EXCLUSIVE SIR VICTOR UWAIFO SAY'S HE IS THE GREATEST NIGERIAN MUSICIAN.

  

One of the Nigerian musician in the industry has come out and quite a number of veterans and one of them is guitar maestro, Sir Victor Uwaifo. At 73, with over 60 years of experience, Sir Uwaifo says he isn’t done yet and plans to release more albums. This is what he said..

Speaking in an interview, Victor Uwaifo said he calls himself the greatest Nigerian musician because he shares the secret to his rare strength. It’s rare to have people who have lived through different generations declare an interest in working with the new generation. Adding that he like to marry the past and present to teach the young generation resilience and how to stay on the scene.

 Although, he said that he has been in the music scene for over sixty years and can shape it the way he want.

He said is important for musicians to understand music and be able to mold and reinvent it but if you do not and rely on computer, it will destroy you.  Adding that the young ones should go and learn how to play musical instruments as well as real rudiments of music.

 He added that everybody has a skill and talent, we just have to identify the talent and music and art.

Victor said that he used to make cages and shoot catapults well. A man who shoots a bird down from a tall tree with a catapult is not an ordinary man and it requires a lot of precision, which sharpens the mind.

 He said that he engaged in sports and grew up in the era of gramophones, music then was very soothing and beautiful. It encouraged me and I thought if human beings play these records, I should be able to do the same. As I grew older, I was into sciences and arts and used to jump. I set a record as a high jumper in 1958 at Western Boys High School in Benin.

The music and art grew side by side, so when I got admission into Yaba College, I studied Graphics. When I left there, I took a job with NTS, now NTA. I started playing with different bands but I stayed longer with EC Arinze at the Kakadu club. By 1965, I had learnt so much from Arinze and my prior knowledge of the guitar, which I started playing at 12.

 if you see the design and the motifs of the house my father built, he sure had it in him. My mother was also from the royal family and had a very good voice, so much they called her Iya Egbe. Most people of your generation are content with reliving their past glory, but you have said you want to marry the past and present. Is this easy or is it a labour of love? Both. If not for the love of what I am doing, I wouldn’t still be here because I am fulfilled man. Everything I planned to achieve, I have. If you come to Benin, I have an empire covering a large mass of land in an estate. Don’t forget, I went back to school even after the fame had come, and that was because I thought if I didn’t do sculpture, I wouldn’t be fulfilled, because sculpture is the mother of Art. God sculpted man before breathing into it, so we pride ourselves as God’s assistants in creation. I graduated with a first class and went for my Masters, then my PhD. I have been a lecturer at the University of Benin for the past eight years and I’m a visiting Professor at the American Heritage University. One of my sons is a sculptor too, I taught him in his 300L and although none of them has gone into music, they know music because I employed somebody to teach them. What has the reception being like for the decision to work with younger artistes and the works that have come out of it? People have been calling in from different places. It’s spreading fast and I’m not surprised, because I have no limits. My philosophy is that my best is yet to come.  After my band and I returned from the Algiers Festival of Arts, we went on a national tour and during one of the shows in Warri was when the incident happened. Before it did, I observed that every time people sprayed me coins and it touched my body, I would get a shock. I confided in Sunny Okosun who was a member of my band, so he kept focus on me. When I was doing the duduke song, it required that I jump and split, after I did one of the splits, I remained on the floor and was passing out but they thought I was still performing because I was jerking. It was as though a thousand motor cycles were passing over me. Subconsciously I said ‘God, it was not my time’. It was at this time Okosun yanked the cable off, and when I got up people had fled. This was in 1969, we completed that tour and after I released a song, Imiefe (What God has done for me) Tell us about your encounter with the mammy water in Lagos That was also true. I was the Head of the graphics department at that time. We used to close late and had to be on set to organize the back drop. Because of the traffic, I used to deliberately stay late and go to the bar beach to strum my guitar and get inspiration. That particular day, I stayed really late till everybody had gone. Not long after, I observed that each time the waves advance towards me, I would move back, but the farther I moved the closer it came. Suddenly, I observed a figure coming towards me and before I knew it the figure was right before me. I wanted to run away. I screamed, which I later transposed into strumming the guitar, which has become a trend nowadays. She just said, ‘if you see mammy water, never you run away’. I just thought the mermaid loved music, otherwise it would have harmed me. It was after Joromi which gave Nigeria the first gold in Africa.