Saheed Osupa, other Fuji stars rock village

Initially, fans gathered on the road adjacent the famed Bar Beach in Victoria Island, necks craned to catch the stage and scanty crowd strolling through the grounds, as they were restricted by the festival T-shirt admission requirement.

That requirement was later waived as announced by anchors for the night, Gbenga Adeyinka and Olisa Adibua, both mainstays of Nigerian entertainment, one a comedian, the other a radio personality, both united in paunch and passion. Fans ran to the stage at the opening of the beach front, and the party began a few minutes after nine. Aspiring artists performed, and there were competitions including dance contests and an impromptu rap battle won by Dris, a multi-lingual young man. He was ushered backstage immediately, towards, it appeared, an assured fame, given the quality of his rap.

Local rapper Seriki, too, performed a freestyle for majority of his set, a glaring show to those listening that he has bars beyond his popular songs. Sound Sultan took the audience through his oeuvre from ‘Mathematics’ to recent collaboration with Wizkid and 2Baba ‘Geshomo’. His band performed the set with thumping energy, guitarist and backup singers running across the stage in harmony.

Sound Sultan’s band was the precursor of a night of big bands. Sule Adio Atawewe, first of four Fuji stars on stage, was accompanied by a 17-man, percussion-heavy band; Adewale Ayuba a 21-man band; Alao Adekunle Malaika a 22-man band and Saheed Osupa an 18-man band. True to the nature of Fuji, the bands, including backup singers, were all men, with the exception of Malaika’s, which had a woman on keyboard.

In contrast with the gender homogeneity of the bands, music performed showed different inflections of Fuji. Atawewe’s set was filled with prayers for the crowd as he left stage to shake hands with them.

Ayuba’s bonsue Fuji was the most organized of a typically free-wheeling genre. It had defined verse-chorus formations, and Ayuba’s backup dancers stepped in unison to predetermined percussion movements. Malaika’s music is, perhaps, closest to what you’ll hear on Friday Fuji nights in inner-city Lagos streets and Ibadan clubs. He also showed the tribal nature of Fuji fandom. As he came on a horde of fans followed him into the Arena from backstage dressed in matching t-shirts branded with MALAIKA on their backs.

Throughout the event, as performances moved from established artists to comeback stars (Bigiano, Konga) and across genres (Nathmac’s rock, Ed Izyks’s jazz), the anchors promised appearances from Fuji stars Saheed Osupa and Wasiu Alabi Pasuma. This was an obvious red-herring to any true Fuji fan. There are arenas where the two kings of Fuji may play out their rivalry, but this wasn’t one of them. It was either one or none of them. And by the time Osupa’s face appeared on giant screens mounted beside the stage, it was clear what we were getting.

“Odun ti bere l’Eko,” shouted a fan in Yoruba. End-of-the-year festivities have indeed started in Lagos, and this Fuji party thrown by AFRIMA was just the first of many for residents of the city.

Fans sang along with enthusiasm to Osupa’s choruses. He, of the four stars, had the most recognisable music. His proverbs and aphorism driven proclamations were sang gloriously off-key. But singing off key wasn’t peculiar to him—it was a recurring feature of the night. In Fuji music, keys are suggestions to singers. They exist only to offer the band a uniform tone to begin syncopations.

By morning the crowd was fatigued from dancing all night, but they waited for Osupa's departure and left immediately he left stage. Wale Thompson, the juju musician who capped the concert, performed for a thin audience. Before Osupa exited, however, two men appeared at the foot of the stage spraying 1000 naira notes: the Fuji party had reached its apotheosis.