Watch! youtube/watch?v=xKmZDJTHwBA. share and like I STARTED NOLLYWOOD: BOB EJIKE Multifaceted Nigerian actor, author and musician Professor Bob Ejike is currently on promotional tour of his new album Infinite Youth in Europe and the United Arab Emirates. He spoke to me in a telephone interview about his artistic career and how he started Nollywood. Question: Prof, the press has called you Nollywood Ambassador, Nigerian King of Pop, Bomb Ejike, which of these do you prefer? Answer: Bomb Ejike (laughs). Question: How have your international tours been? Answer: Exciting. I did tour Italy, Rome, Venice, Florence and Milan, Vienna, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It was successful, we are taking African music to unprecedented levels. Question: You have received many prestigious awards abroad and performed several times in packed arenas in Italy, Dubai and Uganda, why are you hardly playing in Nigeria? Answer: My sister, Nigeria is a very strange country. It is the only place I know where a manager says to an artiste, ‘bring one million naira so that I can bribe judges and make your video Best Video of the year and bribe promoters to get you into concerts, all other artistes are doing so…….’and I would say….please, if my music is right I’ll be on stage, but if I have to bribe to play, I’d rather not play, or play abroad. Question: How is your new album Infinite Youth doing? Answer: Very well online, but offline I don’t know if any album is doing fine these days. I have a music shop cum recording studio, Bobijik Studio at 45 Cole Street, Ikate, Surulere, we sell music, videos and Nollywood films, and I know that the last thing people buy nowadays is music. Question: I can tell you your video Darijimi has been very strong on the charts since the last 6 months. Why? Answer: Thank you for that honest remark. About everything was done right. The song was properly recorded over a period of two years at my studio in Ikate, Surulere, Lagos, the dancers were very carefully selected. Of course the video cost a fortune to shoot and was directed by Mat Max and recorded at Kingsley Ogoro Studio. Excellent song in Igbo and Yoruba, best director, best studio, best dancers, plus my humble self with an impeccable actress, massive promo, you can’t go wrong. Question: Do you do paparazzi? Answer: Never. Paparazzi is to Nigerian music what bad script is to Nollywood. Paparazzi will kill the Nigerian music industry. Once the audience realize that the artistes have been lying to them about their achievements, they will switch to something else. Just like bad story-lines moved them from movies to music in the first place. I have invested more money in music than any Nigerian artiste dead or alive, but I can’t go out there and start giving details, that’s very childish. Question: Do you see yourself as an old school musician? Answer: I am a born-again new school musician. I transmogrified from old to new school. You just need to listen to my album Infinite Youth to know. You would think it is Wizkid or Davido. Question: Why did you change your style? Answer: Conventional wisdom. My father used to say that common sense is not common. If you can’t beat them, join them. There is no need living in the past and trying to reintroduce what has past and gone and become therefore obsolete. Modernize. Question. How would you describe your music to someone who has not heard it ? Answer: It is naija music that makes sense, in that it has all the rhythmic intensity of contemporary Nigerian music and yet has something that most Nigerian songs of today do not have, sensible lyrics. Question: Is there really room for you in today’s Nigerian music industry? Answer: If I told you that I am the best singer and songwriter in the world what would you say? Question: I would tell you to prove it. Answer: How can I prove it by quitting in my middle age. King Sunny Ade is still on stage and am about half his age. Hugh Masekela is still playing in South Africa, he is over 70, Salif Keita is playing, Koffi Olomide is playing and BB King is still performing at over 80. I went to the last concert of Frank Sinatra in Milan. He was 90 and still very strong on stage. I intend to outlast him. I am in music because I know am the best. Question: Most of your colleagues in Nigeria have quit. Answer: Bad for them. Apparently they have no more songs to sing, but I can write a song as you can ring a bell. I am often amused by the implication of this frequent but illogical insinuation. Who controls showbiz? My generation. Who attends the concerts? My generation. Who mostly consumes showbiz products? My generation. There must be room for one of their own, and interestingly most of my fans are teenagers. Music is about rhythm, harmony, melody and lyrics, not age. In every area of human endeavor experience is cherished, except in the Nigerian music industry where inexperienced, immature, unlettered, untalented