Seeing and hearing 2FACE capture our love-hate affair with Nigeria
Music is powerful. It’s universal. It’s actually music’s universality, its borderlessness and its ability to arrest attention that gives it such enormous powers! When music comes on, and it is good music, you’ll need to see how people begin to sway in their chairs, tap their feet and make the bold effort to let themselves go, so they can fully take on the impact of what music is capable of giving.
Sometimes, the best place to listen to and get the full impact of a song is when it belts out of your car stereo. If you live in Lagos or any of the Nigerian cities where traffic is daily contributing to reducing our life expectancy, then a good song belting out of the speakers of your car stereo could help you plough back some lost life expectancy. If you find what you have just read difficult to understand, then you are probably one of those indulgees or visitors to this indulgees’ square table, who take life too seriously! And I would admonish that you loosen up. There’s too much stiffness in the air that circulates in Nigeria to allow yourself to subject you, consciously, to such personal harm; for that’s what you are doing when you choose not to allow music relax your stiff nerves and send you into a world where you can momentarily get lost in that which Samuel Johnson tried to describe in Rasselas – Prince of Abyssinia – as the pursuit of happiness! And even though you are likely to argue that it’s your business to lead your life the way you deem fit, I still need to advise you to chill and take it easy!
For many of us, it’s probably not only in the car that we allow music to relax us and take the frustration of life and living in this our own peculiar patch of the world away – at home, at the office and at special music spots, we allow our bodies to give in to powerful music, soothingly so that we forget all the troubles that we daily confront; the burden that we collectively share and the societal headaches we run away from, pretending that they don’t exist, wishing them away only to find that they never really go away. And because they just don’t go away we frantically wish them away, they hit us very hard and we move nowhere, remaining stagnant in a permanent state of inertia!
But in truth, if you are musically unconnected, you need to do something about it. Get close to your stereo, at home, at work or in your car! Or if you can’t access music through any of these channels, try and get close to those who have access and borrow without asking! Yes, you know how it’s done with regards to newspaper reading by those who cannot afford to buy it on a daily basis! This recommendation is borne out of knowing that it will help you as it has helped and is still helping many who have gone before you, to spread the gospel of music!
Music can prolong life, you better believe it! There are music based therapies for the ailing and recovering in some hospitals; but this is not just all about how music aid recovery from ailments. It has also much to do with the connection we make with the society in which we live and work. This is why it is likely that your choice of music could affect how you engage with your environment. And genuine connoisseurs of good music will tell you that voice and instrumentation are critical aspects of rendition of music. Your connection could well be to the rhythm, but the rhythm you connect to is a product of the blending of voice and instrument delivery.
So, there I was approaching traffic on a bridge as I drove to the office some weeks ago. They joke about Lagos traffic and the hyper supermarket it has become over the years. They joke and say if you wanted to do a household shopping while driving home from work in a 9-5 work place you could easily do that. As I approached traffic on this particular day, I noticed young men displaying what I told myself at the time must be a new album from one of Nigeria’s finest musicians, 2FACE Idibia!
I reckon now, as I look back, that I guessed this to be so because in Lagos when you see people hawking album CDs in traffic, they usually carry many, many others; which could sometimes send you into a tailspin of confusion because you don’t know if you could fall prey to bootleggers! But as these hawkers carried just one particular album of this artiste it was only natural that they were selling it and also promoting it because it was a new release. I make the point to pick The Ascension album and listened to it as I drove to the office. I did not make too much of the songs in the album until last Thursday.
One particular song caught my ears as it wafted out of my car stereo, driving on the Third Mainland Bridge, heading to Lagos Island for a meeting. It’s an absorbing kind of music and it captures your attention from the very first sound that comes out of the speakers as it begins to play. What an amazing work on the guitar. Hate What You Do To Me is impactful. It’s the quintessential Ronnie Scott’s London kind of music.
The vocal is powerful and engaging. It is a love admonition. But it’s also the story of our country and our relationship with her. We love Nigeria. But we hate what it does to us. We don’t know whether to ask Nigeria to stay or to ask her to go. Nigeria confuses us because it gives us pains. We know that it is very rich but it has left many, many of us very poor. It’s amazing! I want to be in a Ronnie Scott’s kind of environment and watch and listen to 2FACE play the guitar and sing this song. It’s an amazing song and the craftsmanship is of a superior kind. Listen to it, if you haven’t. You’ll be blown away! I hate what Nigeria does to me!
PHILLIP ISAKPA