Akeem Lasisi
Seasoned journalist and writer, Dr Festus Adedayo, has ignited a big debate over the relationship between two Yoruba’s iconic deceased musicians, Ayinla Omowura and Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.
He says if Omowura had not died at the time he did, Barrister would not have risen to the height he attained.
Many fans of the fuji superstar have, however, countered Adedayo, saying Barrister had already garnered his own influence and destiny even when Omowura was still alive.
One of the key responders is Barrister’s brother, Gani Kayyode Balogun, also a journalist and critic.
According to him, Barrister was never under the shadow of Omowura.
Below are the two articles by the duo:
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Ayinde Barrister: In memoriam of a musician who peaked by the graveside of Ayinla Omowura
Festus Adedayo
Wednesday last week, the fifteenth day of December, marked the tenth anniversary of the departure and transformation from mortality to immortality of the body and soul of Yoruba Fuji Iroko tree, Chief Sikiru Ayinde Balogun, popularly known as Ayinde Barrister. He was a musical prodigy who contributed substantially and immensely to the musical, cultural and lingual development of the Yoruba people. He was a bundle of talents whose life could be regarded as woven round music like a tapestry. That day, ten years ago, it was as if there was a permanent stillness in the musical heartbeat of Yoruba land. Barrister had battled an undisclosed ailment for years and gave up at the feet of a cardiac arrest in London.
A few weeks ago, while listening to a live play of a popular Juju musician, some friends and I conducted a peremptory investigation and interrogation of the state of music in Yorubaland. We concluded that with Barrister’s exit, rigour, candour and panache ended with his exit. For instance, the Juju maestro, who had played at a funeral ceremony, only rehashed his old crowd-pulling songs and unable to meander into the present, research into the personalities of his crowd and audience, thus giving them a very flat, uninspiring line of music.
That was not Barrister. He brought rigour into his live plays and even studio recordings, so much that, even his live plays are today evergreen and eternal. No one needs to be a prophet to be able to predict that Barrister cannot die. A century from now, no matter the configuration of modernity, a world that is thirsty to navigate the contours of traditional African music cannot but drink from the brooks of his Fuji music. And don’t tell me that Wasiu Ayinde (KWAM 1) will fill the void. He cannot. His music lacks the grits and rigour that Barrister paraded. Yes, it is fast-tempoed and conduces to the musical voraciousness of the present age but when it comes to research and songs that set the brain on a wild wonder into ancient and contemporary issues, KWAM 1 isn’t there at all. His songs are too ephemeral, too peremptory to withstand any comparison. Perhaps, in the song of Saheed Osupa (Saridon P) can be found the satisfaction of that lacuna that Barrister left behind. His songs are very deep, philosophical and also set one on a mental assignment, even while the feet are gyrating to his beats.
My admiration for Barrister dates back to the 1970s. I lapped up his songs at the same time I did that of the man who today is my musical idol, Egunmogaji Ayinla Omowura. Omowura’s death placed him a step higher in my admiration, compared to Barrister’s. My research into Omowura confirmed a thesis which, whenever I submit it, angers some die-hard Barrister fans. The thesis is that, if Omowura had not died, there would never have been the Barrister who supervened over the traditional Yoruba African music stratosphere of the 1980s to 2010 like a wild wind. Omowura had a majesty, aura and eclectic appreciation that Barrister didn’t have and could not have had, placed side by side Omowura.
Not the age differential between them; not even the crowd appeal of the 1970s which Omowura had but which Barrister could not withstand. Certainly not the fact that Barrister was Captain of Omowura’s Fans Club while both were musical stars. Not also because Barrister lapped up some of Omowura’s songs at his death, prominent of which was the Ajikogba ede track which belonged to Omowura. It was the fact that Omowura was like a tempest which would swallow the wind of an Ayinde Barrister any day, any time. In 1978 or thereabout, when Barrister attempted to cross the musical railway pathway of an Omowura moving train, the Egunmogaji gave him a jab in Ayinde ma je ki ngbo… (Ayinde, perish the thought of your imagined superiority). Frightened, Barrister replied like a dog whose tail was tucked into its anus.
Barrister was not a counterpoise to Omowura as both didn’t sing the same variant of Yoruba traditional music. While he sang Fuji, Egunmogaji sang Apala. In my book, Ayinla Omowura: Life and Times of an Apala Legend, I attempted to state that in the history of Yoruba traditional music, there had always been seemingly fratricidal wars between musical counterpoises. While Abibu Oluwa (I enjoy his panegyrics for Herbert Macaulay, playing musical pun with his alias, Ejo ngboro) was like the forerunner of such traditional music. Lefty Salami was also in that mould. S. Aka Baba Wahidi dueled with fellow Egba kinsman Yusuph Olatunji because they sang same Sakara music. Kasumu Adio, born 1928, who died very young, sang better Apala than Haruna Ishola (recall his elegy to Col Adekunle Fajuyi and the Odale Ore track). Adio also engaged in a musical spat with Ishola, alias Babangani Agba, as well as Raji Owonikoko and his self-styled Kwara System Originator Band. However, Ibadan-based anedoctal musical lord, Epo Akara, was in a world of his own.
I had engaged an Egba man, a very brilliant lover of arts, culture and language of the Yoruba people and a huge boardroom giant (I didn’t get his permission to mention his name here) in a comparative analysis of Omowura and Barrister recently. He confirmed this thesis of mine. He agreed with me absolutely. Gani Kola Balogun; our journalism forebear, Elder Dayo Odeyemi, popularly known as Hunter (by the way, please accept my belated happy birthday, sir) and my friend, Adebayo Ojo, former Oyo State Attorney General, who are all fanatics of Barrister’s songs, won’t agree with me, I presume. I may also not be on same page with even musical history researchers like Professor Saheed Aderinto and Waliu Alao.
