Victor Uwaifo tells his own story

Weekend Magazine: You are into a lot of art. Which of them best expresses you?Victor Uwaifo: All of them do. It is the way the sweetness of orange is not the same as that of sugar, sugar isn’t the same as that of honey, honey isn’t the same as that of mango. They each give […]

Weekend Magazine: You are into a lot of art. Which of them best expresses you?
Victor Uwaifo: All of them do. It is the way the sweetness of orange is not the same as that of sugar, sugar isn’t the same as that of honey, honey isn’t the same as that of mango. They each give you different sensibilities and tastes, but they are all sweet.  This is the essence of what I’m into; music, art, sculpture, painting, architecture. They all give me different fulfillments and till I get that in a work, I don’t rest. It’s like you have so many gifts and you abandon some. I consider it a sin, a waste of the gifts that God has given you if you explore only one and neglect the others.
Which of your works has been the most difficult for you to realize?
There is no work that has never given me sleepless nights. The song you just listened to gave me a lot of sleepless nights, because to coordinate the lyrics, the music…it’s unlike in the academia where one can become a doctor, a professor and you are vetted already as good or bad. But in music and in the arts generally, whenever you go into the studio and bring out a new work, you are accessed. You either fail or pass.
I can sing all my songs and this is more than reciting a whole library of books. I don’t think there is any professor who can make reference of his works from page one to the last page without taking a peep into his books. That’s the difference between performing arts and other professions.
I should be very thankful to the universal mind for giving me such talents to be able to recall at will all my compositions and performances from the past. Today I’m fulfilled and I can sleep well. I’m doing some sculptural works at the moment.
I’m working on something reflective of the Benin culture. A man smoking a long pipe sitting on his reclined chair as a young boy refills the tobacco. This is part of my efforts to keep the history going.
How did your career start?
They started side to side, back to back. When I was young, I would create things with bamboo, I would make kites, toy cars, catapults and all sorts. Then, I could shoot at a bird with my catapult and bring it down from the top of an iroko tree. Now I realise it was a skill and I’ve come to see that whatever you do in your childhood plays out in your adulthood. My parents never discouraged me and all that is what is manifested in me today.
What’s your take on Festac ’77 and Nigerian cultural events as they are today?
I think Festac ’77 was the best thing that ever happened to Nigeria or even Africa, art and culture wise. It is something, if it had continued that could have been a major source of income and tourism; although, they are trying everything now to harness the different cultures and festivals of this country, but I wish they can have one point like Festca’77 to tell the whole story. It was a good thing that it happened in Nigeria and it gave the arts and the artistes leverage and prominence and relevance, because art is also a long handwriting of documenting history.
You were Commissioner for Culture in Edo State. How do you evaluate the country’s culture industry?
I think the culture sector isn’t given the attention it deserves. There is so much emphasis on sports, particularly football.  If half the amount that goes into football was spent on the culture and tourism sector, we’d have progressed a long way off from where we are now.
But with the calendar of activities by the Federal Ministry of Culture, don’t you think they are doing enough…
No, they are not doing enough. It is not even happening here. We don’t know whether they even exist. With the kind of things I have put in place here, they haven’t paid a visit or made an attempt to document any of it. That is to tell you they don’t know what they are doing. A thing like this that was single handedly established by one man… the government cannot do what I have here. But I have done it and what I mean by their encouragement is that they should come and be partners with progress and see where they can also play a part and assist what I am doing. It’s a whole library of history here.
What prompted you to start the Revelation Palazzo?
Asides the fact that I am a visual artist and a performing artiste, I didn’t get the kind of attention I needed to bring out the other side of our culture. It was not funded so I sold the idea to myself when I disengaged from the service and went back to classroom as a teacher. It was born out of interest, necessity and then passion.
Playing in the same era with the likes of Fela, Rex Lawson, Bongos Ikwe, Sunny Ade  and others, did you feel a certain competitiveness or rivalry?
No, not at all. We all had our unique sounds and various audiences. I personally was competing with myself. I believe it was the same for them too. In any case, we didn’t have any basis for competition. My music was unique and I drew from the root of our cultural heritage. I was not praise singing and I never will.
