Whenever the name Victor Uwaifo is mentioned, one thing that comes to the mind is music. But there are more to this multitalented professor of General Arts and Music: he is a poet, philosopher and an author. Victor Uwaifo, who has won over thirty-five national and international awards and recognition, is the author of six books. The quintessential music legend is a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and recipient of the 1994 Association of Nigerian Authors and Publishers award. 

In this chat with SIMEON MPAMUGOH at his Revelation Tourist Palazzo Museum, Victor Uwaifo Avenue, Ekenwan, Benin City, Edo State, this epitome of creativity speaks on his literary exploits, music career and other knowledge discipline.

The wife of Edo State governor Betsy Obaseki described you during your exhibition recently in Lagos as a consummate artiste. As a professor of arts and music, what have you done towards a book on socio-physical anthropology of arts? 

I have a journal entitled Revelation Palazzo Museum: Research Book and Academic Journal, which takes care of the socio-physical anthropology of arts. We have to understand that culture is a way of life, expression of thoughts and feeling. It is equally a tradition, arts, history and scientific discoveries. There is no doubt, all Edo people belong to the same genealogy. Consequently, it is not out of place to adopt Benin Kingdom as my case study in this 218 page publication, because every culture and civilisation developed from art. Benin Court Art was developed by seeking a reunion with creator (Osanobua) and their ancestors. The Court Art objects, apart from constantly reminding them of their historical ornamentation of building premises either on fence, wall as cement relief, or on the gate-entrances and facades of buildings, they also strongly believe that their ancestors can intercede for them to God who created the world. Though traditional religion and Court Art have played a great deal of role in Benin polity in the past, however, modern civilisation is gradually widening the gap of this role.

The replication of Benin Court Art has continued to survive the age-long practice beginning with a rich cultural heritage that dates back to earliest times of its recorded history 12c-13c A.D, its earliest artifacts, including works of terra-cotta, iron of sundry sorts, brass works at its peak in the punitive expedition of 1897 during which over 3000 objects were seized as booty and shipped to England. Studies up to this date categorised three broad period of art namely: Old Kingdom, Middle and Modern. And borrowing from contemporary music and cultures by Hamm Charles, Netie Bruno, and Bryside Ronarld; contemporary refers to all sorts of style that have come into existence in the twentieth century, whether their background is part and parcel of the 20th century or whether it is to be ultimately sought in the distant past. By the coronation of new monarchy in 1914 that brought to an end of the earlier interregnum, Oba Eweka allowed the commercialisation of the arts and craft in 1929 in response to the high demand for objects, especially from foreign visitors and arts connoisseurs.

You are also noted to be a poet. What are some of your works in this aspect of literature? 

Some of them come off the curve while others are related to my artworks. Artworks do not just fall from the blues. There is the word, and the image. And there is the actualisation of the imagery. So, most of my musical songs are titles from stories, myths, folklores, composed and art takes form. Arts, most of the time, are in the abstracts. You have to see it; you also have to be esoteric and have privileged knowledge of seeing what others don’t see, put them together, and express them in a medium. A medium may be in the form of three different media dimensions: matter, writing and music. And poetry is just one of them apart from the fact that they work hand in hand.

For example, one of the poems from my book, Philosophy of Life,  is entitled “Experience”: That man is very educated/They say he is very foolish/Many will not accept the allegory/ Education may not be/The root of wisdom/ Our great grand fathers/And their predecessors/In this part of the Africa/Were not educated/But they were full of wisdom/ Experience is experience/It cannot be taught/Except by experience/The sweetness of honey/Is different from that of sugar/The sweetness of orange/Is different from that of mango/The physical pain of man/Can best be explained by the sufferer.

These poems can be developed into music, and one can also expressed a whole thought, a word in a single sentence, in the same way a cartoonist can stir the hornets’ nest with just a stroke of a brush, and it tells the whole story. So, it is in the same way an artist can visualise the sceneries or things that happen every day, activities that are yet to happen, or things that happened in the past in different forms –media, etc. –and gives it flesh. The book is 88-page compendium reflecting different poems, which I wrote at different times. And most of them are inspiring. What I have done with the title is to look and fall back with some and inspire people who are still finding their bearing.

