UN Live hosts session to promote African traditional music
By Omolola Dede Adeyanju
The Museum for the United Nations – UN Live Lagos Portal in conjunction with Johannesburg Portal held its global conversation for the promotion of African traditional Music at the Lagos Portal in the University of Lagos, on Wednesday.
The conversation which featured a number of Nigerian artists as well as music producers discussing traditional music with South Africans resulted to be very educational and practical for participants.
The Lagos Portal Curator/ facilitator, UN Live and Executive Director, Sustainable Green Environment (SGE) Initiative, Ruth Olowosile expressed the sacrosance of UN Live to utilising global interaction towards achieving global knowledge on cultures, traditions as well as expanding ideas of the global environment.
She said, “The Global We portals connect people across the world in conversations that promote empathy and culture in partnership with Shared Studios, a human connection company that brings communities around the world together for transformative conversations,with the portals which are repurposed containers equipped with state-of-the-art tech to transmit audio and video and creating a live-like feeling of being close when talking to each other.”
According to a traditional music artist and participant of the conversation, Afe Aduragbemi, “The session was very experiential, it was a beyond-border experience.” He stated, “Seeing that I make sense to a South African, this means there is international relevance in music. I affirm that the discussion we had today in respect to traditional music and the relevance it has in the contemporary scene was such a beautiful one.”
“This experience has given me another view and perspective of people across the borders and it’s a confirmation of the development of world music, not just Nigeria alone. To me, the Global We platform will aid in presenting an ominous acceptance of our traditional music across the globe.”
Meanwhile, a Music Producer, Mr Paul Ayodele noted the beauty of traditional music enumerating its elements as having harmony, melodies and messages. He emphasised the relevance of the conversation with UN Live, which has presented the knowledge of some other Africans to them. “The forum, he said, ‘resourcitates the awareness of traditional music and how to bring it back to life.”
Furthermore, Israel Adekoya, a Tradogospel artist revealed that he had felt he has a more unique knowledge of music, however, with the experience from the conversation, has learnt other people’s knowledge of music that are unique at their various levels and society.
He explained, “Now I can say traditional songs are reinforcing what we have today. Traditional music is re-evolving and what we have as modern music is tapped from the roots of traditional music. We have the likes of Asake, Wizkid, Burna boy, who are award winning artists doing a reinforcement of traditional songs, hence traditional music cannot be grounded.”
However, Traditional Talking drum artist, Olufowobi Daniel stated that the talking drum is a unique instrument that can be infused in any kind of music, whether Western or traditional.
He envisaged his career as a talking drum player to move out of Africa, letting people know that talking drum does a lot of things aside Talking. He affirmed, “The talking can do what other Western instruments can do. It can sing, can run scales and give melodies like other Western instruments and of course, it’s unique feature, ‘Talking’,” he added.
Want to be a part of the Global We, sign up here: https://sgeinitiative.org/lagosportal/
