Fuji Music icon, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal is perhaps
one of the best musicians around. For over 40 years, the famous artiste has
been dishing out good music at parties and shows, while also releasing albums
regularly to the delight of his fans.
KWAM 1, as he is fondly called these days, has
traveled all over the world promoting his kind of music and promoting Nigeria
to the outside world. It is to his credit that Fuji Music was elevated through
modern instrument and melodious percussion.
The talented artistes does not limit himself to
singing, he is involved in politics, and very soon, he could be occupying a
public office as he is bent on contributing to the development of his fatherland.
KWAM 1 was recently on Sahara Television in New York
City in the United States of America as a guest during a musical tour in that country
and he spoke on issues concerning his career and life.
We monitored the interview session to serve you what
you would like to read about this prolific artiste that has shown the light to
others to follow.
Yes, I promised I am going to ask your age, don’t flop
in there because you just haven’t looked different, while we are seeing you in
the video since you have been around for a long time, how old are you
I am 56
That is impressive, let’s ask what brought you to the
viewers this time around
I have been very much around in New York and U. S performing here and there;
we have been on this unending musical tour, spreading the gospel of good music
that Nigeria is known for. What I play is Fuji music and the whole
responsibility of Fuji lies on my feet now, that it is a must for me to keep on
spreading the gospel of that music and that’s why I am here.
For those people who will not understand what Fuji
music is, will you just break it down for them
Fuji music is a kind of traditional musical serious lyrics from the West
Coast of Africa in Nigeria and it has the background, first from the Islamic
religion, but when the likes of us came on board, all we wanted to turn for the
success of that music is opening the face to the outside world to see the riches
in that music, combination of fantastic instrumentation and lyrics, backed with
heavy dance all, and that is Fuji; it is about dance all.
You just said that the responsibility of leading Fuji
music now lies on your feet, what do you mean by this. You are like the last
man standing
I am the head-show, the spokesperson; I am everything and all in all. By
tutelage, by service over the years, I have run over 40 years as a Fuji
musician and I am still very kicking.
Do you see your brand of it, you said when you came into
the music, you opened it up to the world by introducing lots of instruments
that you brought in new lyrics. Like you said, it used to be seen as Islamic
and now it has gone beyond that stage. So, did that continue with the younger
generation or has it been diluted
The reason people like us are still thanking Almighty God for being
there is, we want to guide the music so well because, very many good music of
the world today, the older players try as much as possible to guide it, even
Hip-Hop, Rap, the founding fathers of these genre of music, they are still very
much there to guide them. So, that is exactly what I am doing for Fuji, guiding
the younger performers who are doing very well and my spirit is to see that by
the time I am handing over finally, the music keeps on increasing and it’s not
dying.
One question I would like to ask you is how it is. We
recently saw you twice, now we actually saw that you participated in ‘Occupy
Nigeria,’ the protest that happened in Nigeria in January, 2012 over the
removal of fuel subsidy and it was a surprise to a lot of people because your
kind of music is seen as praise-singing rich people, suddenly, you are fighting
against the same rich people and people are wondering, what led you to do it
When I first started as a musician, I was young, the starting point and the
name of my band was ‘Wasiu Ayinde and His Fuji Revolution’. We believe very
many things need to be changed and the only way we can lend our voice to that
change is when we are there to participate. The message I spread to the younger
generation of Nigerians, when I started was for us to rise up in defense of our
future and I tell you, I have never rested one bit right from then. I still
have the fire brand in me and if you see me in politics today, I am not in
politics per se because of the personal gain, but because of the need for
liberation. We want to liberate our people; we want to pass the message as much
as possible. So our people still believe the message has not got down to the
people. For one reason or the other, the leadership of that country still makes
dissemination of information so tight, so blocked to the generality of the people.
If the people are well informed, definitely the problem we are facing in that
country will not be there.
Did you come through any backlash, did the government
threaten you, and were you afraid that participating openly would have recourse
You never cannot be afraid because you have a purpose. And the purpose
you are doing it, you first understand, is not because of your pocket, it is
not for personal gains. I am not crying out, I am not antagonizing, I am not saying
all that simply because I want someone to listen to me and offer me something.
No! We parley with the leadership so
that we could still get the message across to our people and get to them.
Acting like a bridge between the people and the leadership; that is also
another point of accepting to either do anything with the government, and it
works because you will find out that it is not everybody in government that has
lost his listening ears, there are still very many of them that would listen,
they sit with you and will ask from their points of view, what do you think we
can do to make the lives of the people better. It touches me when I see such leaders.
