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Of work without profit

For obvious reasons, the headline was bound to generate traffic: K1 treats his workers like slaves. K1, the Fuji king, is a household name in Nigeria. The gist: Kunle Ayanlowo, the maestro’s drummer for more than 32 years, has just dropped a bombshell interview detailing his sad experience. Ayanlowo (“the drummer deserves respect”) gave gory details of band boys having their passports seized at the Murtala Airport after tours, of being callously denied an opportunity to treat an ailment, and of naysaying band members inevitably returning to the maestro except dead and buried. To be sure, I have never had anything to do with the musician, but I knew three of his boys growing up in Ikorodu: Fatai Adeyiga, Shakiru and the man we called Oye (Harmattan) and whose actual name is Ismail Olumade. This man, who lived in my area, is the singular reason for my interest in Yoruba drums today.

As young people, we all converged on Aga, Ikorodu, at a table tennis joint belonging to a man called Onile. I was a spectator, but many young guys, including SuleAdio (Atawewe), regularly played the beautiful game. Anyway, having listened to a snippet of Ayanlowo’s interview, I stumbled on another interview featuring Oye, a man I last saw in the early 90s, and he told fractious tales of money-sharing formula, of being stranded in London, and of learning from the newspapers that he and other band boys had been disbanded. But here’s my point: Ayanlowo, who performed a proverbial prologue that heralded his boss’ performance in the track, Atunbotan Aye, has already documented the painful poetry of life in that 90s track in such a way that no verbalization of dissatisfaction can ever capture. Just before his boss sang the lines “Atunbotan aye la wa o, a o moyita o se o,” (“Life is upended, we know not what to do”), here is what Ayanlowo said: “Af’enitaba so fun, a fenitabafihan, lo le m’adiyefunfunninuata, a f’enitaba so fun.” Gloss: “It’s only who we tell/It’s only the one who we reveal it to/That can tell white fowl in soup/It’s only who we tell.”

The drummer is an endangered specie. That’s the picture you get when you read the lawyer and columnist, Dr. Festus Adedayo’s work on the Apala maestro, AyinlaOmowura. On a visit to Omowura’s lead drummer, Alhaji Abdul-RahmanAdewole (Oniluola) in 2019, Dr. Adedayo discovered utter desolation. Indeed, the old man himself urged Nigerians to honour him as his journey drew to a close, and not wait until his death to stage big parties. Help came in some form, but he died a year later.Oniluola it was who had actually formed the band Omowura was later to lead, but poor pay had forced him to link up with another musician, before he then came back into the fold. Band boys and their bitter stories!

All of this leads inevitably to Egypt. Since reading Miramar, I have been fascinated by the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz. Mahfouz is a self-deprecating writer who scoffs at his own talent, but his qualms are irrelevant to the present point. He presents the pains of the human soul in language that mesmerizes by its sheer beauty. Here, in Heart of the Night, is a decrepit, poor old man, Jafaar al-Rawi, lamenting his grandfather’s donation of his inheritance to charity: “Establishing a charitable waqf, and depriving me of the inheritance, that was how he always conducted himself, combining bad and good. He continues to exercise his power now that he’s dead, as he did when he was alive. And here I am, struggling after his death as I did during his lifetime, and will continue to do until my death.”(p.1).

Jafaar is old and living in the ruins of his family house, but like the fisherman in Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, he is unbowed. Declaring his intent to pursue his weak case to regain his grandfather’s estate, he proclaims: “I will provoke a revolution that will reverse the order of the universe.” When I think of Oniluola, Ayanlowo and their kind, it is Jafaar that comes to mind. Because he would rather be independent, his grandfather cuts him off from his rightful inheritance and although he has copious faults of his own, one cannot escape a nagging feeling of pity, if not compassion, for a man who whose bloodline owns so much but who can only scrounge and starve. It may be the nature of life, like GeneralKollingtonAyinla sang, that “three people are working but only one is enjoying the fruits,” but justice is justice. The Yoruba say that is the fingernails that produce egusi that should eat the soup, and that is the point of my lore. Drummers deserve their dream life!

Labouring without profit seems to be a cornerstone of the modern economy where slavery continues unabated: in firms, churches, etc. And slavery is in layers, worst under those who make a living correcting society. Proverbs to WaThiong’O, the master of literature whose own crimes against the wife of his youth are just coming to light, and to dead senior advocates who fought for the masses but never gave their own workers annual leave.These are the Alec d’Urbervilles of this world who not only rape Tess the maiden but trick her into a fraudulent marriage by claiming that her true love will never return. A “sunshine convert, ”Thomas Hardy’s Alec renounces his newfound faith as soon as he meets Tess again: “But you have been the means — the innocent means — of my backsliding, as they call it.”

Drummers give life to music, but neither music nor life is fair to them. Nor is it fair to the Nigerian masses, the drummers behind our leaders’ endless hits. Per a new report by Cadre Harmonise, no fewer than 31.5 million Nigerians will suffer mass hunger between June and August. The removal of fuel subsidy leading to inflation is the track the masses are currently drumming to. The drummers are dancing joyously with the singer, but they are in grievous pain. You may not know until you look beyond the surface. After all, who but the informed can readily tell white fowl in broth?

A prayer for my readers: may we escape work without profit. Amin.

Abiodun Awolaja