Segun Akinlolu, a Nigerian musician popularly known as Beautiful Nubia, recently out with Soundbender, his eleventh album, comes across as an enigma. Leaving his career as a veterinary doctor, he went into music and has amassed a huge global following. Also recently, he and others formed a political awareness group, The Movement, targeting youths to address Africa’s backwardness. In this interview with JOE AGBRO JR. Beautiful Nubia talks about his early years, music and his love for nation and humanity.
You spent your early years in Ibadan. How was it growing up there?
I was born in Ibadan in 1968. And growing up there was a lot of fun. The Ibadan that I lived in at that time was a multi-cultural centre there were people from all over the place. All the Yoruba people were there from all angles of Yoruba land, people from the east, people from the north. Everybody was there. And you could go out on the streets and see people celebrating the culture from their own part of the country.
And it was a fertile ground for me as a very curious child because you see all this. But I also had the luck of being around elders who were well-attuned to our traditional cultures in Africa. And they made sure they taught us the importance of honesty and hard work, truth at all times and being a person of dignity and integrity. And learning to be content with what you have. These are important values that I think many people now don’t seem to have. These are the values that our youths lack right now. But I was lucky that I was taught all those things early in life. And they’ve stayed with me up till now. So, I think growing up in Ibadan at that time was a big blessing.
What particular area of Ibadan was this?
I spent the earliest years at Oke Bola which was like a hub of everything at that time. It is not the same thing now because now, there are three or four centres. But at that time, the commercial hub of Ibadan was Oke Bola on Oke Ado. It was called Ijebu Bye-Pass. The thinking at that time was that it was Ijebu people who lived there. But there were people from all over the world there, all over Africa at least. My first school teacher was a Ghanaian man.
Then, the man who took me to watch my first movie at a cinema, Odeon Cinema, was a man from Edo or Delta, a soldier. I remember he used to have fights with his wife. He would take me to the theatre to watch kung fu movies and stuff. So, we had all kinds of people there. And you didn’t discriminate. You didn’t feel like anybody was different. It was like a family. It was beautiful. And somehow, we don’t have that now. It’s a shame because this is where Nigeria is in serious trouble. At that time, you didn’t feel that if you were of one religion or the other, or if you were of one particular cultural group or the other, you didn’t feel like you were out of place. Everybody was welcome.
You also studied vet medicine and practiced for some years before venturing into music. At what point did you say, ‘it’s time to quit vet medicine? How was the transition like?
I started writing songs at a very young age. Even at that young age, I always knew I wanted to play music. By the time I was 13, I wrote in a book that my goal was to become some scientist – a doctor or an engineer. But I also wanted to become famous as a writer because I’ve always written. Writing for me is a lot of pleasure. And I’ve published books.
So, I said I was going to be this writer and I was going to play music. I knew the three things I wanted. I wanted to have a career in the sciences, but I also wanted to be a writer and a musician. I was sure about that from the outset that I was going to do these, whatever I did with my life. And then I went to study veterinary medicine, spent six years there. I worked for about eight years as a vet. It was great. But I knew that I was going to go back to music eventually. I’ve always had this burning desire inside me that I must be a blessing to my society and my being born here was not a mistake. There must be something I can offer my society. I was born with an above-average IQ. I was born with certain talents and gifts. I’m a natural crisis manager. I’m a natural problem solver.
You can bring the biggest problem to me right now and you’re so confused and I can put a pin in that balloon and it just blows up. So, I always thought, when you have all these gifts and you’re in this society, I guess it’s your duty to use those talents to improve society. And music is a fantastic vehicle to get those messages out to help people navigate their way through life. As a musician, I can do much, much, much more. And so, it was easy to transition.
You’ve described yourself as a natural crisis manager. What would you consider as one of the biggest personal problem you’ve had to face?