I really found that you have so much revulsion for so
many ways of life of the people regardless of how much you were offered
Very many. You see, money does not matter, sometimes you have the money
and you lose the value. Money does not bring that value or standard for you to
keep being fit.
Now you are the
oldest in the new generation of Fuji music business, or maybe Adewale Ayuba, is
there any rivalry amongst some of you guys, we heard that there was a time you
were fighting that somebody will lose his voice and there will be sometimes
that KWAM 1 is playing here, Barrister is playing on the other end, that on the
one side the rain will be falling and the other side would be dry. Like myth or
dark rivalry
NO!!! I tell you something, it depends on where you are coming from,
where I am coming from, I am much enlightened to believe in some little things
such as Juju. I have taste, when you have taste and you have a firm belief in
your spiritual in-built, you don’t lose yourself to that side. Regardless of that,
there is rivalry in every business; the truth of the matter is you know what
you are doing and where you are coming from. I know one thing, I senior Adewale
Ayuba by the length of service, by age; so, that is more than enough for me to
even look down on any shortcomings. So, it is like a 30-year-old man and a six-year-old
boy, when a six- year-old boy does something to you, if you say because of what
he does, you want to hit him forcefully like that, people will caution you that
it is too much of you. If he pushes you down, you’ve fallen, so you take
caution. The rivalry doesn’t show common sense. You apply common sense in all
you do.
Let me talk about the explosion of music, you know in
the last ten years, we’ve found new genre of music, Hip-Hop, Tongolo etc,
everybody comes up with something these days and that has affected your
efficacy in the music world. Here comes D’Banj, 9nice, all those new guys, have
they taken away the shine, have they taken away the conduct and the kind of
patronage that you are supposed to get
No!!! Unless he who doesn’t know Wasiu, who doesn’t know KWAM 1, may be he
doesn’t know the fire brand in me, like I said, I am still vey muck
kicking. I have a lot of performance to
show every time, I work year round. Minimum of 15 performance in a month, you
can imagine, so busy, both in and outside Nigeria. And the number of artistes
we still have and whatever the brand of music that we have today, is still not
enough.
So, have you done collaborations with any of the
younger guys
Oh! Yes I have done collaboration with a lot of them. Way back then, I
have done it.
For a period, there was this persistent rumour that
you couldn’t enter the U.S. That you couldn’t enter the West, that you had a
kind of relationship with guys who patronized you, who were involved in
financial crimes. Nobody ever saw this. Was there any period that KWAM 1 was
unable to come to Canada or the U.S
There was never a time. Well, number one, I would say at the point when
I was so busy back there in Nigeria, you know people, when they wanted you
somewhere and you are not available, they might said probably you are unable to
come because you have problem. It is just by their imagination. The truth of
the matter is that as an artiste, you have very many people on the streets. A
criminal will not write on his forehead that he is a criminal, a drug dealer
will also not do that, neither will a financial criminal do the same. So, as an
entertainer, musician, especially, you will be open to everybody, everybody
will come in and request for your performance. The truth of the matter is that
I have never in my life dipped my hands into unclean matters of life because of
the length of the time I have been an entertainer, because of what I have ahead
of me. God so good, my children today, they are doing very well and they said, ‘watch
out what you are doing, not because of now, but because of who is taking over
from you.’
Because you mentioned children, we have a question on
twitter here which says, KWAM 1, we should ask if Fathia will be Marshal’s 38th
child. Do you have up to 38 children
That is no! NO! NO! Fathia is the youngest of my baby. She is the
youngest of my children and not number 38. I am not going to divulge the number
of children I have. I do not have 20 children. That is what I will say.
Do you have an active charity foundation programme.
Like we have in other parts of the world, when you make money, people expect
you to give back to the society
I have been doing that way back since I was 30 years old. I have
established a foundation called ‘KWAM 1 Foundation’, and that has been helping
lots of people in the area of education, we provided very many things in the
society and I am still doing it. You give back to the society in your own
little way. If I am not so loud about it for people to know, that yes I have
this open pocket, those who have benefitted from it knows truly they did.
Do you know how many times you perform in a year
Like I said earlier, minimally, I do 15 shows a month. So, that’s a lot,
I do weekends and weekdays.
Do you have times that you have private performances
People can do all sorts of things to enjoy their lives. Some will tell
you I have private party outside the country, can you give me your
charges? And we do it.
So, it goes to albums, how many albums have you done
I have had over 82 albums in the last over 40 years of being on stage.
