Category: Entertainment
-
Victor Uwaifo; Nigerian musician. With his first album which was released in 1960 and titled Akugbe/Okhorhornu mu me” (meaning “unity is strength) Victor enjoyed an early success. In 1966, he became the first African to win a record Gold Disc. After what he called an esoteric encounter with mamy water or mermaid in 1967 at…
-
Onyia Zeal; famous trumpeter with records of spectacular performances. Zeal fine-tuned his budding skills under the tutelage of Bobby Benson of Nigeria and Emmanuel Tetteh Mensah of Ghana. After starting his music under Benson, he travelled to Ghana to further what became a flourishing career. For him, Ghana was a fertile ground. It took little…
-
Wale Adenuga; Nigerian cartoonist and comedy show producer. Adenuga created Papa Ajasco and other characters of his skits in the first four years he was running his entertainment company as a one-man business. While an undergraduate, Adenuga became the chief cartoonist of the most popular campus magazine called Viper. Later he developed this vocation into…
-
Rhodes Steve; Nigerian Classical musician. Rhodes’ original compositions, like Serenade for an Occasion, Walk Lightly, Ijapa-Pantomime, Why am I Free? and God’s Beauty, established his musical influence in Lagos. Rhodes produced and directed the first television drama, which he titled The Most Excellent Way, in 1963. As an artist he was praised as a consummate…
-
Sikiru Ayinde; Icon and one of the originators of Fuji music, which was originally a local subgenre called Were, used in waking up the Muslim faithfuls for the dawn-food in the month of fasting (ramadan). Beginning from 1958, Sikiru Ayinde was in the forefront of the popularisation of Fuji in its Nigeria place of birth…
-
Atuyota Allelujah; Nigerian Stand-up comedian, known as Ali Baba. He does shows for big corporate concerns, including oil firms and banks. Born in Warri, Delta State to an educationist father, Ali Baba moved to Lagos with his mother and father who got transferred to the Nigerian Army Education Corps. He later attended St Michael’s Primary…
-
Akinleye Larinde; Film actor whose performance as Alagba in Koseegbe, Chief Seriki Saworoide, Vice Principal in Thunderbolt and Akinkunmi in Bashorun Gaa, which was yet to be released at the time of his death, established him as a theatre icon[i]. Larinde Akinleye was born at Ipapo, Itesiwaju Local Government of Oyo State on August 2.…
-
Ayorinde Aina; Nigerian scriptwriter, Ayorinde began writing for the Nigerian Television Authority in the late 1970’s while still in school. When he finished in 1984, he was contracted by the station as a producer, a position he combined with script writing. Ayorinde produced some of the programmes that interested and kept a generation glued to…
-
Dupe Solana; Multi lingua Gospel crusader. Dupe took to church songs to fight depression following the murder in 1960 of her policeman father. She recorded her first elpee in 1966 and it was released in 1967. Jesu Mbo was a very successful debut, she has recorded eight elpees all on her independent record label. …
-
Bob-Manuel Udokwu; Nigerian actor, belonging to the first generation, pioneers of home video with the debut of Living in Bondage. Childhood Bob-Manuel’s first stint with acting was when he was in primary two at St. Peters Primary School, Ogbete, Enugu. At Oraukivu Grammar School, in Idemmili Local Government of Anambra State, he opted for…