Well, that transition I think, would be the biggest. Even though people praise me for it, they look at me and say, ‘how did you do this? How did you become this Beautiful Nubia who is now famous who does this effortless? Because we knew you as a vet, a gentleman, you used to wear a suit and a tie. And you were great at it. And you’re a manager in a company. And you seem to be like upwardly mobile. And suddenly, you just left. And then, you’re doing music and you’ve become successful at doing music again. How did you become such a success at this level and you can transition from that success to this success just like that?’ But they don’t know the nitty-gritty that it was a lot of work.
But, I’ve never ever been the kind of person to be scared of challenges. I take them heads on. I don’t run away from them. So, when I knew I had to do this transition, I just drew up all the possible challenges, all the possible impediments and then I started to say, these are the steps I would take to get to this point. And when I’m at this point, this is what I’m going to do. And at the end, this is what I want to start seeing. And that is what I’ve done. There is no miracle there. I had a plan. In everything I do, there is always a plan. Planning is so important. But one thing that I think might be easier for people to understand is my voice. When I did my first album in 1997, I remember people told me, ‘amazing songs. You can write songs but your voice is not that good.’ And I would sing and my voice would go off-key. I’ve seen that in many young artists now and I think sometimes what causes this is a lack of self-belief but at that time, I didn’t know what was causing it. I just knew that I needed to work on my voice.
And I actively worked on it. I didn’t run away from that problem. I didn’t try to justify it that ‘this my voice, I’m going to try to live with it.’ I looked for a solution to that problem and now today, when I sing, people will be like, ‘goodness, hear that voice.’ And women would write me and say, ‘your voice is just so soothing.’ I’m like, ‘this same voice that people were telling me 17 years ago was not good but I’ve worked hard on it.’ I do not run away from any problem. Like that Jangbalajugbu that everyone is talking about now. Jangbalajugbu, when we released it, we couldn’t even find a marketer for it. It now eventually went and sold more than a million copies. We couldn’t find a marketer for it. And we were begging people and having meetings upon meetings and nobody wanted to take it. And then, I told my brother, ‘you know what? We would go and cut some cassettes ourselves and start to do this business ourselves.’ So, we went and cut 2, 000 cassettes and that’s how we started. And I said, we’re going to build our own marketing network. We would take on this Nigerian market. When the crisis is there, I’m ready to work. That’s how I’ve always been.
Now, let’s look at the name Beautiful Nubia, how did it come about?
Well, I just decided to adopt a name that will arouse curiosity. I could have used my natural name but I thought Beautiful Nubia is a two-part name. Beautiful refers to a state of spiritual beauty not just physical beauty. A state in which you’re able to see beyond the physical, to see the pure human being that is inside, that human being who needs your love and total sacrifice. You’re able to see beyond face, gender, colour, beyond language, beyond somebody’s social class extraction – to see that which is divine in every human being.
And see it as your duty to make them happy. That would be a very beautiful soul. That is a soul that is incapable of hatred. That is what I want. So, I gave myself that name as a challenge to myself. ‘They’re going to be calling you Beautiful now but you know you’re not beautiful enough. So, every time they call you Beautiful, it’s a challenge to stay on that path and keep getting better. It’s also a challenge to my listeners, to all the people who are going to read this interview. It’s a challenge to all of us that we need to develop that kind of beautiful spirit that is beyond all these bigotry. If we can all try to do that, our society would be better.
Nubia, the second part of the name is the name of a nation of black people who ruled the world about 2, 750 years ago. Now, I’m not saying the Nubians were Nigerians. I’m just saying there was a point in history when historians agree that a dark-skinned people were the leaders of this world. It shows that we’ve not always been laggards, we haven’t always been second-class, we’ve not always been the slaves and the colonised people. If we learn to develop that beautiful spirit, maybe, we can go that position of pre-eminence again. But I use that to remind young people that we can lift our heads up and be proud of who we are and try to do things in this world without thinking that we are these Africans who have not done much for the world. We have contributed a lot to the world.
Now, you’re also an international musician having performed in different countries as well as in Nigeria, do you think folklore music is appreciated enough in the country?