In 2016, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the American rock star Bob Dylan by the Swedish Academy. What is your impression of awarding such a prize to a man who is not an author?

What do you mean by an author? A musician is also an author. Do you think a musician can just climb the stage and starts singing? He must write and think. And once you put pen to paper, you must have transmitted your thoughts in writing and expression in various forms. An artiste is even more than an author, because, in the case of a musician, it is like he sings and prays twice; and he will be heard more than one who starts praying and begins to talk, because he is singing and also praying. The songs are words of thoughts and expression. The artiste wants to relate and commune with God. So, if a singer, musician or composer sings, the songs are first written and, if the artiste has not written them, someone would write them. So, he is an author.

For decades, you have been a campaigner of songs in indigenous language. How would you score the success of doing that judging from its limited audience?

I am the example of the success story. Anyone who follows me has seen the success. It has no limit for the past and those yet unborn. It means I have broken the jinx, although most books that are written in Nigeria are done in English language and we don t have much of the authors writing in indigenous language. Except Daniel Fagunwa, who pioneered writing in Yoruba language, others write in English language. But, why should people write in a language many cannot relate to in a wider capacity? One can only do that for posterity. If you want to make an impression and statement, write in the language people can read and understand. Why are we not using our indigenous language to communicate in offices, document our histories and write the constitution of the country, read and debate in the national assembly in local language?

But your songs are mostly in Edo language?

I am playing music. One does not have to understand the lyrics of my songs to understand music. Also, one does not have to misunderstand music for poetry, and music for charlatan and the mediocre. Music can be played without lyrics, such as classic music, which can be played without singing, or making a statement yet communicates and applauded. That is how music should be, not going on the computer, coupling notes and reading love letter, saying it is music which is what we popularly refer to as cut-and-nail.

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There are some of the stories you have used your music to tell like the mystical guitar boy; were they done of personal experience or someone told you?

When one is researching, one does not have to be told by anyone. You go into the field and conduct a research. Your ears are opened; you hear the stories and people when they talk, some filter and go into the memory. And those one thinks needs to be x-rayed are researched and findings made. So, if one is really cut out to authenticate historical facts and unravel the myths and past history of one’s people, then, one can take it up as a duty to go into the field and do the needful: get things sorted out, which could be taken up from there by other researchers. Before schools were setup, there has been history in spite of the fact that the subject is not taught in some schools. Even if it were not in the school curriculum, history would always be there. That it is not there does not mean it should be forgotten. History is an everyday phenomenon, and will always remain there today and in future. It is like removing philosophy from the school curriculum or in the university. So, people would not have wisdom or philosophise? It is important to note that the first graduate was not thought by a graduate; same with the first doctor and professor. So, no one should say, because something is fixed it will remain like that forever. Life itself does not work that way.

You have written and published six books and one of them is the collection of poems and another one is Nigerian Music. As a historical musicologist, could you tell us about the book? 

I wrote Nigerian Music to x-ray issues in the industry within certain period from the fifties to the millennium and thereafter so that scholars can research into them, including this generation and those yet unborn. I discovered that people of this generation don’t know our musical past; but, if they can lay hands on the book to understand the Nigerian music industry, which is entirely a different ball game from what we have today, it will help them immensely. In our time, there was nothing like cable and 24/7broadcast. The maximum broadcast time was four hours, and television was in black-and-white, and to enjoy music was either in gramophone or radiogram. But, today, people can listen to whole lifetime music on GSM either played in MP3 or MP4. So, one cannot appreciate life until one knows where one is, where one is coming from and what the future holds.

Look at our lyrics, even though I find nothing wrong with it, the artistes are working and acting in the implied act of their own time and belief. I also worked in the implied act of my own time and existence. Probably, if I were born now, I would behave like one of them or with little bit of difference.

Looking at an artiste as a songwriter, poet who ought to use his artistic form as a platform for social rebirth, how far have the emergent writers and artistes applied it towards social imperialism? 

