A singer who lives the life he dreams

If you haven’t heard of him, you probably haven’t heard good music. Every young person in Nigeria at the moment – and probably, every young Nigerian in the United Kingdom, knows him. Or maybe heard of him.  He is getting universally recognized as a strong voice in the music industry. He takes his time to write, produce music and also sing what others have written. He is very melodramatic in a society where people continue to produce all sorts of music – strong and watered down lyrics that keep surprising us.

David Evans does everything when it comes to music. He is multitalented in that sphere. He studied Pop Music at University of Northampton and he practically understands the business of music. He lived as a young Nigerian trying to build a strong career in the United Kingdom; he became famous for recording in the countryside with his friends; he is a close friend of some of the great musicians of his day; he travelled round the world like the rich kid he is and has a broadened mind. When he speaks, there is so much wisdom gushing out. Along the line, he has written over 90 songs – and he will write more and more.

Most musicians sing of their experiences. As we noticed in For my Home Town, Evans might be reversing the process; he tries to experience what he’d already sang about. He began doing music at a very young age, before he fell in love, but he has written songs on love and affection. He wrote about marijuana, then sang out in Mr. Marijuana. We are yet to know if he smokes marijuana, but the joy we get in listening to Evans is something strange, something beery, and something amazing. He has the kind of voice no musician in Nigeria possesses and his style of music could simply be tagged different and absolutely afro-pop. For the most part, Evans continues to trail the blaze of modern music, suffused with old-fashioned beats.

Who is this young man?






Born in Imo State, in 1989, Evans is the second child of his parents. His father is an engineer who works hard just to make sure his children live a good life. “My dad is only concerned about our comfort and happiness,” Evans confessed when I visited him in his large mansion in Akabo village in Imo State. In that mansion, proudly situated in that bushy village, there is a standard recording studio built by his father for him. It is well-equipped and has everything a good studio should have. There is a funny thing too: his father built a stage for him in the compound. Would he perform for who? That is the question. The truth is that he has set aside his time to make his children happy. Few parents are like that, especially in this era where parents want their kids to become doctors and engineers.

“My dad is weird, because I’m not sure there are many fathers like him,” he boasts. And then, we will all get jealous and look for his head.

Evans’ mother is a tireless educationist who owns a very expensive school in Owerri town. So, when I visit the school, I realize something surreal about it: it is a school for the rich. The school-children are very neat, they stare at you shyly and they respond politely when you talk to them. They are well-trained. And they are beautiful children too.

Evans takes me to the music class and we sit there, talking about music and his life. He finds some serious joy in talking music. He is a happy man. His life is beautiful. He has little things to worry about. Maybe all that he worries about is his music – he has a long sheet where he pens down his plans for the future. He scripts his tomorrow. He will release songs, now and then, but an album should be out in 2013. And you want to know what happens if these plans fail?

“I prefer to plan,” he says. “That is how my dad brought us up. You just have to plan things out.”

He may not have said that he is a fan of Angelique Kidjo, Evans simply sounds like a male version of the African songstress, but both have different ideologies, as Kidjo sings in We are One: “As you go through life you’ll see/there is so much that we /don’t understand/And the only thing we know is things don’t always go the way we planned/” Yet, he plans all the time, which will amaze you. He has some willpower which he believes so much in. He sometimes knows what is going to happen to him. When he is scared of something that hasn’t happened, it happens.

The young musician is a budding celebrity who is also interested in filmmaking. He would love to be in some movies with good storylines. His humility to accept his weakness is what has endeared him to a lot of people. His mindscape is very broad. “I would love to be in good films,” he says and adds that he is not looking for major roles, as he needs to start from somewhere.

José Fidalgo and wife are special guests at my reading

One of Portugal's top models and actors, José Fidalgo confirmed today, while we were chatting on phone, to make a special appearance at my book reading/discussion on Saturday, the 16th of June, at Arte & Manha, in Lisbon, with his lovely wife.

Funny enough, Mr. Fildalgo is a proud owner of a copy of "The Abyssinian Boy", which he got in April. As one of the finest actors of his generation, Mr. Fidalgo has gone on to appear in several productions alongside international stars like Italian Monica Belluci, yet, his humility will always amaze anyone that meets him for the first. While sitting with him at Colombo Mall in Lisbon, I realised that everyone that passed us, had something to look out for in him. They would smile and glare at him, but he definitely knows how to handle his fans.

So, on the 16th of June, by 6.30pm, he will be at Arte & Manha, and this is a great opportunity for those of you who want to meet him up-close, to come, as copies of "The Abyssinian Boy" will be available for sale.

Paris welcomes Ishaya Bako

My good friend and 2012 Africa Movie Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Ishaya Bako, will be back in Europe, almost same time I will be roaming about in Europe, for the screening of his short film, Braids on a Bald Head in France.

There is a wonderful interview of him talking about him entering his film to compete at the awards. Finally, out of 88 short films, his student project at London Film School won and he went home happy.

It is amazing that young people are doing amazing things and that many organisations and awards bodies are recognising their efforts.

Have a blast in Paris, Ishaya!

Book reading at Arte & Manha

I am fully back to blogging and will be writing about the exciting new things I'm working on at the moment. I'm torn between screenplays, a novel manuscript (that is very hard to actually finish) and other materialistic pursuits. Yet, I'm beginning to realise that my path in life is really rough.

