Onyeka Onwenu: Forever young

‘Let us live forever; Do not mourn but go on with your lives!’

By Ena Ofugara

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or let us live forever
We don’t have the power but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music’s for the sad men

Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders, we’re getting in tune
The music’s played by the, the mad man

Forever young
I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, and ever
Forever young
I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever young”

THIS hit by Alphaville, and made more popular by Jay Z and Mr. Hudson, was Onyeka Onwenu’s favourite song, as statement in an interview revealed. And the way she sang it, it was clear the lyrics were the anthem and mantra of her soul.

“Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while
Heaven can wait, we’re only watching the skies”

For a girl raised by a widowed mom, one whose dad died before she was five years old in a car crash, and one who then succeeded to school in the US, worked for the UN, came home and worked for NTA (Nigerian Television Authority), and came with a free and liberated spirit to a then conservative Nigeria, and lived by her own dictates, pursuing everything her soul found to pursue and succeeding in it, from writing the news and documentaries, to voicing the news and documentaries, to presenting the shows, and then to singing, first covers of foreign acts to writing beautiful Igbo songs, Onyeka was dancing in style… her style.

Onwenu was our superstar and Diva. While Christy Essien Igbokwe, the other female superstar of that generation, was seen as “aunty” due to her known marital status and lack of controversy, Onwenu was the beautiful lady with cropped hair, short skirts, and who knew how to look into the camera and flirt with the audience. If both of these women were planets, Christy Essien would be the solid, gargantuan Jupiter, with monster hits like ‘Have you ever liked my person’ and the Nigerian rave ‘Omo mi seun rere’, Onwenu would be Saturn – colourful, beautiful, with rings. Two powerful and humongous celestial bodies.

These two celestial bodies, Christy Essien and Onyeka Onwenu followed similar pathways, in many ways. Both became global superstars through music. Both started, in some way, at NTA. Both had fulfilling acting careers, with Christy as ‘Akpenor’, Chief Jegede Sokoya’s wife in the TV series, New Masquerade while Onyeka was to go on to register solid presence in Nollywood and winning Best Actress in a supporting role, as well as be nominated for Best Actress. They were both to also unionize the music industry with Christy Essien being Performing Musician Association of Nigeria (PMAN) President and Onwenu going on to be vice president (or is it called chairman).

They also would become favourites of serving presidents, with Christy Essien being Ibrahim Babangida’s favourite, and Onyeka being revered by President Goodluck Jonathan, each having these presidents’ ears. And each of them were to be the bridge between having a standard foreign music record label, and then seeing these labels leave and they having to record under Nigerian versions of these record labels, and then being independent. They both also moved from that very foreign international sound, to now embracing Afrocentric sounds. For Christy it was best evidenced in ‘Teta Una Lu Na’, and for Onyeka, ‘Dancing In the Sun’, both songs released in 1988. Listening to both songs would reveal the baritone/bass male singers doing the refrains. This is the clearest evidence of the contemporaneousness of these cherubim.

Cherubim indeed, both were to find their way to God. While Onyeka became a gospel singer and her words and ways shed light and positive living, Christy was a full-blown prophetess.

Onyeka Onwenu in her younger days at NTA

DIVA
SHE it was that the rumors were about, including that she was the girlfriend of then governor, Jim Nwobodo, or some other rumour, which she seemed to not give a hoot about.

The songstress

‘ONE Love’ will always be her biggest song. It is one of the biggest songs in Nigeria’s music history.

That Igbo girl
MUCH as ‘One Love’ and ‘Dancing in the Sun’ and the English songs are classics, the Igbo songs like ‘Living Music,’ ‘Bia Nulu,’ ‘Inyo gogo,’ ‘Ekwe,’ ‘Odenigbo,’ ‘Nso Nso.’ ‘Sodom and Gomorrah,’ etc are songs if remade today will be hits.

The activist
Imagine a big star like Onyeka, one who could have asked the many Igbo billionaires tthawe re her friends for contracts, going to NTA and demanding they pay royalties for her song used as station ‘ident’. The point about it was not the money, but the fact that Ben Bruce, who was in charge at NTA then knew how it operates in the US and why those who know how things are done globally and rightly come back to Nigeria and further the putrefaction that is many of our ways.

The politician
TWO unsuccessful runs for public office. A few appointments. Support for Jonathan and for Peter Obi, underdogs that are very much her people in the Nigerian political space.

The private life of a public icon
IS she married or divorced or never married? Is she a mother? The answers seem to be she was married to a Yoruba man and has two sons with him. How she was able to keep this from the world is a mystery in itself.

The style icon
AT a time when bleaching was the fad and permed hair was everything, when looking like a white person was considered beautiful, a woman embraced her cropped hair with a shade of grey at the tip. If black women embraced this style, even today, globally, billions will be kept in the black community, instead of being handed daily to the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and the Caucasians who own these fake hair companies.

The Afrobeats precursor
BETWEEN the death of foreign labels in Nigeria and the growth of indigenous ones, Onyeka, Christy Essien and then the Mike Okris and the Majek Fasheks aandThe Mandators kept the music space bubbly, and produced the elements of Afrobeats of today. P-Square’s cover of ‘Inyogogo’ is the clearest example of her influence in the global genre that is Afrobeats today. I wish the artiste Simi would remake the song TURMI.

The misunderstood moralist
SHE could easily have led the feminist movement. She looked it. She could have been our sex icon. Instead, she preached ‘Wait for me’ with Sunny Ade. She preached fewer children with another song with Sunny Ade called ‘Choices’. Note again that she was married to ONE MAN with whom she has both her children.

The human being
ONYEKA was eight years older than Christy Essien Igbokwe. But she found national fame later than Miss Christy. And like the fan rivalry of Prince and Michael Jackson or Burna Boy and Davido, fans of both often compared both and the press made it seem there was some bad blood. I was working with Christy and her son Kaka Kenechukwu Igbokwe II at the time she died. Madam Onyeka did not wait for the Igbokwe family to call her. She swung into action and was organizer-in-chief at the national burial Christy Igbokwe. Watching her at the stadium working her socks off, one would think she was the younger sister to Christy Essien Igbokwe.

She forgot to take herself seriously
ONYEKA Onwenu did not know her own status. She would kneel to greet elders. She would show respect to all and sundry. Seeing her around Peter Obi, one would not know she was older. Seeing her sit at NTA gate for royalties, one would not know this was someone who had shaken the hands of Nelson Mandela and who presidents and governors boast of meeting. For her album, she sat under the tutelage of Sonny Okosuns. Her songs she let her friend late Tina Onwudiwe write and she gave full credit. One would not know this woman’s father was appointed a minister but died before being sworn in. One would not know she has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Massachusetts in the US. She mingled with the school dropouts that were the musicians of her era.

And it is this spirit of humility and forgetting to take herself seriously that explain the demand she has made for her funeral; to be quiet and for people not to mourn and to go on with their lives!

The Elegant Stallion
SHE may not have taken her self seriously to know she was an icon, but we who she has blessed with her talent will sing her praises. The Elegant Stallion. The beautiful woman. The style icon. The classy one. The brilliant one. The one that to us will be FOREVER YOUNG!

“Let’s dance in style
Let’s dance for a while
Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?
Let us die young or let us live forever
We don’t have the power, but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music’s for the sad man (sing)
Forever young
I wanna be forever young (yes)
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever and ever (sing)
Forever young
I wanna be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, forever young”

* Ofugara, a culture enthusiast, was an aide to late Chief Christie Igbokwe