•‘I’ve never smoked, tasted alcohol; never seen another woman’s nakedness after wedding’
By Christy Anyanwu
Pretty Okafor, President of the Performing Musicians’ Association of Nigeria (PMAN), is an interviewer’s delight. With his partner, Junior, the Nigerian music scene of the 1990s was agog with scintillating hits like Monica, Bolanle, among other hits. Unfortunately, one of the duo, Junior passed on, and eventually, Pretty stopped singing.
In this interview with Saturday Sun held at the ultra-modern edifice called the Nigerian Music House in Lekki, Lagos, Pretty event down memory lane about his youth, why he stopped singing, life as PMAN president, and lots more.
Years back, parents wanted their children to go into law, medicine and engineering. How did they feel that you ended up as a musician?
Bad! They started seeing us as spoilt children. They didn’t accept it. One time, we went for a show in Wazobia Night Club, Apapa, and came back very late. It was raining; my mother would know when we came back. They peeped through the window, they saw us, and they didn’t open the door. We are forbidden to sleep in the neighbours’ house or compound. We kept standing and sitting under the rain until morning.
The next thing they said, I hope you people have learnt your lesson. Don’t go and be doing this music thing again.
But we still did the same music thing they never wanted us to do. I am actually the seventh child in my house. My father actually didn’t want to bring up children that were worthless. My father always told me, “I don’t want you to be like any other person, do you want to be carrying guitar, carrying dada hair, smoking on the road and chasing women?” But again, he was scared because of other people who claimed to be musicians in that era. What my father was afraid of was what shaped me more. Because of his advice and worry, I have never smoked. I have never tasted alcohol. I think that kept me more disciplined. Since I got married, I have not seen another woman’s nakedness. I am rich. I am popular, I am versatile. I am exposed. People keep wondering about that, especially when I travel. They complain that I shun women and my wife is not on the trip. It is my nature. I can’t misbehave because I’m abroad or because she’s not with me. I enjoy that spiritual togetherness, which I learnt from my father. I can’t see myself at this age dropping from that tutelage.
Which of your songs stood you out and at what stage did you become known in the industry?
“Monica” was our first hit. The album was called “Fufu Flavour.” It is really African flavour. We were doing it for cruise and not for money. We were doing it so that we could get plenty of girlfriends, hang around, but suddenly the music just went boom. It was everywhere. Again, it was everywhere because it was a first and unique brand of music. It was different from the music anybody knew. People were used to pop, reggae, highlife, juju, Calypso but we came with (Pidgin rap). “Bolanle” was the story of a pastor’s daughter.
“Monica” made us popular around the country. We were playing concerts in every state, but with “Bolanle” we were playing around Africa. We were playing mostly in Ghana because we had a track in “Bolanle,” “Abuda,” meaning, “My Ghanaian Lover.” It was huge at the time. We released it and the Ghanaian people took it as their song, that was why it went viral. We were playing in Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, South Africa, Benin. It was actually “Bolanle” that took us across Africa but “Monica” made us popular in Nigeria.
Why did you stop singing? Was it because you became PMAN president?
No, it was after Junior’s death. I couldn’t find the passion, the zeal to move on. We started very early at a tender age. When we sang “Monica,” we were practically like 15 years old. When Junior died, I was supposed to continue but I had more challenges to handle. I had his family and my family to manage. So, I couldn’t find the joy of going to the studio. I did it a couple of times but my concern was to make sure that the kids survive and I survive. That’s how the passion dropped. But I’m still a musician. That’s why I’m the president of PMAN today.
How are you enjoying your second term in office?
It is actually my first term. You know why? The first one I did that gave me the opportunity of purchasing this property was the judgment tenure. We have been in court for close to seven years. They haven’t seen a stubborn person like me. It was a battle, back and forth, until the final judgment that brought the two factions together. Some people that are working with us now belonged to that faction. So, we all came together and there was a final judgment that said we, PMAN, cannot contest. Now we have the opportunity of exploiting the whole technology that we built. That technology gave us the advantage of raising revenue in-house, to purchase whatever we have. This building you are in is the first time in history, for the past 40 years, of PMAN owning a property. We have a studio and an FM radio station here.
How did you conceive this huge building?
