My life as a journalist-turned-musician – Felix Uka

Actually, it was out of what I may call intuition. I was born in Ebonyi State. My parents were teachers here; my father met my mother in Abakaliki here. They were teachers and they got married here. I was born here but they left here while I was below three years. So I wouldn’t know […]

Actually, it was out of what I may call intuition. I was born in Ebonyi State. My parents were teachers here; my father met my mother in Abakaliki here. They were teachers and they got married here. I was born here but they left here while I was below three years. So I wouldn’t know anything about the area.

Later on in the course of my career as a journalist, I was posted to this place. So we got on; but I came here with the impression that Abakaliki is all about rice, the popular Abakaliki rice. So when I got here, I started relating with some of the people here but something struck me. A serving commissioner in the state then told me that when he got admission to study at the University of Calabar, he was to share a hostel apartment with somebody.

So they introduced themselves; and that commissioner told me that his other colleague in the apartment asked him curiously, so Abakaliki people do go to university? That remark touched me, and it went into the subconscious, till after the 2007 elections, I went into sober reflection to know what next  to do because each year I pray for vision – vision of what else to do apart from journalism.

Indeed, a friend told me that it would be good if I could compose a music, and I asked is that so? That also went into sub-conscious. But one morning I woke up and was thinking of what nature of music I would do. And I said okay, let me now let people know that there is more in Ebonyi State than the Abakaliki rice people hear about. That was how I came up with that concept of “Ebonyi Nwere Mmadu”.

But another factor that drove me into producing the work is that everybody has something special about him. And from my youth, I was asking: what is that thing I can do outside my career as a journalist. Is it just to earn money from journalism? It was that thought which made me to go into Home Video production in 1996, when I produced one video after my one year NYSC programme. We went to Lagos to sell it but we couldn’t mass produce it. It was not a success.

And how has the reception of the album been by the Ebonyi people?

You see, everybody likes to be loved, everybody loves to be honoured, and everybody likes to be cherished. When we first started, we went to the studio but I didn’t know anything about studio. I got a girl here, one of our colleagues. I went to the studio after I had written the music. Every morning I would wake up; got to my laptop, added or subtracted something from the composition. I could be sleeping and remember another thing and got back to add it, because if I didn’t get up immediately to add it, after that time, I might not remember it again.

So I began to look for how to get a comprehension of the culture of the people. It was difficult for me to get somebody who would give me the greeting style of the people -Izzy, Ezza, Ikwo, Ohaukwu, the conglomeration of them. When we got that concept then I felt alright because everybody was included. Then when the music came out, I went to some people, and then they were saying they couldn’t believe it. It was still in the demo, and even my wife couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know it would come out so relatively well. Some people said I should take it to this person and that person for sponsorship, but I said no; let us first of all get the cassette out.

I brought it out, and then went to some people. They criticized the work; we removed some things and then added some things. But generally, the people of Ebonyi state and even beyond have been appreciative of it. There are moves already to do the video as part of the album. So Ebonyi people like the music.

What were the major challenges you had to grapple with while producing the music?

The major challenges were first combining my job with going to the studio because I may want to go for production and the studio would have been booked. But I am telling you that by the Grace of God, the studio workers were treating us like special people. When we went into the studio, the studio owners were booking us for nights production and we were sleeping in the studio most of the nights. But at times, I would book the studio and the Editor would be calling, please I need a feature story on so and so issue. Then how do I manage such situation? So that was the first challenge we had.

Then financing was another challenge. But then there is a stand I usually take in my life. I believe most things are possible. I didn’t know the cost and I didn’t want to start looking into how much it would  cost and as we were doing it God blessed it, and I did it in collaboration with one of our colleagues, Nnamdi.  After that, another problem was the artiste we employed, because I had a lead singer, one lady, Jenax Akpa. You need to know how to manage these musicians because they are another set of special human beings.

When are you going to release another album?

We have only begun; right now I’m working on another album and another book but I am not going to talk about them until the appropriate time.