Dr Adewale Ayuba is a Fuji musician that has won many awards. A celebrated musician of international repute, Ayuba believes so much in upholding the cultures of his country. In this interview, he speaks on the essence of Fuji music and its many factions. He blames the government for the genre's death throes in recent times. Excerpts:

What have you been working on recently?

We performed consecutively for 10 days during the past festive period. I have done quite a number of concerts.

May be, in the area of hearing our music on air, I would say it's not our fault. Hip-hop rules today's Nigeria. If you go to any party today, R&B and hip-hop are in vogue. You hardly hear them play fuji or any other indigenous music.

What are Fuji artistes doing about that?

There is nothing we can do about it. It's the government that is supposed to regulate what and what goes on air. They are the ones who could say, 'okay this is our indigenous music'. We should not embrace foreign music because R&B is not our own culture, nor hip hop.

If you go to America today, Americans would want to know the kind of music that is played in your country. You will never mention hip-hop, nor mention R&B . Because they will just belittle you , asking if you don't have your own kind of music in your country.

You can only be proud of Fuji , Juju, Highlife and Afro-beat. So, you cannot say we play R&B in my country because it is not part of our own culture. So it is the government that will do that. Sometime ago, I was in Cotonou, where I discovered to my fascination that their indigenous music are being played on their radio station 24 hours everyday.

It's only here in Nigeria that we don't actually celebrate our own. Some few years back, everywhere you go, it's Makoussa music in Nigeria. So, what are talking here, that's just Nigeria for you. We appreciate foreign things more than our own and that is the problem that the Fuji artistes are facing in Nigeria .

Shouldn't fuji move with the trend, collaborating with new music?

What they want is what 9ice just did. 9ice is a Fuji musician. He now infused R&B and American rhythm into his music. That's not good enough because it only has voice that is Fuji. Every other thing is foreign and I can't do that.

I have gotten kora. I have gotten awards that any African will pray for, and all these I got through my indigenous music. I have been doing this for 37 years of my life, and I have gotten many awards. I did not get them by playing hip-hop or R&B but I got them by playing Fuji.

If I am in America today, all the accolades I got was as a result of my performing what they could not do. That is why Ayuba goes to America today to perform for whites because whites want to see African performance.

But if I am an R&B artiste, nobody wants to see that because they know that R&B is a copy cat. Same thing is happening to the Ankara that we are wearing now. They make different styles with it and that is what we want. We need to wear ourselves, listen to our music and appreciate our own culture.

Shouldn't Fuji artistes adapt the ankara fabric in variant styles?

Yes, that is my new project. Before now, the Fuji music was usually a long version album, and so it's usually very difficult to use it because a track could take 20 minutes. But now, we are going to reduce it to say four minutes, like you have in other type of music. So, I am going to change in my next album and secondly, very soon, you will see D'banj collaborating with Ayuba and it will be Fuji music. You will see the collaboration with 9ice on top of Fuji , not on top of hip hop. So, these are some of the plans I have to bring Fuji up again.

How has the Fuji world been. Sas it been fun?

If reincarnation is real, I will still do Fuji music because Fuji has taken me to this height. I have some several awards that I don't think any other type of music can give me, except Fuji music. Secondly, Fuji is music that if you want to a house warming ceremony today, you can never say you want to go and call D'banj. You need a live musician that will sing and praise you because that is our culture.

Then you will call Ayuba or any other live performer. You cannot call yourself a complete musician if you cannot perform live and play musical instrument.

That is what I am saying, for instance, when Obama was being hosted in US, because they know that the Nigerian ambassador would be there, and they wanted them to see real musicians, not that they could not call 9ice. 9ice was there. D'banj was there. But the focus was on my music because it is indigenous. That is all I am saying. So, I appreciate Fuji .

As a veteran, how have improved the Fuji music in Nigeria and society?

I have been doing that ever since I started collaboration with other artistes. I started this idea of Fuji musician collaborating with hip hop artistes, like the one I did with jazzman Olofin titled 'Ijotimojo yen o to rara'. The music is all over Nigeria .

