Highlife is the music of Nigeria and West Africa. The sounds may differ but all these various sounds put together come under Highlife!”
so if you see mammy water neva neva you run away ... eh !
But where is king Pago !
