Music In Africa editor wins Felabration award

“This award is really for the contributors who turned sketchy ideas into well-written pieces after a chat or short message,” Aigbokhaevbolo said.

“I have to thank Kayode Faniyi, Emeka Ugwu, Tobi Alàáká and Ife Nihinlola, four young men who write thoughtfully. It is a joy to edit their sentences. Many thanks, too, to the larger Music In Africa team. As they say, it takes a village.”

This is Aigbokhaevbolo’s first editing accolade, but his second award in African music journalism. His first came in 2015, when he won the Entertainment Journalist of the Year award presented by the organisers of the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA).

The Best Media Reports award, given out for the first time just days ago at Freedom Park in Lagos, comes a year after the Felabration Organising Committee announced that it would assess, in terms of quality and quantity, journalistic coverage of the Felebration festival. It was judged by a jury headed by Jahman Anikulapo, former editor of the Guardian Nigeria newspaper.

“Out of 35 entries received for the Felabration journalistic competition, the collection of reports, reviews and features by the Music In Africa team proved overwhelmingly the clear winner,” said Anikulapo.

“The various articles were written with deep knowledge of the various events that happened in the course of the 2017 Felabration. The language, especially the diction, was appropriate and there was a strong power of description, such that transported the reader to the scene of events being captured. In particular, the editing was very competently handled; the usual gaffes associated with newspaper reportage of events were almost totally absent. The collection is the sort that could form a handbook on how to document an international project of Felabration magnitude.”

Under Aigbokhaevbolo’s direction, contributors to Music In Africa wrote pieces critiquing and discussing the impact and meaning of Fela Kuti and the Afrobeat movement, both musically and politically. Readers had access to basic information regarding the event, but also gained a broader perspective on the festival and the artist it pays homage to.

For example, readers knew the theme of last year’s event, but could also read Faniyi take issue with it in the article “Fela was not a Prophet”; a piece which also led to another feature by Faniyi, recounting a meeting with Fela’s last manager, Rikki Stein, who was displeased with the earlier article.

Readers were informed of the date of last year’s secondary school debate, but also got a chance to contemplate Fela’s place in youth culture today in a piece written by Alàáká. And while Nihinlola discussed the rebellious side of Fela, Ugwu engaged readers about a commentary by a German critic of Fela’s 1978 performance in Berlin.

Music In Africa’s West Africa office also ran reviews of some of the concerts that took place during last year’s event. Nihinlola wrote about a show featuring the rappers Jesse Jagz and Reminisce, and in the last piece on the festival, Aigbokhaevbolo himself reviewed one of the festival’s main events, The Mavericks Felabration Night, which took place at the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island. It was headlined by Bez, Nneka, Seun Kuti and Femi Kuti.

For his win, Aigbokhaevbolo accepted a glass-encased vinyl of Fela’s Zombie album, drawn from the personal collection of Fela's late brother, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti. It was presented to him by Yeni Kuti, daughter of Fela and founder of the Felabration festival.

Click here to read our Felabration 2017 pieces.