instant one-single flukes are celebrated as overnight legends and even revered, deified and enriched while seasoned musicians who have spent their entire lives training and developing their art are relegated to the background on account of their age, even when they are actually still in their youth! In Europe, America and other advanced nations an artiste is regarded according to how long he has survived the turbulence of the unpredictable music scene. But here unfortunately some of us think upside down. Question: Most of your younger colleagues have six packs. Will you be building your own muscles soon? Answer: I don’t see the relationship between music and muscles. Now I see muscle-bound artistes that look like gorillas and I wonder if they are singers or wrestlers or weight lifters or street supermen. (laughs) Question: How do the young generation of Nigerian artistes see you? Answer: They love me with great and unflinching affection because they appreciate the role I played in creating the platform that feeds and enriches them. They call me Baba, which means Father and which reiterates that I am the father of Nigerian entertainment. They lift me high and refuse to let me go. It’s electric. Question: In fact, remembering Enebeli Elebuwa, Ashley Nwosu, Sam Loko Efe, and other artistic practitioners of your generation one is forced to the conclusion that you are as you were once tagged, The Last Man Standing, would you agree? Answer: Yes. Besides the brief period of my Youth Service I have never relied on any Nigerian institution to earn my living. Even when I worked in Nigeria I worked for European institutions. During my Youth Corp I was hospitalized in LUTH for two weeks after a collapse from overwork. A friend of mine paid the medical bill and NYSC was supposed to refund the money. I presented all the documents and followed the process to its torturous end only to realize that the money was paid and eaten by a corrupt official. I saw how many Nigerian institutions worked and when I had the opportunity I moved to Europe and have since kept my professional life there while investing the proceeds in Nigerian entertainment. I have invested over a great fortune in Nigerian entertainment and please don’t ask me how much I got back. If I had gotten back much you would have been seeing my properties around the place. I mourn my friends solemnly, including those who died on location and those who perished before Nollywood even took off. Do not forget Mohammed Danjuma, Funsho Alabi, Joe Adekwa, and others. If I had relied on Nollywood or Nigerian music industry to feed me and my family we would have been dead and buried long ago. Question: But the music industry is buoyant now, isn’t it. Answer: That is another Nigerian illusion of self grandeur. I can count the artistes that feed well on my fingers in an industry with hundreds of thousands of practitioners, forget their paparazzi, if they were really doing well they wouldn’t need to lie to their fans to exaggerate their material acquisitions. Question: Many Nigerian actors and musicians are going into politics now, why? Answer: I don’t understand the hullabaloo about an artiste running for elective office> These candidates are bonafide Nigerian citizens who are educated, talented, successful and charismatic, who have brought glory and improved the nation’s image through their art. Now they desire to serve the people in government and if you hear the comments coming from some quarters, it seems as if the artistes are not Nigerians, as if they do not have the legitimate right to run. Arnold Swazzeneger was governor of California, Clint Eastwood was a mayor and Ronald Reagan, an actor was one of the best presidents in US history. Question: Many of your fans would rather see you back to Nollywood acting. You are a highly talented actor. Answer: Thank you. There is no conflict between the two modes of artistic expression. Acting does not affect singing negatively or vice versa. Anyhow, I am going back to Nollywood before the year’s end, God willing. Question: Who are your favourite foreign artistes? Mariam Makeba, Salif Keita, Yousou N’dou, Osibisa, Michael Jackson, Prince, Carlos Santana, Nat King Cole, Demis Roussos, Frank Sinatra, Luciano Pavarotti, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Leo Sayer, Jimmy Cliff, lots. Question: And Nigerian? Answer: Shirley Bassey, Sade, Seal, Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Sir Victor Uwaifo, Chris Okotie, Dora Ifudu, Oby Onyioha, Kwam 1, Majek Fashek, Daniel Wilson, Sweat, 2face, PSquare, Wizkid, Davido, Inyanya, Tiwa Savage, Burnyman, Mr. Cool, and several others. Question: Who are the Nollywood actors and directors you worked with and who did you enjoy working with? Answer: I worked with the elegant Genevieve Nnaji in Sharon Stone 2, the glamorous Omotola Jalade Ekeinde and Richard Mofe Damijo in Scores to Settle, Kanayo O Kanayo in Confusion, Pete