No doubt, however, Barrister approximated and appropriated the absence of Omowura in an awesome way for his flourishing and died greater than Omowura. He garnered a huge contemporary audience than Omowura probably gathered in his lifetime. However, if both musicians had existed side by side into 2010 when Barrister died, Barrister could never have been able to unbuckle the musical shoes of Omowura who bestrode the Yoruba traditional musical scene of the 1970s like a talismanic colossus. Or, what do you think?
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The Barrister Omowura saga: Between the Rock and the Hard Place:
Gani Kayode Balogun
This is purely an academic exercise, since the two enigmatic musicians had left this world, Ayinla Omowura for forty years, and Ayinde Barrister for ten.
But at a particular point in the musical topography of the Yoruba nation, these two Alpha bulls were presumed to have locked horns.
Presumably because Barry Wonder denied till the very end that such a scenario was the figment of fans imagination, while those close to Egunmogaji believed Barrister (then), was too junior musically for Ayinla to be at beef with, not to talk of engaging him in a heated rivalry.
Books, articles and documentaries, not to mention dedicated social media face offs are legion on the subject matter, so adding to that literature would be antithetical.
While still working around my schedule to accommodate as many Barry centric events marking his 10th year remembrance of his transition as possible within the next few months on three continents, my friend, brother and fellow indigenous music aficionado, Dr. Festus Adedayo, lawyer, researcher, journalist and historian, hit me, and other aworosasas, with his pet theory.
Not only did he mention my name in his syndicated article, he also dare some of us to contradict his thesis. And this I shall.
He asserted, with self conviction that without the death of Ayinla Omowura in 1980, Barrister would not have attained the heights he reached as a musician, performer and composer.
Please note that he is not saying Barrister would still not have attained greatness, but that he would not have became the master of all he surveyed in the Yoruba music pantheon, especially from 1980 till he died in 2010.
While none has put that aspect of Barry’s relationship with Igijegede in such stark existential finality before, it is to Dr. Adedayo’s that he realized it himself that those who sow wind will reap whirlwind.
In the spirit of full disclosure, let me state that I am an ardent Ayinla Omowura fan, as well as that of Yusuf Olatunji, Lefty
Salami, Haruna Ishola, Odolaye Aremu, Tatalo Àlàmú, Amusa Agboluaje , Nosiru Ajunwo, Ligali Mukaiba, Óseni Ejire, and all the old masters of that era.
I am also a generic fan of Fuji music, irrespective of the musician, as well as the young urns who sing in Yoruba, you know the usual suspects.
In the first place, Dr. Adedayo’s assertion is flawed on so many levels: thematically , absolute relativity terms and in situational contextuality.
In the beginning, while there are about two stages of Ayinla s musical career, the Olalomi years and the Apala era, Barrister is one long unbroken musical oddsey.
From his Were and Ajisari days to his early Fuji experimentation and full musical career, Barry faced many adversaries, from Ojindo in Mushin to Ayinla Kollington.
But this are the direct in your face rivals, there were many that the battle is more subtle than open, especially when his ascendancy was becoming unstoppable.
But even then, Barry was a huge Ayinla fan. He was also an executive in Ayinla Omowuras fans club in Mushin.
Because this article is not about why’s and wherefores of their ‘feud’, we will skip that aspect to concentrate on where both artistes were when Ayinla Omowura died.
Like I stated earlier, Ayinba and Barry belonged to different generations, but their fame within the Yoruba Country was on the ascendancy almost at the same time.
Because of the introduction of the 18″ vinyl introduced in 1970/71, they, along with the recording artistes of that era, began releasing albums of that size roughly around the same time, jettisoning the Singles and Extended play format for the LP Cadre.
What this means while they both enjoy relative fame and burgeoning fan base, they were on different musical projectories. Barrister as the rising star, and Ayinla peaking around the same time. So, if Ayinla alive did not dim Ayindes rise, why then would his death be a big factor?
Ayindes rise was not only a source of concern for Igijegede, but for all musicians reigning at that period. I am sure that Dr Adedayo is aware that the last meeting of the Musicians Union in Ibadan attended by the irreplacable Yusuf Olatunji where he collapsed before he later died, was called solely to discuss that young man, Ayinde Barrister?
And guess who was pleading to other musicians to let him be? Bába Legba Yusuf Olatunji himself!
By the time the “beef” started in 78/79. Barry was already a household name, he had taken his craft abroad, including the UK!
So, where in that trajectory would Ayinla s death play a major role?
Granted that some Artistes used Ayinla s death as a stepping stone to gain popularity by attacking Barrister within the context of the “beef”, it still did not change the rolling stone career path of Agbajelola, who went on to demolish or diminish other genres whose major exponents are still alive, or recently died.
Whatever happened, or did not happen between Omo Wuramotu and Ọmọ Odee was just another obstacle that Barry surmounted, not bigger, certainly more popular and more mythical, than those other presumed “beefs” with Saka Olayigbade, Ojindo, Kollington Ayinla, Bisi Ajala, his original band boys, Juju as a genre, Apala and Sakara as stopping stones.
Even those with younger artistes, either as a group or individuals, the Osupa kingship drama, the fake mother story, the murder accusation, the World Bank story, the numerous death rumors, and others too numerous to mention.
Waidi Ayinla Omowura was destined to reign for ten years and live forever, Barrister was destined to create a musical genre that would subsume all others and outlive him. Both rose to fulfill their destinies, both are now ancestors, not because one died so that the other can shine, but that both men became what they were destined to become.
Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, the man who stared adversity in the face and conquered, and by that become an ancestor.
That was his destiny. That was his karma.