First, I am a very ambitious person. Anywhere I am, I try to make an impact, leaving a legacy for the music industry. I would not want to leave a place without making a mark and that’s exactly what happened. From the first day I entered PMAN, I said to myself, I’m going to buy a property for the union. I have always said I’m going to build a radio station for the union, and I have always said I’m going to build a TV station for the union. Now, with the property we have, we are not paying any rent, we own it, it is PMAN’s property. I’m battling with the government to give us a licence for the FM station. They are complaining that we came late to the tea party. Our predecessors were supposed to have gotten the licence. As it is now, they have given a lot of frequencies out. So, we are requesting for Lagos and Abuja. We already have the licence for TV in Lagos and TV in Abuja. We haven’t started yet. TV requires more funding. We have all the equipment.
Where did you get the cash for this building, is it from loans, banks?
From registration. We did not take out a loan. We have over one million registered members, with each member paying N60,000. A lot of people are surprised. They have asked around, even the ministry, government, they have asked, how come PMAN owns a property whereas the big associations own an office? Now they own radio and TV stations.
I will give you a little breakdown. When I came in, I told a lot of people that we had the ability to fund ourselves but we didn’t have the template. What we did was to build the template. And building a template meant that we allow every musician to be accounted for. We don’t have to ask them or the government to give us so and so amount of money. What we did was to say let everybody be able to register on a database. We built a database, so musicians could register their form on their laptop. They don’t have to come to the office to register. They should just go, click on the site and register. What we did was to make the site popular and list the benefits of what musicians were going to get. Remember, we have 36 state chapters. By the time we mobilised the whole people in the 36 chapters and we are operating in 774 local governments, PMAN is there.
So, that’s why I keep telling people that PMAN is the biggest musicians’ association when it comes to creatives. By the time they registered, we realised 100,000 to 500,000. We now thought of giving PMAN a home by buying property. People are still registering. It keeps going all over the country.
The choice of property we decided to buy, the choice of area, edifice and taste of the furniture is what gets most people excited. Even some of the musicians, when they come around, are perplexed. So, we own this property. We own this station also. The studio is a backup for the radio. You can use it for podcasts or you can use it for music production. Some of the musicians come to do their work here and, if you are doing production, we are not asking you for money once you are a member. So, this is just a small aspect of it. We are building what is bigger than this on 3.5 hectares. We are building this same edifice, we are building a four-star hotel. We are building an arts theatre. We are building a 10,000-capacity auditorium for events. We are building a cinema hall, shopping mall and residential buildings. People are excited about this Lagos building but we will wow you when you see Abuja. Before I leave as PMAN president, I will have built in the remaining four geo-political zones. We have done two now, Abuja and Lagos. We started with Lagos, we are doing Abuja. We will go and do Kaduna, Plateau, Enugu and Rivers. Then we would have completed the whole geo-political zones.
What was the reaction of the past president of PMAN on sighting this edifice?
When we opened, about five or six past presidents came. It was King Sunny Ade that opened this place. King Sunny Ade was among the pioneers and the founders of PMAN. On the day of the opening, he was showing us goose pimples on his arms, saying that he never believed that in his lifetime PMAN would bounce back.
What excited him was PMAN coming back and gaining great heights, not just that PMAN came back. Since we have our own properties, government agencies have started coming. Before, we went to do courtesy visits and do handouts. Now everyone comes to our office. We designed this place to the standard of American Music House. That’s why everyone is excited. The government, the corporate bodies, the embassies are excited to see what we have.
What advice do you have for upcoming musicians?
Don’t be discouraged, don’t compromise, don’t do drugs. Work hard like there’s no tomorrow and understand that you are playing in the big league. You need to be 24/7 focused to get to your goals. There’s no faster way to make money than music. So, pay attention, work hard and you will actually make money. The new age, the new media has made it possible for musicians to be promoted, to be monetized and make money. So, take advantage of all that.
What kind of person is your wife? Is she also into the entertainment business?
She manages all my business. I have not seen such a character before. She does not want to get in between people. I’m a very hot-tempered person. You would wonder why I’m living with her. She’s the only woman I have seen, if I shout, scream, my wife will never answer. She has never responded back to me. No matter how I shout, how I rake, she would go to the children’s room, or go down to watch TV.
She’s timing me and she’ll playfully say: ‘Shebi your ‘ogbanje’ don stop, can we discuss now?’
She was the smallest when I was dating girls; so, where did she learn this attitude of a good wife from?