On the 15th of June, I will be speaking at SWITCH Conference, which is known as Portugal's number one entrepreneurship conference.

I will be talking about the 'exportation of African music to Europe and the colonisation of Europe with African music.' My talk will focus on the impact African music has made in the consciousness of the European mindscape - with strong emphasis on how to make our music very accessible to the European audience, without losing texture of what we really want to do.

On the 16th, by 6.30pm, I will be reading from my first novel, The Abyssinian Boy (as copies of the book will be available for sale) and talking about how the book came about at Arte & Manha, which is located at Av. Duque de Loulé nº22 B. There will be light refreshment and music. 

Save Somalia

Somalia is in trouble. Somalis are dying of hunger. Children are dying, nowhere to be buried. This is just like the genocide in Cambodia.

For those who don’t know, Somalia is in Africa – it is the country of K’Naan, that fine goateed musician we all love. He sang ‘Wavin’ Flag’.

Nuruddin Farah is also from Somalia.

Today, K’Naan returns to Somalia after twenty years and this is what he said: “the worst famine in decades pillages the flesh of the already wounded in Somalia. And the world’s collective humanitarian response has been a defeated shrug. If ever there was a best and worst time to return home, it was now.”

He is not joking, the situation is worrisome and catastrophic. As a celebrity, he hopes to bring light to the darkness existing already. He has come with ‘concerned colleagues.’ To not make things worse, I don’t trust the people K’Naan has come with; they have come with cameras to capture what he has also written about.

“I meet a young woman watching over her dying mother, who has been struck by the bullet of famine. The daughter tells me about the journey to Mogadishu — a 200-mile trek across arid, parched land, with adults huddling around children to protect them first. This mother refused to eat her own food in order to feed abandoned children they had picked up along the way. And now she was dying because of that,” the rapper said.

He continues, “the final and most devastating stop for me was Banadir Hospital, where I was born. The doctors are like hostages of hopelessness, surrounded and outnumbered. Mothers hum lullabies holding the skeletal heads of their children. It seems eyes are the only ornament left of their beautiful faces; eyes like lanterns holding out a glimmer of faint hope. Volunteers are doing jobs they aren’t qualified for. The wards are over-crowded, mixing gun wound, malnutrition and cholera patients.”

I’m not thrilled by those who have come with K’Naan, although he is not to blame. The problem is the African approach to many things. We are not letting ourselves help ourselves. While the grass is burning in Somalia, the Nigerian Government is busy donating cars to the Liberian Government and the Liberian Government is busy, collecting the cars and smiling into the cameras, to tell the world that they are receiving ‘relief materials’ from the Nigerian Government for their elections. I haven’t seen a failed government that so much thinks highly of itself. I haven’t seen a leadership so snaily (if such word exists) like Nigeria’s, that issues affecting Somalia seem to be of no connection to them.

Africa – a continent of over 53 countries – continues to pride itself as a continent at peace. Nevertheless, the African is one who finds happiness in communalism, but never gets to practice the love of communalism. So, without rambling so much, it is more painful when you realize that those who ‘save’ Africa are foreigners. We are too lazy to bother about the reasons behind their ‘saving’ Africa. Undoubtedly, we are very weak. We are a people who depend on the others for everything.

There is food in Africa. Somalis are Africans and are dying of hunger. Before we can wake up to see if we can airlift food to the hungry Somalis dying every single day, we had to wait for K’Naan to make a decision all the way from Canada to return home, yet, no one is still making a move. It is annoying that the Nigerian Television Authority has no interest in the case of Somalia. It is appalling to know that Africans don’t care about Somalis now. Everyone is not interested. Where are the anthropology professors who are supposed to jump onto the next flight going to East Africa to see if they can proffer any kind of solution to the hunger striking every household in Somalia?

Right now, Allah is not obliged to do anything. Jesus Christ won’t be crucified again. The joys we share when we call ourselves Africans have to be fully expressed now. The love of Africa has to manifest now; it should be the job of African nations to prevail over this and not those ‘concerned citizens’ with their cameras.

I’m amazed as to how hunger is killing a lot of people on the streets – having walked through a lane where a dead boy lay and someone actually said he died of starvation. Close to that lane, there are fruit stalls. This is in Obalende.

For once, K’Naan has returned home as a star to shine among hungry Somalis, but I shall shower a huge respect to the Nigerian Government if they can ever intervene; let’s send food to Somalia and save a life.

Ven launches out...

21 year-old sensational singer, VEN, is out with a single, This Is Real Love.

VEN got signed onto BLUES & HILLS Music early this year and has been working round the clock in the studio.

A graduate of Biochemistry from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, VEN is out to join the league of the new generation of Nigeria's hip-hop scene.

You can hear this amazing song here:
http://www.4shared.com/get/hlSarQTA/02_This_is_real_Love_1.html

Salman Rushdie and the Cannes

One of the greatest living literary voices, Salman Rushdie is in the news again. His amazing novel, Midnight's Children, which I've read over and over again, has been filmed by the equally amazing Deepa Mehta in Sri Lanka, a country I cherish so much.

And the Cannes Film Festival is on.

I've seen amazing pictures of celebrities from the Red Carpet and it is a good feeling I have that the art of filmmaking is celebrated glamorously, hoping that one day, writers will start walking in the same lane, smiling into the cameras.