Arts comes in different forms, and one neither does nor needs to be a musician to fight social imperialism. We have within us social imperialists. It is not something foreign. In fact, we have not addressed our own problems in our own way. Some of the new generation of writers and artistes offered themselves for imperialistic manoeuvre. While one is trying to extricate them from the scourge, some are offering themselves to be used as scapegoats; they prefer to be in their claws. And that is the reason we find some authors and literary artistes wanting to migrate. No matter what it takes them, they want to travel out. They think out there is a bed of roses; they get there to find that it is not as easy as it seemed. And to come back, some of them die in the way; some of them who remain there do menial jobs and cannot find their bearing. And before they come back, most of the people they left at home have become celebrated writers.

The social media should play more specific roles to address the problem. It is a global problem, because people migrate from different parts of the world for greener pastures, even when there is no war in their country. I believe there are many greener pastures in Nigeria. If one is not making it in one state, move to another state. There are thirty-six states in Nigeria which anyone can go to without a visa. And by the time one moves through the states, one must have seen a greener pasture. The fact that one does not make it in Lagos State does not mean one cannot make it in Ogun State. But some who could not make it in Lagos think the best way is to travel abroad. They don’t think there is anything good in Nigeria. Truth is that there are many good things in Nigeria. All the Heads of State in Nigeria didn’t study abroad; all the ministers I know all schooled in Nigeria, including the commissioners. Even the governors were all born in Nigeria, An artiste can be born abroad and comes back to the country yet would not make it because nobody knows him.

You have often used Benin culture and tradition in documenting your body of works. What is the special reason? 

In fact, it is a way of documenting history. I also went years back in the days to dig into past history of Benin. And another way of documenting history is through music –not just writing –so that anybody can translate the music into writing in future and make books out of it. I document histories and I’ m still doing it. And one can relate songs with facts of history, make inferences and references. It is not only a matter of going to the library to dig into the archives to get what people have done in black and white; one can also go back to music library to unravel certain stories that would have lost depth; which can be gotten with folklores, stories and myths so as to be able to arrive at logical conclusion.

How true is the mysterious tales and mythologies that surround your life, especially your encounter with mammy water? 

The story of mammy water and Guitar Boy is a true life story. I used to visit the beach looking for inspiration while strumming my guitar. On one occasion in the evening, very late into the night, with everybody gone, I was alone at the beach when I saw a strange figure moving towards me in the distance. While I pondered over it, a heavy tide splashed over the figure. In a flash, it transformed into something I could not figure out. It was a glittering image with a flowing hair and probing eye ball that sent shivers down my spine. My heart almost jumped into my mouth and intestines rumbled against the walls of my stomach. The guitar was almost frozen in my hands and I wanted to take to my heels when I heard a high decibel of sound –voice pitch in the 7th octave so shrill but melodious loud and clear –calling out: “Guitar Boy!”

My response, which was unrehearsed, came out of my mouth spontaneously in a loud crescendo, “…If you see mammy water never, never you run away”. The mammy water sang, and I strummed the guitar in accompaniment, “Sing a song of love sweet melody”. I sang along over and over, again and again while she floated away in a heavy tide. My style of strumming and pulling the guitar strings had now become a trade mark, a great phenomenal innovation that I introduced to the art of guitar gimmick in 1967.

During this time, it wasn’t uncommon to hear stories of clandestine encounters between beach night crawlers and supernatural beings. Consequent upon the esoteric experience, it gave birth to “Guitar Boy,” an evergreen hit till date. Mammy Water like stringed musical instrument and beautiful melody that soothes the nerves. Mammy Water is a passionate creature, and if you can sing with passion and give it soul, you are likely to have esoteric experience and privileged knowledge. Beautiful music can soothe the nerves of people that are bewildered, especially good music –the type that can make angels dance in heaven.

It should equally be noted that the world exists and anything that is in the dictionary has existed before and so enshrined. Think of any word –once it is documented, it is either in the dictionary or encyclopaedia. The Mammy water or mermaid is as simple as ordinary human being. They are not spirits, and the fact that they are not seen often does not mean they don’t exist. It is a privileged knowledge. And if you know you are gifted and don’t practice your gift, it dies away. It is a simple logic, not theory.