Edochie in Deadly Proposal, Ramsey Noah in Narrow Escape, Liz Benson In My Cross, Peter Bunor snr in Polygamy, Susan Patrick in Tears in Heaven, Charles Okafor in Dead of Night, Bimbo Manuel in Executive Crime, Jide Kosoko in Next of Kin, Olu Jacob and Emeka Ike in Aba Riot, my cousin Chidi Mokeme, Emeka Enyiocha and Regina Askia in Maximum Risk, Saint Obi in Wanted Alive, Clarion Chukwurah in Homeless, Lillian Bach in Killer Priest, Vivian Metche in Silent Thunder, virtually all the seasoned actors and directors, it is a very long list and I enjoyed working with all of them. Question: The NTA Channel 5 entertainment programme Tropical Rhythm which you were presenting virtually collapsed and your Sunday Sun column Klieglights died out. Would you agree that you lost a lot by leaving Nigeria? Answer: It is a matter of perspective, I would say. I undertook those PR ventures because I felt that Nollywood needed to be propped up, so I talked Nollywood every Sunday television and wrote Nollyood every Sunday in The Sun. But you would agree with me that the industry is pretty well established now. I left Nigeria because there was a necessity to advertise the movie industry we had created internationally and someone had to do that dirty thankless job. I volunteered to bell the cat at the cost of my own artistic career, and again some nations were inviting me to come and help them develop their indigenous film industries. I am a teacher and translator by training and the international exposure was important for my intellectual development. I started a magazine, National Edifice, and running my publication and writing my novels took up all my time. I am only one person, and middle-aged, remember. I have no hobbies because I have no spare time. I am often doing the work of six creative people and my health pays for that. Question: Which is your kind of woman? Answer: I haven’t given that a thought. I am too busy dealing with my books, songs, movies and projected TV programme. Question: What are your greatest achievements? Answer: Starting Nollywood, the third biggest, and the fastest growing film industry in the world, successfully propagating it to global prominence and thus giving the African a voice in world media with which she inadvertently counters racial bigotry and re-positions her image, kick starting Uganda’s Ugawood industry and advertising Nigerian artistic culture in East Africa and the Middle East. Question: Chief Kenneth Nnebue has just received a National Award for starting Nollywood with his famous film Living in Bondage……………... Answer: And was applauded by people who were watching my film Echoes of Wrath and our series Okpuru Anyanwu twelve years before Living in Bondage. Question: Does that make you bitter? Answer: Absolutely not. I never look back, I look ahead, there is a great future out there and greater things to do. Nollywood is just one of my fancy ideas. There are many more where it came from. I have enough ideas to end Nigeria’s economic woes. I made my contributions for our artistes who were starving to have a platform for survival and professional advancement, not so that I would be proclaimed, enriched or honoured, but posterity and humanity never forget the just. Question: You were once voted the Most Handsome Entertainer in Nigeria. Do you still think of yourself as being handsome? Answer: Ive never thought of myself in such silly and lofty terms and degenerating into such levels of decadence and narcissism could be self-destructive. Question: Do you see yourself as a genius? Answer: Sometime ago I was lecturing at a prestigious Italian higher institution. I was the first and only black person to be in that position and of course not all my white colleagues were comfortable with my presence in that citadel. One day the director, a white lady, asked me, ‘do you want to know if you are a genius?’ I replied, ‘I know already’, which she assumed to mean that I had said that I was a genius, but what I wanted to say was that I knew I was no genius. Imagine a black nigger calling himself a genius! The news went round and I was soon kicked out of the job with some flimsy excuse. Ever since I have been wary of that dubious term genius. Please I am no genius. I am just an ordinary guy who was lucky to be gifted in various areas of the art and I work very hard at the things I love. Question: What next should we expect from you? Answer: Many new artistic innovations but don’t let us get the cat out of the bag. Question: How would you like to be remembered? Answer: I want to be remembered not only as one of the most artistically talented human beings that ever set foot on this earth, but as one who used his talent for the benefit of others rather than for personal aggrandizement. (Bob Ejikes fotos are in google image) Mary Ajayi
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 03:27:01 +0000
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