{"id":272846,"date":"2011-01-05T16:48:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T16:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/?p=44865"},"modified":"2011-01-05T16:48:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T16:48:20","slug":"eighty-balls-for-victor-olaiya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/01\/05\/eighty-balls-for-victor-olaiya\/","title":{"rendered":"Eighty balls for Victor Olaiya"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/span><\/strong>
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Dr.Victor Abimbola Olaiya <\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nBy SOLA BALOGUN and TOSIN AJIRIRE
\nIn 1960 when Nigeria got her independence, popular Highlife singer, Victor Olaiya was the star of the moment. Olaiya was selected by the then Nigerian government to sing for the country and to signal the change that was about to happen to the people. Olaiya thrilled the entire nation and visitors with his number; Catchy Rhythms from Nigeria, to usher Nigeria into self rule and self determination.
\nFifty years ago, Olaiya sang for Nigeria. Today, the music legend celebrates his 80th birthday in the same old Lagos where his music bid farewell to the colonial lords. His music it was that also heralded the coming of indigenous politicians who took over power amid pomp and ceremony.
\nBut 50 years on, it is debatable whether the country has grown beyond the same problems which forced it to chase its colonialists back to Europe. It is also debatable whether the country, after five decades, had fared well under the leadership of its own sons and daughters.
\nBut it is indeed a great moment for Olaiya who had the privilege of knowing Nigeria before and after independence. He has been so lucky as many of his contemporaries, including Osita Osadebe, Rex Jim Lawson, Eddie Okonta, Bobby Benson, Sam Akpabot, Steve Rhodes and Isaac Kehinde Dairo among others have since gone into ancestry. This is aside the younger musicians such as Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Art Alade, Sony Okosuns, Oliver de Coque, Orlando Owoh and Sikiru Ayinde Barrister who have equally left the scene for others on account of death.
\nToday, Olaiya holds the sway as one of the very few remaining Highlife legends in Africa.In Nigeria, he occupies a vantage position as a music icon whose genre of music is known mainly by elders and veterans, but which is nevertheless, making waves among the conservative youth. He is in the same category with Pa Fatai Rolling Dollar, the 85-year old enigmatic highlife crooner of the Won Kere Si Number Wa fame.
\nBut when Daily Sun visited Olaiya at his Aguda, Surulere home, he hinted that his 80th birthday would be celebrated on a low key. The \u2018Evil Genuis of Highlife\u2019 said he would be celebrating members of his family, a few friends and a few diginataries. Rather than throwing a lavish party at the Stadium Hotel, Surulere, which he founded in the late 1960s,Olaiya said he has invited a few dignitaries, including Oba Gbadebo, the Alake of Egabland, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State and Oba Rilwan Akiolu of Lagos.
\nOther first class chiefs who are billed to attend the event are Oba Okunade Sijuade, the Ooni of Ife, and the royal father of his home town in Ijesha Isu area of Ekiti State. \u201cYou can\u2019t do something like this in Oba Akiolu\u2019s domain without inviting him. I need his clearance and prayer. He is a very good friend of mine,\u201d Olaiya explained. The birthday ceremony commences this morning (today) with a communion service at the musician\u2019s house at 10, Dr. Victor Olaiya Avenue, Ayetoro, Aguda, Surrulere, Lagos. This would be followed immediately by entertainment of guests. However, the ceremony is expected to be rounded off with a musical show at the Stadium Hotel, Surulere, Lagos, where Olaiya will treat guests to his musical memories of yore.
\nOlaiya\u2019s times and moments
\nBorn on 31 December 1930, in Calabar, Cross River State, Olaiya was the 20th child of a family of 24. His parents, Alfred Omolona Olaiya and Bathsheba Owolabi Motajo hailed from Ijesha-Ishu in Ekiti State. At an early age he learned to play the Bombardon and the French Horn. After leaving school he moved to Lagos where he passed the School Certificate Examination in 1951 and was accepted by Howard University, USA to study Civil Engineering. However, due to lack of money he was unable to go, and instead started a career as a musician, a move of which his parents disapproved. He played with the Sammy Akpabot band, the Old Lagos City Orchestra (a dance band) and the Bobby Benson Jam Session Orchestra, where he was leader and trumpeter of the second band.
\nIn 1954 he left Bobby Benson to form his own band, the Cool Cats, playing popular highlife music. His band was chosen to play at the state ball when Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom visited Nigeria in 1956, and later to play at the state balls when Nigeria became independent in 1960 and when Nigeria became a republic in 1963. On that occasion, he shared the stage with the famous American jazz player Louis Armstrong. During the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970, Olaiya was given the rank of a lieutenant colonel (honorary) in the Nigerian Army when his band played for the troops at various locations. His band later traveled to the Congo to perform for United Nations troops. He led his band, renamed to the All Stars Band, to the 1963 International Jazz Festival in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
\nIn addition to his successful career as a musician, Olaiya ran a business that imported and distributed musical instruments and accessories throughout West Africa, and also established the Stadium Hotel in Surulere.
\nIn 1990, Olaiya received a fellowship of the Institute of Administrative Management of Nigeria. For a period, he was president of the Nigerian Union of Musicians.
\nOlaiya\u2019s music bridges between Ghanaian highlife and what would become Afrobeat. His musical style was strongly influenced by James Brown, with horn parts harmonized in Brown\u2019s style, as opposed to the mostly unison lines of Afrobeat. The music includes the swinging percussion of Tony Allen, but not the syncopated style that Allen later pioneered. His music is infectious, typifying highlife music, played with great energy. The unique style of some of his recordings is inimitable.
\nHe played with highlife artist E. T. Mensah of Ghana, and released a best-selling joint album with Mensah. Both the drummer Tony Allen and vocalist Fela Kuti played with Olaiya and went on to achieve individual success. Kola Ogunkoya played in the All Stars Band from 1986 to 1987 and went on to have a highly successful career with his own Afrobeat band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By SOLA BALOGUN and TOSIN AJIRIRE In 1960 when Nigeria got her independence, popular Highlife singer, Victor Olaiya was the star of the moment. Olaiya was selected by the then Nigerian government to sing for the country and to signal the change that was about to happen to the people. Olaiya thrilled the entire nation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nEighty balls for Victor Olaiya - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/01\/05\/eighty-balls-for-victor-olaiya\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Eighty balls for Victor Olaiya - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"By SOLA BALOGUN and TOSIN AJIRIRE In 1960 when Nigeria got her independence, popular Highlife singer, Victor Olaiya was the star of the moment. 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