I did that to let Fuji musicians see and know that as a Fuji musician, you need to be proud of yourself. They should also know that Fuji is a music that is appreciated by Nigerians and that even foreigners appreciate it more than we do. Also my music got a Kora award, the African Grammy.

If I did not do it well, I would not have gotten that. I have also done a number of jobs on AIDS awareness. I have two albums to that effect. You see, these are the things you do for your country by using your music to educate people, and I have been doing this, and I don't think I want to stop now.

What stands your music out from other Fuji music?

The touch is the rehearsal. All round the clock, I rehearse with my band. I don't let it get into my head that I am already a star. Because if you work for something, you will definitely benefit from it. So, I do a lot of rehearsals with my band.

Another thing is that I always sing about things that will benefit my audience, not just singing. I think about my audience when composing and writing my lyrics.

I sing about what the children will have something to benefit from later tomorrow. I won't sing a song that you will quickly stop playing when your children come into the living room. So, those are things that stand my music out.

What inspires your lyrics?

The things I see around me inspire what I sing about. As we discuss now, unknown to you, I have taped one or two advice from you that will further help in my career. So such things that come around me and that I see, inspire my songs.

You journalists, especially the print media, you change the country a lot, and you know the right thing to do. For instance, on this issue of bringing in foreign artistes to perform in Nigeria and they spending 100 to 200 million bringing in foreigners, I am not saying that it is wrong.

But it will be nice to also have indigenous artistes performing alongside them to promote our culture and our own.

At least the foreigner will know that there is music in Nigeria called this or that, and it is beautiful. Because whatever you do, you are doing it for your country and journalists could come and write it down.

But all the events of This Day newspapers, which are held annually, I have never seen one indigenous artiste being featured and I ask what is going on? It will draw people's attention to the foreign artistes and that is promoting the foreign artistes and doing nothing for our own.

How do you fight piracy?

That is why you don't see me packing my aircraft or have my office in Victoria Island. It is piracy and what can you do? Everything comes down to government. The government knows where the pirates are and if they don't know, we know.

But they are the ones to fight them for us. Steps of steps have been taken but the fault is from the government. All these issues of not playing indigenous music well on radio stations is the fault of the government.

If a law comes that says, 'okay 50 percent of the indigenous musician must be played on air', you'll see people will dance to it. Also, the corporate organizations like the banking industry do not believe in the entertainment in Nigeria . For instance if you want to release your album and I go to the bank for assistance, they will not be willing to give me the loan.

Is it because of piracy?

No, it is not piracy. Pirates come in because we do not have adequate marketers out there. For instance, I go to the bank to request for loan to do my CDS, that my album is coming out.

When I release the album, I will only release the number of CDs I can afford to print. If it is a 100, 000 copies I can afford, that is the number I will do. Now that I have released that 100, 000 copies, others will now begin to pirate.

They will print may be 10, 000 copies and send to Kaduna, another 30, 000 to Ibadan because my own 100, 000 copies are not even enough for Lagos state.

That is why you see pirates coming after us. Because pirates know that we do not have enough money to print, and the demand is higher than what we are supplying. So, they help us supply the remaining, that is what is happening.

What is your take on the different factions that exist in the Fuji musical circle?

In honesty, that sounds like a curse to me. Because, how can people be fighting over titles. This one will say I am the king and the other will say he is the authentic king. And I have never seen a king without a crown. Or have you been invited to see the Fuji crown? So, why they are fighting on the crown that does not exist? Is that not a curse?

Secondly, marketers want to eat. You cannot come to Ayuba now and talk to me about things like that. It is all the strategies of the marketers to just catch the reader's attention. Most of these artistes have cordial relationships among themselves.

It is just the crafty works of the marketers. You see, I really blame most of these things on the government. Because a lot of things that they ought to have put in place, they did not do. For instance, look at the issue of electricity supply. The reason the power supply has been this epileptic is because of oil and gas.

How?

If there is stability in the supply of power, the oil sales will come down drastically. If the electricity power supply is stable today, diesel will not sell anymore, petrol will not sell anymore. The quantity of fuel being consumed by generators is more than the quantity being used by the cars.

And it is only government that can give us electricity, and that is why I am blaming the government for it because they solely depend on oil and gas. That is the reason they are not doing much to rectify the power problems.