by Festus Adedayo
On May 6, 1980, leader of a Yoruba genre of music called Apala, which had quite a sizeable number of cultic following, was stabbed to death on the head with a beer glass cup in a barroom brawl at Itoko, Abeokuta. Ayinla Waidi Omowura, son of Yusuff Gbogbolowo the blacksmith and Wuramontu Morenike, had finally been killed by the scary black club of Death which he had sang sarcastically about in two previous vinyls he did before his death. He died before getting to the Ijaye General Hospital, Abeokuta. On the day Omowura released each of the 20 albums he did for EMI, the company recorded at least 50,000 copies sale.
It took a few weeks after before fans could come to terms with the departure of a man who to some was the enfant terrible of Apala music; who, with an admixture of a quartet musical instruments of Sekere maracas, akuba, Iya-ilu and agidigbo, attacked societal ills in his characteristic acidic tongue. Omowura, though illiterate, projected the image of an ombudsman to the oppressed.
Born in 1933 in Itoko, Abeokuta, Omowura, as early as when he was in his teens, was said to have been apprenticed to his father’s blacksmithry trade. Unconfirmed sources said that while growing up, Omowura interspersed this early childhood vocation with acting as political thug to some politicians of the time. He was also said to have once been a driver.
By the early 70s, along with other Apala prodigies of the time like Haruna Ishola (who reportedly invented the genre), S. Aka, Ligali Mukaiba, Yusuff Olatunji, Kasumu Adio, S.K.B Ajao-Oru, Fatai Ayilara, Ojubanire Ajape Saka Tewogbade and others, he had successfully transformed not only Apala but his fortunes as well, into a genre of music that was not strictly the pastime of the Yoruba lower class as it was hitherto perceived. He recorded 22 albums. Omowura held society spellbound by his song, occasionally infusing his Egba dialect as a musical motif, delivered in a rich voice that was perhaps accentuated by his rumored passion for cannabis.
In his social critic garb, Omowura was the scourge of the then emerging fad of women bleaching (Volume 15, Oro kan je mi logun) where he compared, sarcastically, the body of a woman who bleaches with that of the frog and wondered why the white man does not, comparatively, flee after the black skin. His songs were also the nemesis of ladies who changed husbands’ houses like a chameleon changes color (Pansaga ranti ojo ola) where he espoused the concept of the Onibambashi — most likely a barroom argot — classification of such women. Paradoxically, Omowura was said to be the toast of married women beer salon operators in his Abeokuta and Mushin homes and on several occasions, had to engage their husbands in physical, as well as musical scuffles to assert his supremacy.
One of such was his justification of women running beer salons in his Oro mi dori o dori track which became almost a national anthem for fans of this bohemian Yoruba musician. In a very scurrilous attack which made him and his song almost like leprosy to feminists for his perceived anti-women biases, Omowura attacked societal malaise and projected a high moral universe. He sang with an authority of being in possession of a musical inspiration and mastery of his trade that verged on blatant arrogance. He tells his competitors, for example, that until the weaverbird gains easy access to the liquid inside the coconut pod could any one of them attempt to outshine his genius and that he is the alujonnu elere (musical gnome), having surpassed them all.
The high point for Omowura, who sang on virtually every domestic dislocation of his household, was in the late 70’s when he bought a brand new Mercedes Benz car. For this, a track entitled Merzi tun de, heralding the arrival of the musical behemoth on the music scene graced one of his albums and, of course as usual, coated with a caustic diatribe against his enemies who thought he had reached the twilight of his musical inspiration.
As a commentator on issues of the contemporary society, Omowura reeled out innumerable tracks either commending government policies, excoriating bad ones or warning society on ills strung round certain governmental and individual acts. In E fara m’Omobolaji, Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson’s tenement rate policy in Lagos state received his dissection and applause. He enjoined Lagosians not to kick against this laudable government policy but give support to Johnson and didactically, detail by detail, tutored his listeners on the process of the payment of the tenement rate. In another breath, Omowura sang about the 1976 Udoji salary increment (Vol 7) and like an informed commentator that he was, urged that the largesse be extended to the private sector (e je ka san’wo Udoji na fawon private companies).
His view of a musician was one who fully participated in the cumbersome process of dialogue and interrogation of the complex situational issues of society. When General Murtala Mohammed was assassinated, Omowura delved into a soul-inspiring, tear-jerking elegy (Dimka, eni o pa o!…) wherein he outlined the fallen soldier’s sparkling qualities while excoriating General and Colonel Iliya Bisala and Buka Sukar Dimka for plotting the fine soldier’s elimination. When the Obasanjo military government thereafter decided to have Murtala’s picture and name embossed on the Twenty Naira note and named the Lagos international airport after him, these again formed the subjects of his musical engagements.
He was one of the few musicians who paid tribute to a fallen colleague of theirs, Ayinde Bakare, who was found murdered after some days of frenetic search for him (Vol. 3). Perhaps if he had not been a musician, Omowura would have been a footballer. His love for the round leather game was reflected in his commentaries on some football matches played in the country that he obviously watched. The 1972 and 1974 Challenge Cup matches (which later became the titles of an album and a track in Vols. 3 and 6 respectively) between Mighty Jet and Bendel Insurance, as well as one between Enugu Rangers and Mighty Jet engaged his attention where he recaptured the events on the turf by doing a re-rendition of Eyimba eyi!, Rangers’ Supporters’ Club song, to cheer their clubside.
Among others, FESTAC ’77, a cultural event that attracted participants from all over the world, also attracted the musical commentary of Ayinla Omowura, also known by his fans as the Eegunmongaji or Anigilaje. As a prominent worshipper of the Yoruba god of iron, Ogun, wherein his notoriety and that of his musical ensemble got its renown, the Egba-born musician saw the cultural event as another avenue of pouring libation to the gods, this time by government.
Commentaries that also engaged the attention of Omowura were the 1973 census, wave of robberies, change of driving path from left to right, the rumoured banning of wearing of lace materials for the rumoured belief that it courted armed robbery and several others. When, for example, Nigeria changed her currency, the musical crusader and commentator thought it fit to educate his long list of fans on the worth and look of the Naira denominations.
Like every other musician, women made up the coatings of his world. Those who knew him while alive spoke of an Haji Costly (one of his aliases), decked in the latest lace material in town, with a hanging, dangling necklace doing a swing on his neck, and a member of his band permanently stationed beside him to invite over any lady in whom he had a philandering interest.
Incidentally, however, his songs come across as anti-feminist as he hardly perceived anything of good in the womenfolk, except seeing them as commodities. For example, in his popular track entitled Enirobi simi, ibi a ba(Vol 15), a song which he used to dispel rumours making the round that he had been kidnapped by his enemies, in gutter-like acidic outrage against those he termed the peddlers of the rumour, Omowura easily took a shuttle to the maternal homes of the ‘rumour peddlers’ and categorically asserted that such people’s mothers were the ones who were suffering from a fit of malady.
Frustrated by the truancy of one of his sons, in Omo afekosofo, he sang about a child who rubbishes the joy of education offered him by a father who is ever ready to foot his education which is his joy of tomorrow. Education, he said, is more enduring than a wait on parents’ wealth. He reminded the prodigal son that his parents could abruptly go on a troubadour of no return for which the parents would give no prior notice and that truancy does not pay. Like a prophet, Omowura went on his journey without giving notice.