Well, there are close to 300 ethnic groups in Nigeria and they’ve all got their own kind of folk music. Folk music is the people’s music and it’s been passed on from generation to generation. What we do is we take traditional rhythms as the base of what we do. My songs are original songs. Once in a while, I dip into that pot of culture and find one folksong that I sing. I’ve written more than 2, 000 songs. I still have a lot of materials that I can pick from. But the vehicle for my songs is those traditional rhythms our old ancient rhythms. And those rhythms, you can find them in any music that is played in Africa and outside Africa. It is the rhythms themselves that you will find in the blues, in R & B, in rock music, in reggae music, in jazz.
These are African folk rhythms. So, African folk rhythms have always been alive. It’s just that they’re so bendable that wherever you put them they find their way there and they can merge with anything and come out in another form. And sometimes, you forget that they are there. So, when you hear someone like a BB King playing his blues, you’d think this is American blues but this is African music because the roots are African. But are there people playing folkloric music in this country? Yes, there are lots of them and there is a market for that. And it is a niche market and those who do it are still doing. It might not be getting a lot of airplay on radio but it’s not dying because the audience knows where to go and get it. But my music is more than folklore and our audience is multifaceted. Our music has no problem with audience. Our base is so huge. It’s all over the world. But Nigeria is our primary market because when we play in Nigeria, it’s a different feeling. People come out and they are happy.
You’re also a businessman, forming your own record label. How has the experience been like?
You have to be, yes. Well, what made me do this was because we couldn’t find anyone to help us with this music. Honestly, I don’t mind being lazy to myself. I like to have an easy life where I can just write the songs and go and record my music and let somebody else worry about packaging and marketing and promotion. It would have been easier for an artiste if that was taken care of. But in Nigeria because we don’t have that infrastructure, you have to do all these yourself.
And in a way, there is a blessing in that because it makes you more efficient as an artiste. I decided to set up Eni Obanke Music because when I did my first demo in 1993, I was shopping it around to all record labels that were in Nigeria at that time. None of them wanted to take my music. They said it wasn’t commercial enough. It’s not juju, it’s not gospel, it’s not fuji, it’s not commercial. So, I said, ‘well, I have to go my own way.’ And what gave me courage to start it? It’s just essentially, I told you, I used to work in business. I had worked as a vet for eight years. In those eight years, I wasn’t a vet that was injecting dogs. I was a vet involved in business. I sold vaccines and drugs and animal feeds. I designed marketing plans. I attended many marketing trainings. I have a Diploma in Public Relations from the NIJ (Nigeria Institute of Journalism). I had learnt a lot about PR and marketing.
The company that I worked for, I controlled the budget there. I had learnt how to manage money and how to manage people. Fund management and personnel management had become like an intrinsic part of me. So, it was easy when I decided to start my own business to apply all those principles. And I think, in many ways, this is the difference between me and many other artistes that I have met in Nigeria. Because sometimes, I ask them, why don’t you do this yourself? They say, ‘but I don’t know how to do it.’ But I don’t have problems setting up my own shows. I can put up an event anywhere. So, I always tell people that I wouldn’t be the musician that I am now if I hadn’t studied and practiced as a vet because that helped me a lot to get to this point. Doing business in Nigeria is very difficult. But being also somebody who is a good crisis manager, you’re able to just roll with the punches and slowly find your way.
It’s not long elections were concluded in the country with a new president, governors emerging in some places and lawmakers. What is your impression of the political awareness and situation in the country now?
Well, our people think they are politically aware. I think our people have been patting themselves on the back over the last election that their votes largely counted. They knew that there were cases of rigging here and there, all kinds of malpractices. But I think there is a feeling among the people that by and large, their votes spoke. And that for the first time in this country, there is a sense of empowerment that we actually did this. But, I don’t think we should get carried away by that euphoria because there’s a lot of work still to be done.
