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Africa has a long roster of talented and legendary singers who broke boundaries with their music and spectacularly accomplished greatness, but Victor Uwaifo stood out. The legendary singer was a pioneering artist and musician, an innovator and torchbearer who first gave Nigerian music global recognition more than 50 years ago. Uwaifo died on Saturday, August 28, 2021, at the age of 80.
His passing in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria, was confirmed by one of his nephews, Peter Uwaifo, a gospel singer, who also featured Uwaifo in a yet-to-be-released song, as of the time of Uwaifo’s death in August 2021.
Peter said the legendary singer died of a chest infection, which affects the lungs or large airways. While some could be mild and clear up on their own, others can be severe and life-threatening.
In a music career that spanned more than six decades, Uwaifo shattered glass ceilings and brought global recognition to Nigerian music at a time when it was in relative obscurity.
“With over 600 songs and 100 records to his credit with eight gold and two silver awards, his indelible mark and contribution to the music business in Nigeria and globally will stand undisputed for years to come,” Jude Nwauzor, who covered the Nigerian entertainment scene for many years before becoming the spokesperson of Asset Management Company (AMCON) told Netng.
“He made incredible contributions to the development of music, not just in Nigeria, but globally,” musician Sunny Neji told Netng on Sunday, August 29, 2021.
Uwaifo’s influence on Africa’s creative industry and his contributions to its development, Neji adds, is unquantifiable and incredible.
Music and events executive Edi Lawani, likened Uwaifo to a torchbearer whose “foray into music, and the popularity of his earliest recordings helped promote the career of other Nigerian musicians.”
Uwaifo was born on March 1, 1941, in Benin City, Edo State, into a Catholic family and grew up in Lagos Street in Benin. Until his death, he stayed committed to Catholicism and had a chapel in his Benin home.
Though his parents were not comfortable with his decision to be a music artiste because they wanted him to focus on his studies, he started playing the guitar at age 12.
At age six, Uwaifo made kites and built aircraft with foil papers gotten from ‘Guinea gold’ cigarettes. And at age 12, he was already making a guitar with plywood and using bicycle spokes for frets and trapped strings. Later in his life, he built a double head guitar with 18 strings, a magic guitar with a keyboard on the guitar, an aircraft, the sports car he drove to Abuja more than 25 years ago and invented a guitar that spins 360 degrees.
His childhood dream was to be a scientist. “I wanted to invent something that would stun the whole world,” he said in a 2020 interview. And he did stun the world.
Edi Lawani called him a genius.
His academic journey started at Holy Cross Primary School in Benin City before moving to Lagos, where he attended Western Boys High School and St Gregory’s College. When he graduated from Yaba College of Technology with a diploma in Graphic Art, he joined the Nigeria Television Service (NTS now NTA).
Initially focusing on artistic pursuits, he shuffled his job as an artist with music as a member of different music bands. In 1964, he formed the ‘Central Moderneers’ band with Fred Coker and Stephen [Osita] Osadebe.
“We did record some singles and so on,” Uwaifo recalled. But it was in 1965, the world first heard about the genius called Uwaifo when he formed his band, which had late singer Sunny Okosun as a member. That year, he released the breakout song ‘Joromi’ that shot him into the limelight.
He called his genre of music ‘Akwete’ which later metamorphosed into ‘Mutaba’. He said he developed ‘Mutaba’ to challenge soul music which “almost took my fans away. Nigerians are gullible; when the soul came, it swept everybody off their feet. I said, well, if it is so, then I have the equivalent, and I created ‘Mutaba’, then from ‘Mutaba’ to ‘Shadow’.”
“He created his genre. He was just very dynamic and could blend some different genres and create something new, and that for me is a mark of a genius,” Lawani, the music and events executive, told Netng.
Joromi was released in 1966 and sold 100,000 copies by 1969, making Uwaifo the first African singer to win a Gold Disc. In the Bini language, the song is based on the legend of Joromi, a wrestler who took on the seven-headed spirit of the underworld and was defeated.
Following ‘Joromi’s’ massive success, Uwaifo shifted his attention to full-time music and quit his job at NTA.