Back to politics, somebody asked here, why do you want
to get involved in dirty politics. You’ve worked hard all your life; don’t you
know/think that you might lose it all going into politics
First, the politics I am into is for liberation. Liberation because we
find out you cannot be complaining behind the door. If you are inside, then you
will want to chip in your ideas. All I have been complaining about, I can say
it directly, but the truth of the matter is, for the liberation of the people,
I am not going to stage what I should not stage. I am not going to stage all I
have labored for all my life. I am doing it rightly and I know where the
stopping point is.
You said that your daughter is coming on the show you
are organizing, Is it not a surprise that you already have a daughter who is in
music
I have four of my children now actively doing seriously in music. Honey
Bee is my daughter; she will be introduced during the programme.
What kind of music is she doing
She does pop.
So, you have three other ones, tell us about them
I have Mosty, Mosty is doing well in music. He is in Canada and I have
Sultan, Sultan is doing music and also Faruq who is doing jazz.
How many people do you have on your band
I have 12 based band.
How many males
do you have in your band
12 males,
all male band.
What happens
to females, especially for someone like you that is know to appreciate women,
why
They have
no duty to do for me on stage except as dancers.
Have you tried to find female musicians for back-up
singers or that probably can do drums so that people would not think that is
against women
The truth
of the matter is, could he have the identification because they would be
through another man. May be the professionals among them, you know women for
what they are, they’ll probably want to take care of the home front, be a wife
to someone and take care of children from where we come from. It may be
workable here, but not there.
There are female Fuji Musicians that are doing very
well, I know of Salawa Abeni, definitely we can have female Fuji musicians that
can be back-up singers
Salawa
Abeni is doing ‘Waka’ and she is doing very fine. She has band that you can say
she introduced back-up singers that are females as well. It works that way.
The next question
is about Nigeria, we work for the betterment of the country from the outside
too. We are approaching 2015 now, election period is coming, campaigns here and
there, but the country seems broken. Like you said, there is no security, the
health system is broken, the education is not in good shape, the roads are not
good. What do we have for Nigeria in our lifetime to undergo any form of change
that we can all be proud of. Do you have any hope
Hope is
not lost about Nigeria in getting to the better point, but the problem is do we
have a sincere mind and firm mind as well to say I am determined, this is what
I want to take back to my people this time. I am not thinking about my pocket,
neither do I think about the large volume of money or investment that I am
going to leave for my family, but think about uplifting the standard of living
of people, creating a better thing. Every Governor would tell you they are
creating education, building hospitals. But it is not building hospital that
matters, but create an enabling environment for investors to come into our
community like that ‘Imeko’ in Ogun State or ‘Ifon’ in Ondo State, in ‘Osun’ or
‘Oyo’ or somewhere in ‘Ijebu-Ode’ or even in ‘Epe’ or ‘Badagry’ to say we want
to invest our money in health care system. This is what we are giving to the
society. It could be an investment, but it should be one that works overtime,
that would bring back and yield the dividend and give them interest. Give an enabling
environment, we are waiting for that mile to come. Honestly, Nigeria is very
rich in everything and the people of Nigeria, their résilience is what other
people take for granted to kind of insult them.
So, Nigerians
are just too resilient, they are just there and they take all the abuses and
they don’t fight back?
Because they don’t have a choice.
But
they do because as of January last year, people like you and several others came
together to protest fuel subsidy removal
2012 really marked a turning point in my firm
belief about Nigeria, when people truly came out and if we can behave like
that, you could see that the rich and the poor, the old, the young, everybody
has a focus towards one end and they said no, ‘I am going out.’ Everybody came
out, if we could have an increase in such enthusiasm in ourselves, then we
would get there so fast.
Is there any message you have for the new generation
musicians. I know it is a redundant question, everybody ask you, how would you
advice people if they want to do what you do and remain steadfast. And that
sometimes musicians don’t rely on personal strength, but some kind of a third
support such as drugs to be strong
Unfortunately
No! I don’t smoke, like I said, I have stopped drinking.
You don’t womanize
Womanizing! I see women in large numbers everyday, even
if I don’t call for it, they’ll definitely come your way. But I give due
respect to them. But the truth of the matter is, I don’t do drug, I don’t smoke
neither do I drink. But the younger generation should just bear in mind that they
have that future ahead of them. Whatever you want to do, like they say, ‘what
is worth doing at all is worth doing well’. Just get yourself dedicated to the
course you believe in and then keep on working on it. You will see that you’ll
get there one day, no matter how late it is, you’ll get there.
Some of your children, are they the ones that just
want to be into any type of music than you encouraging them if they are not
interested
Yeah! I
have some of my children that are into politics, I have lawyers among them,
practicing and they are doing well.
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