We’re a people that sometimes seem to be carried away by with the first line we read, instead of reading the whole story. And that is where we always get taken advantage of. What would happen after this would be a measure of how much we have progressed as a people. If you have voted somebody in based on certain promises or perceived promises, the next level is to ensure that they do what they’re expected to do. So, I think we’d be able to measure how much we have matured as a people politically when these people get into government and how we monitor them and how we keep them on their toes.
Now, you’re just out with your new album, Soundbender, how has the reception been like?
It’s been awesome. I think nothing beats the joy that you get as an artiste, as a business person, if it gets to a point where you produce a product and people are already queueing up to get it. And that is how it’s been with Soundbender. In fact, they are fighting us now. Some of them have been very angry with me, almost personally attacking me and saying, ‘we can’t find it yet in Ilorin, we can’t find it yet in Gombe.’ Well, it’s not going to be in Gombe because we have a poor infrastructure for marketing and distribution of CDs in this country. It’s hard to distribute CDs.
So, it’s going to take a long time before it gets to Gombe or to Enugu or to Benin. It’s going to take a while. When we get through Lagos, then we’ll start to move to the southwest, Midwest. But the joy is to know that people are out there looking for the work already. They’re almost panicky. ‘Where is it? We can’t get it. I walked around Ibadan yesterday, I couldn’t find it.’ They keep writing emails like that. And then, we’ve been playing some of the songs at our recent shows and people just love the songs.
Is Beautiful Nubia married?
Yes, I am. And I have two biological children, two boys that are my own. But every child is my child, every woman is my mother, every woman is my wife and every woman is my sister. That is how we were brought up. To respect people and to value relationships and to see every child as my father and my mother because he (or she) will be the future my father and my mother but he is also my child. And that is what I hope our people would get more sense that we are all one.
And that it doesn’t matter where this child is coming from or where this other person is coming from. And ‘The Movement’ we’re talking about today the political movement, is about making a path for the children of this country and Africa, creating a new path for them, a new way, making sure they don’t go through the mess that we have gone through. If you cannot treat every child like your own, if you don’t see every child like your own, then you’ll do what everybody else does, which is to amass wealth to hand over to your children. But I don’t think that’s how it should be. I think we should protect the wealth of this land for all the children so that all the children can have a good life, better than what we have had. That’s how I look at life.
Now, have you always had the dreadlocks?
Well, I don’t like to call them dreadlocks because dreadlocks has to do with Rasta. In Jamaica, where people had these locked hair, because they inspired fear, dread, that’s why they started calling them dreadlocks. It’s just locks. My hair is locked. Africans have kept their hair like this since time immemorial. The Jamaicans who now became the Rastas who many people think, ‘oh, you have Rasta on your head,’ Those Jamaicans actually saw this hair when they were looking at pictures of the Mau-Mau fighters in Kenya in the 50s and the 60s. And they thought, ‘these people are fighting the British. They’re defying the British Empire.
These are the revolutionaries. These are the people we want to be like.’ So, they kept their hair too because they were inspired by those Mau-Mau fighters in Kenya. And then, people like Bob Marley became popular musicians and people started saying, ‘oh, this is dreadlocks. And they think it came from Jamaica.’ Oh no. Africans have kept their hair like this since forever. My mother said I was born with them (locks) and they were cut off by my first birthday, I think. So, I never knew I had locks. But as I grew up, I knew something was wrong with my hair because it was always just clumpy and very thick. And if I was at home for three days, like Friday to Sunday and I didn’t comb my hair, you’ll see it just lock up like that.
So, I said, the day I leave paid employment, I’m just going to let this hair be and I’m going to give it what I call fundamental hair right. In 2000, when I left paid employment, since then, there is no comb that has touched this hair. And I didn’t twist it, I didn’t lock it, I didn’t add anything to it. I just left it. And this is what you’re seeing 15 years later. All I do is I cut it because I don’t want it to be too long because it is heavy on your head. So, it drags down your neck and I don’t want that neck pain. But, I don’t keep my hair for fashion. I’m not keeping it for any cultural reason or any traditional reason. There is no spiritual reason. I just left my hair and it is just there. It does its own thing, I do my own thing.
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