He added ‘Guitar Boy’ to his impressive body of work, including Monkey Yanga, Akwete, Ekassa, Simini, and many others. ‘Guitar Boy’, which also became a hit, launched Uwaifo internationally. He said his encounter with a mermaid at the Lagos Bar Beach inspired the song.
“I was the Head of the graphics department at that time. We used to close late and had to be on set to organise the backdrop. Because of the traffic, I used to deliberately stay late and go to the bar beach to strum my guitar and get inspiration,” he told Netng in 2014.
“That particular day, I stayed really late till everybody had gone. Not long after, I observed that each time the waves advanced towards me, I would move back, but the farther I moved, the closer it came. Suddenly, I observed a figure coming towards me, and before I knew it, the figure was right before me. I wanted to run away. I screamed, which I later transposed into strumming the guitar, which has become a trend nowadays. She just said, ‘if you see mammy water, never you run away. I just thought the mermaid loved music; otherwise, it would have harmed me.”
Despite the success of his music career, Uwaifo returned to the classroom and bagged a B.A. in Sculpture (First class honours) in 1994, a masters degree in 1996, and a PhD in Architectural Sculpture from the University of Benin. He was retained as a full-time lecturer at the university after his masters.
Uwaifo was the first Nigerian musician conferred with a National Honour. He was later appointed Edo State’s Commissioner for Arts and Culture.
“I am doing a second PhD in Biomimetics. It refers to processes, systems and devices that imitate nature,” he told The Nation in 2016.
Nwauzor said Uwaifo was one of the most educated performing music icons in Nigeria. “I cannot immediately recall any other music icon of his generation that is better educated.”
His first international show was in Algeria in 1969. After that, he toured from Bulgaria to Romania, Yugoslavia, East and West Berlin, Hungary, Ukraine, Moscow, Rome in Italy, Germany, Hong Kong, and other parts.
At the peak of his career, he relocated to Benin City. And he explained that he decided to develop his people.
“I just thought that Lagos was already saturated, and Benin was virgin land. And I need to develop my people! I built a hotel; it was called Joromi Hotel. It’s still there, but not a hotel anymore. I was running a nightclub there, and every week it was filled up, jam-packed. And that was the only thing that was happening in Benin at the time; the nightlife was at its peak, especially when I came up with the ‘Ekassa No.1’,” he recalled.
In the 2014 interview with Netng, Uwaifo pronounced himself as the greatest Nigerian musician ever.
“I’m the greatest, no doubt about it,” he told Netng. “Sorry about that, since I don’t sound like any other person it is still me. That is it.”
“People refer to a lot of different people as legends, but this one was a true legend,” Nwauzor said.
In 2015, Uwaifo released a comeback album – ‘Legend Reborn’ off the back of Hypertek Digital, the record label home to Innocent’ 2Baba’ Idibia, and he also featured 2Baba on his song ‘Tupepe’.
Efe Omorogbe, the CEO of Hypetech Digital/Now Muzik, told Netng that Uwaifo made a profound impact as a recording artist, live performer, guitarist and sculptor.
“His countless hits from the Ekassa, Akwete, Mutbaba, Titibiti and sundry series significantly influenced a lot of younger artists who came after,” Omorogbe said.
In April 2018, Uwaifo celebrated 30 years of being married to his wife, Princess Osaretin, a graduate of English and French. His family, which grew to include ‘quite a few children,’ survived him. In 2010, one of his daughters, Idusogie Uwaifo won the Miss Edo state beauty pageant. He also has a son in the U.S Army and another, Alexander Uwaifo is a music producer.
Uwaifo said he never smoked and never sang at funerals. “That is not my calling,” he said in an interview with ‘The Traveller’. “Funeral music is for people of that class. I’m a spirit, and spirit does not play for the spirit.”
The Victor Uwaifo Music Academy and the Revelation Palazzo Museum are some of the legacies he left behind.
His style was so distinct, and in years to come, Lawani said, “you’ll see people going back to what he did 40 years ago to try and make it fresh again. And I think that’s what stood him out.”
The post Obituary: Sir Victor Uwaifo – The Legendary Singer Who Had An Encounter With Mermaid And Never Sang At Funerals appeared first on Nigerian Entertainment Today.
Source: TheNet
