By Japhet Alakam

In few months time, one of the oldest surviving highlife legends in Africa, Chri Ajilo will be  86. Ordinarily, at 86, one wonders what the octogenarian music producer will be doing on stage. But Pa Ajilo believes he belongs there. And that’s why last weekend, he took the centre stage, performing alongside Blackman Abdulkareem as Special Guest  at Beautiful Nubia’s evening of poetry and music which held in Lagos. In this chat with WG,  Ajilo bares his mind  on  a number of issues.

Your fans have been missing you on stage, where are you now?

Pa Chri Ajilo

I live at Ahere, in Ijebu Ijesha.

Looking at the state of today’s music, do you think anything has changed compared to your own time? 

Music will always grow. It’s either going to the left or going to the right. But, I personally believe in good music. I was trained as a musician and I know how difficult it was. So these days, many of us think that music is an easy thing.

They just know how to sing and then you become a star. But I don’t believe in that. I was trained as a musician and I know how difficult it was.  You have to learn the rudiments of music as we were taught during our own time. These days, I set up my own School of Music in Ijebu Ijesha.

Is it an academy, and when was it established?

An Academy! I pray to have an academy established in Ijebu Ijesha in future. There are so many schools today that cannot even teach music as a subject to students. I am only lucky that I was born and brought in Lagos, and the school I went to- CMS Grammar school, music was part of our subject for three years whether you like it or not. So you need a foundation, it is on that foundation you can build yourself and that’s what has kept me going.

What’s your assessment of the kind of music that our stars are playing today?

You see, that is what I am saying, the foundation of good things is the rudiments. A lot of musicians don’t have the rudiments and without foundation what can you build?  You cannot build anything. So talking about the music of today, they deal on rhythm when they don’t even know it. It’s nothing but repetition, not meaningful, and there is lots of copying, you can’t compare it with the music yesteryears.

When you talk of highlife music, it is a music that has very good lyrics, good danceable rhythm and it has a form. I was a staff producer for Polygram, the only one all over the world. So you see, I am interested in teaching the youths what music is all about, and I am happy doing it.

Do you think highlife music can be recreated in Nigeria the way it is going?

Highlife music is not dead. What is happening today is titbits from here and there and then they mix it up and call it something else. But highlife is our traditional music. In other words, the whole of West Africa, nobody can tell me that highlife originates from Ghana, or Cameroon. No,  it’s all African music put together and the main thing is the message, the music itself, and the lyrics.

From what you have said, can we still produce musicians in the calibre of Osita Osadebe, Oliver de Coque who ruled the airwaves with their kind of music?

Of course, yes.

But we are not seeing much of that?

You cannot have it because those who are reigning today, don’t have the foundation. That’s why I am interested in teaching music. One  of my students was working in Ibadan, as a service boy in Independence Hotel. But today, he has his music school in Kaduna and he has been graduating other musicians.

Today, I have some of my students who are even playing in churches. In my Cathedral, one of my students is our organist and other students who are in some other churches. I have one of my students, just 2012, who is now a student of OAU Ile-Ife and he knows more than his colleagues in year one because he was trained from my school to have a good knowledge of music education and that’s what we need.

Chri Ajilo

What is the name of you school?

Chris Ajilo school of music, located at  Odo Oja in Ijebu Ijesha. It is my own house. I am a musician, I have my own band, but what I am saying is that, first, if you are a trained musician, you are open to many other departments to work in the entertainment industry, but if you don’t have that musical training, then you are limited.

From ’79 up to 96 I was with polygram, premium, phonogram, it’s the same company, so what I am trying to say is that music education is very important. If you can help assist us make the study of music in schools compulsory.

Right now, there is no government who can say music can be taught in all schools, because where are the teachers? Who is going to teach? So, what I am doing is building up gradually, and I will tell you that by the Grace of God, we are going to have an academy of music in Ijebu Ijesha.

Why did you take music as work?

As I said earlier, I went to CMS Grammar school and for three years, it was compulsory to  take music classes, when you get to class 4, you can drop it. When I was in Europe, England, I went in for an Engineering course at Brimighan Technical College, I was even working in the BSC factory, and I joined BSC that was where I started having part time at the Brimighan Technical College.

And I belonged to Youth organization, and even in those days, we ride cycles every weekend all over the neighbouring cities around and every time we get to the Youth clubs, all I am interested in is watching the band playing, until one day I decided I might as well go back to music and I told my mother and she said “ah.. you want to leave Engineering for music? Do you want to come back home and become Alagbe?- like beggars”. For that alone, I never replied my mother for one solid year, and I went straight back to London and into music school. Since then, no going back.

When exactly did you form your band?

August 1st 1955 in Lagos, before then I have been leading bands in England.

Based on what you have said, what advice do you have for the younger musicians so that they can write music with good lyrics?

You see, in my school, I even have a 72 year old man who is taking lectures and, he is also the owner of a primary school, who has even his own children in the Universities. So what I am saying is, if our musicians can just put down their pride and learn properly, the theory of music goes a long way. They will make it.

Are you fulfilled as a musician?

Of course I am. God is very good to me. I have only two kids, one in USA- my daughter and my son who are all doing well and they have their own children.