Lagbaja To FG: Are You Deaf?

Lagbaja: back like he never left..

All of a sudden the masked one disappeared into thin air… His drums failed to sound every Friday night at Motherlan’, his name went missing from concert posters and billboards as the Jazz maestro’s inimitable traditional sound and cultural swag went missing from the scene.
The clock ticked in minutes, hours, days and even months, yet the musician was nowhere to be found. Then the news broke that Lagbaja had eloped to America to become a cab driver. What? Our own Lagbaja - a cab driver? Some of us got worried.
‘I find stories about me quitting Motherlan’ mean and despicable! For someone to sit down and make up stories that Motherlan’ is closed, Motherlan’ is shut; hey! That’s rubbish. We’re playing there every Friday till December now. That I’m sure’, Lagbaja assured in a recent chat with NET.
Whether true or false, Lagbaja is back! Unfortunately, his return to the limelight has been slightly tainted as reports from Motherlan’ suggest that Lagbaja’s gigs have recorded modest attendance numbers since fun returned to the Ikeja venue and even though he insists he was never gone, we didn’t see or hear from the masked maestro until lately, ‘I’m living in the future. I don’t use the word ‘back’ because I’ve never gone anywhere. I move everywhere in the world that my job takes me but my primary base is my motherland, Naija!’
The music industry is witnessing something of a reawakening as first Tuface Idibia, and nowTunde and Wunmi Obe (T.W.O) decided to up the retail price of their new albums from a lowly N150 to N1000. In addition, screen goddess Omotola Jolade-Ekeinde recently announced that her new album, Me, Myself & Eyes, would also come at N1, 000 a pop. All of a sudden, musicians across the land seem to be chorusing – ‘we no go gree o, we go gree, Alaba pirate we no go gree‘. While he’s in no way trying to dampen the optimism generated by this new price experiment, the Konko below star maintained that the new price regime might not be fruitful if the issue of regulation is not trashed properly.
‘Although I have talked about that concept for years and I think I’m the prime mover of that direction. I keep talking about the fact that we need to move the price of CD up to the point where it’s good economics for the marketers and the artistes but why I’m not doing much about that right now is because we still have to resolve the issue of regulation and that’s the job of the Nigerian Copy Right Commission (NCC)‘, he asserted.
Speaking to NET, the Obafemi Awolowo University graduate could not contain his disdain for the Nigerian government; for its lackadaisical attitude towards the issue of Alaba pirates, blaming it on Minister of Justice, NCC and the system as a whole.
Speaking passionately about the plight of the Nigerian musician, Lagbaja had to pause intermittently to adjust his mask which threatened to come off and demystify the legend. Lagbaja fired on regardless, his criticism was relentless!
‘This issue of piracy, we’re just talking and talking, is the government deaf? Do we have a Minister of Justice? He’s supposed to be the one in control of NCC. We should have like 20 pirates in court, not just one. They should be prosecuted simultaneously!’, he vented.
‘Why do we have only one pirate in court right now? What happens after the pirates have been raid? Why is the NCC and the Minister of Justice not doing their jobs? Why are you not regulating the industry? The hologram concept developed by the NCC, why are you not implementing? Let’s have an explanation on what’s going on. This is all a joke. We just speak big English in this country‘,
The masked musician was hurting and the hurt only fuelled his anger as he went on and on. One could presume from his fumed assertions that his ’sabbatical’ from the music scene may not be unconnected to the frustration of the almighty Alaba pirates; it’s what any right thinking individual would opt for when hard times beckon.
‘However, to say the Federal Government has turned a deaf ear to the cries and pains of the Nigerian artistes is as hopeless as crying over split milk’, he added. They can only be described as being deaf if they had ears at all.’

Not only is he deeply worried about today but Lagbaja is also pessimistic about tomorrow. ‘Nobody should even disturb them with any issue right now, they are busy preparing for another ‘block buster’ elections. That’s where all the monies are channelled right now – the directors and the cast crew have to be paid on time so that shooting can begin. We are waiting for the premiere though.’ He concluded; the masked one inadvertently admits defeat.