I wanted to    record and document history as well as tell a story. Till date, this is what my music is all about, though I sometimes do compositions but most of my songs were folks and it is difficult to give rendition to folk music into a danceable tune. You must be able to read and write music. Because I studied music, I’m able to achieve all that in my work.
In the 70s the music industry was very good. It was encouraging because people would buy records and cassettes. The society was blessed. Music has a lot of flavour and studying it allowed one to play it wholesomely.
But today, it is computer music. You don’t have to understand or know music to play music. Most people who play music now are simply mediocres and until they go back in time, learn to play music, musical instruments and go through apprenticeship and the rudiments of music, they don’t have a future.
On this note, many of such people you refer to are winning awards and recognition for their works. Are you saying the appreciation of their music is warped?
What I’m trying to say is that only a very few percentage of them actually understand music. The other 90 or 95   per cent don’t know music. It’s like you go sit for an examination and the answer is right next to you. You don’t actually understand the question, but with the answer next to you, you can fill it in and then pass. Does this then make you brilliant? This is what the music industry looks like today.
Most of the performing artistes today depend on computers, which ordinarily should be what I call, a demo or prototype to give you an idea of the finished product.
This is one of the reasons I still enjoy sculpture. With graphics and painting you can feed your ideas into the computer and it will reproduce them for you.
In music you can compose manually, from your head and there is feeling in it. Playing the guitar from your head and there is feeling in it. Playing guitar on a computer isn’t the same as playing it live, because there is some personal touch; there is some kind of spiritual connection between you and the instrument.
Which appeals to you more, studio recordings or stage performances?
Ohhh, performing on stage; that’s me. Being on stage gives me more fulfillment than I can describe. After all, the theory and practice, what you then present to public is what makes you the real you.
Most of the present generation cannot play on stage. They always have a backup sound or CDs that they mime to. This is not right in my view.
I’ve started a school of music and these are things we pay attention to. Even for those who passed through me before the school started, like the late Sunny Okosun, Majek Fashek and even serving professors in various universities across the country, they all were part of my band. When I look back where I ‘m coming from, where I was and where I am now, it gives me joy and I know that the best is yet to come.
With the explosion of ‘Joromi’ and ‘Guitar Boy’, which you performed in various countries, how were you perceived in all those places?
I recall in 1969 when I performed in Algiers and some people in the audience collapsed out of excitement. That is to show you that they had never seen anything like it before. I’ve been to all over the world with my music and in all those countries I have performed, the reception of my songs by the audiences had been phenomenal.
In Bulgaria after I performed the crowd started screaming a word which came across to me as ‘beats’. I thought they were asking me to play my song ‘Beats’ which I did. But it turned out that what they were demanding was for me to repeat my performance. It was quite a hilarious and a good irony.
What was the music industry like in your time with regards to having managers, promoters/marketers and all that?
I actually started the notion of having a manager in my time. I had a manager and a roadee, one who goes ahead to make arrangement for shows. There was a day I had a show with my friend, Ebenezer Obey, at Ibadan. After the show they asked us to come and collect our money and I sent my manger to go.
Obey was shocked and said he didn’t know one would have manager. The following week he employed one. Also, I started advertising in Daily Times newspapers if I had   shows. I wanted my fans to be abreast with my activities and would advertise for one month running prior to any performance date whether it was to be in Kafanchan, Zaria, Funtua to Sokoto down to Gombe and then Maiduguri before coming down south, even to villages.
With these regular performances, one got stronger and perfected the art. It was like learning on the job. There were a lot of occupational hazards, but they made you thick and become very versatile.
What do you consider your biggest earning with regards to your music?
It is difficult to say, because when I came to Benin, I built a hotel, Joromi Hotel. It was a big deal then, but as time went by, it was nothing to count on. Being in my Palazzo with all that I have set up here… This one gives me more satisfaction, because it is different and not what just anybody can get up to do. Everybody can build a hotel, but for this Palazzo it takes more than finances to put together something for posterity and also adding to scholarship.
If you were not doing music and art, what would you be doing?
I would be doing music and art. (Laughter).