Nigeria: Victor Olaiya - Stadium Hotel, Highlife, and Nostalgia

analysis

With Victor Olaiya's death, an important chapter in the history of Nigeria's popular music was closed. After 60 brilliant years as a bandleader, composer, and performer of highlife music, Olaiya passed away on 12 February 2020.

Olaiya helped to popularise highlife music globally. Together with musicians like E.T Mensah of Ghana and Nigeria's Rex Lawson and Bobby Benson, he consolidated highlife music as a pan-regional genre with particularly strong roots in Ghana and Nigeria. Long after highlife had receded into relative obscurity, he refused to let go. Instead he created a niche space for it by presiding over weekly performances at his Stadium Hotel in Surulere, Lagos. His efforts made the space a vibrant spot for nostalgic performances that recall the social life of the country's colonial era and the decade after.

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