It is no longer breaking news that Naija’s biggest female musician, Onyeka Onwenu is dead. Her painful demise a concurred a few days ago when she slumped after giving a scintillating performance at the 80th birthday of the founder and owner of Emzor Pharmaceuticals company, Stella Okoli. And the entire nation has been mourning her loss ever since. Onyeka Onwenu was one of Nigeria’s most respected, most admired and accomplished singers. She held down her place in the music industry for about five decades running, with dozens of hit albums and multiple awards under her belt. She was known as the Elegant Stallion. At the time she died, Onyeka was aged 72, though she clearly did not look it, as evident in her appearance and performance at the birthday where she, literally, gave us her one last song, one last performance. For her age, her vocal deliveries were quite astonishing. She was still very beautiful. She was still very vibrant, very active and her voice was still as crisp and as clear as it has always been. At 72, and till the very last moment she took in her last breath, Onyeka’s love for her craft and the Arts never waned. Onyeka and her contemporaries in the 80s gave us an endless stream of beautiful and impactful melodies that have remained etched in our hearts decades after they released those golden evergreen songs. She also ventured into acting and made tremendous success of that foray. She instantly became a household name in the movie industry just as she was in the music industry. And from secular music, Onyeka also ventured into gospel music and made quite an impact in that genre of music as well. And till she bade us good night, she never slowed down, until death shut down her voice.
Indeed, Onyeka Onwenu was a woman of many parts. She represented different things to many. To many, she was simply the super talented songstress that held us spellbound with her enchanting voice and breathtaking songs. But she was much more than that. Onyeka was an irrepressible activist. She was a politician, an entrepreneur and a prolific writer. When City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) had a brief conversation with the Elegant Stallion at the book launch of renowned journalist and Publisher, Azuh Arinze, it was a vibrant, cheerful and healthy looking Onyeka Onwenu that responded brilliantly to the questions she was asked. She looked far younger than her actual age and showed nothing that suggested she would pass away just a couple of months after this conversation. She spoke about her relationship with Azuh and how she has coped with the excesses of the Gen Z generation on social media. Enjoy what possibly was the last interview of this amazing woman.
What are your impressions of today’s celebrant, Azuh Arinze? How would you describe his personality?
Azuh Arinze is a wonderful human being. He is a very hardworking young man and very dedicated to his craft too. He takes his job very seriously and he is always looking to take his career a notch higher. Azuh respects people. He genuinely respects people and you can see that he is not pretending about it, that’s who he is. Those are some of the qualities I like about him and the fact that he is such a humble and respectful young man is one that I really appreciate about him. A lot of our young people these days don’t know how to talk to elders, as they pass you on the way they could knock you down without even saying excuse me or I’m sorry. I blame us parents, we need to go back and teach our children how to respect other people, not just elders but other people as well, the elderly, middle aged, young people, it is important that they learn to respect other people. Things like how to give people right of way, how to give people their space, how to allow people to express themselves and be what they want to be. This is lacking in our education and I meet up with it everyday and I try to teach these young people the right thing to do. If you brush past me, I will stop and I will call you back and say to you, that’s not right. How you should do it is to say, excuse me, and I will move out of the way, but you don’t brush past me or very nearly knock me over because you feel I am in your way and I don’t even realise it. It’s something I have taken upon myself as a grand-mother, teaching young people how they can conduct themselves. When you put out respect, it comes back to you, if you don’t, you don’t get any.
Tell us, ma, all of these madness on social media, for someone who has come from that era when discipline was the watchword, how have you been able to cope with it and manage all of these excesses from the youths?
Yeah, I’ve done very well because I have these guys in my house, they laugh at me if I can’t post something on Instagram, so I had to learn all these things and I do it for myself and believe me, I have seen a lot on social media. I’m not on facebook much because of people creating accounts in my name and putting out all kinds of things, so there’s a lot to grapple with, but you go with the flow. This is life as we see it, we’re living it on social media. We’re using social media for so many things, that’s what it is. You take the best out of it and leave whatever you don’t like about it. You don’t have to engage in all that name calling and abuses, no, you cut off from all of that nonsense. But I use it to spread my music, to spread goodwill and to talk about issues that are important to me and important to society.
I know it couldn’t have been that easy for you to cope with all of these madness, especially when you come from that era when children were taught to respect elders, those days when you dare not speak back when an elder is upset with you and is expressing that anger towards you…
You dare not speak back! My mother’s back hand will be waiting for you. One look at you and you know you are finished for that day and the best thing is for you to go and find a relative who can come and plead on your behalf. Those were very critical phases of our lives. I used to ask God, are you sure this woman is my mother, she’s so harsh on me? When I started having children, I had to go and thank God for the training that my mother gave me and that’s what has seen me through life even now. That discipline of being very, very focused on where you’re going and being mindful of the people around you, to make sure that you’re not living a life all by yourself for yourself, you’re living a life with all the gifts and opportunities that God has given you. You’re living that life so you can impact positively on those around you and the society at large.
Where do you find your passion, ma, the passion to be the best at what you do?
Because I’m so lucky and so blessed and I’m so grateful to God for all the things that He has given to me and that He has his hand on me, so what can I do for a God like that? What does He need from me? The only thing I can do is to be the God that the next person is seeing, to be impactful in their lives so they know that God is there. You know, God Himself is not going to come down and do those little, little things, its you that will be His hands, His feet, His voice, to reach out to people. And so I do it on a daily basis, I ask Him, what do I do for you today because there’s nothing that is enough. We don’t say thank you enough, we forget. We are always complaining, as He’s finishing with one and giving it to you, you haven’t even said thank you, you’re asking Him for another one and saying hurry up, give me quickly, please, please. But what about you, what have you given Him? So, that’s my passion when I wake up every day, what am I doing for Him that would glorify Him today? I don’t always get it right because I’m human, He understands that because He made me but he’s patient with me and He teaches me to get better on a daily basis.
What are your impressions of the content the young musicians these days put out there?
I have been asked this question several times and I say, the young shall grow. Allow them to grow. As they grow through life, they will find out that everything in life is not about sex, body movement and shaking bumbum, that there are serious issues that we, who are artistes, are placed in a peculiar position to bring attention to those issues and to bless God’s children. So, they will grow, be patient with them.
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