Adewuyi Adegbite
23 November 2008
THE passage of the musical icon Dr. Stephen Olaore Oladipupo Owomoyela , a.k.a Orlando Owoh, few months after the death of other prominent musicians- Evangelist Sony Okosuns, Stephen Osita Osadebe, Elder Steve Rhodes, Chief Sunday Oliver Akante a.k.a Oliver de Coque, Sammie Needle- is a great loss to Nigerian entertainment industry.
As a matter of fact, the rank of philosopher musicians who postulated philosophical musings and had the society under exploration in their laboratory of idea and ideological excoriation is fast depleting. During his life time, Orlando Owoh deliberately chose to identify with the poor masses and consistently preached on the side of humanity and the need to build a just and egalitarian society.
The encomium showered on in him since the announcement of his demise by low and high people show that he was appreciated.
Son of a building contractor and a musician was born in Osogbo on February 14,1938, from a humble beginning, but with a zeal for greatness rose from obscurity to become a celebrity.
Olando Owoh
Having his eyes on music, which was more of an inbuilt thing for him, he dropped out of school at standard four and jettisoned carpentry apprentice under his father, late Pa Olusesi Owomoyela, and became an apprentice under the late Kola Ogunmola Music and Theatre Organization in Osogbo in 1956.
Kola Ogunmola combined Juju music with highlife music as was the practice among the then artiste. However, Orlando's quest for highlife music forced him to quit Ogunmola group for a highlife musician, Tunde Akindele Chocolate Randies Band in Ibadan in 1957.
He was with the band until mid 1958 when he got his autonomy and formed his own band named Orlando Owoh and his Omimah band. A social critic, he was critical of apartheid regime in South Africa and oppressive regime of the late lan Smith in Southern Rhodesia now Zimbabwe. He sang to condemn the white minority for treating African as slaves in their native land in Apartheid 1975.
More so, he waxed an album Tribute to Dele Giwa (1987); to lambast the masterminds of the murder of the founding editor of the Newswatch magazine, Dele Giwa , who was murdered through parcel bomb in his home in Lagos on October 19, 1986. During the struggle for enthronement of Democracy in Nigeria, since 1985, Orlando was at the forefront using his music has a weapon.
Some of the albums released at the time were Which is Which (1991), Hunger (1994), I Say No (1995) and Not in Our Character (1997).
In 1997, he joined King Sunny Ade and the friends of African Beat to wax an album titled Way forward for Nigeria to douse the tension occasioned by the annulment of June 123, 1993 presidential election. Unarguably, Orlando Owoh, like many musicians, contributed greatly to the nation building process in Nigeria. Unfortunately, most of them are unsung and unappreciated.
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