By Prisca Sam-Duru

For the Aba, Abia State-born Ndukwe Onuoha, poetry, a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism and metre, to evoke meanings, is an important tool for keeping social issues on the front burner of society. He studied History and International Relations at Abia State University, but has worked in advertising ever since.

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Onuoha was at the six-day Lagos Fringe Festival 2019, an open access multidisciplinary arts festival for producers, culture advocates, exhibitors and performers to showcase their work.

It held in partnership with Multichoice Nigeria, British Council Nigeria, Freedom Park and the Alliance Francaise, on the19th to 24th November, 2019, at various venues across the city of Lagos.

His “Nwa Chukwu”, a spoken word performance which featured Maka and Tonie The Emperor, was a major stage event that held guests spellbound at the Lagos Fringe Festival 2019.

The piece, “Nwa Chukwu”, is a stage adaptation of Onuoha’s Spoken Word album, also titled “Nwa Chukwu”. Poems for Nwa Chukwu according to him, which were written and performed by himself, featured Maka and Tonie The Emperor. The performance was directed by Ndukwe Onuoha and Tonie The Emperor, and produced by Tonie The Emperor.

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The artiste seems to be adopting a unique style of the poetry genre in terms of delivery while on stage, which holds his audience spellbound as they assimilate in awe, the messages imbedded in his presentation. On the uniqueness of his approach, Onuoha explained that “I fuse a unique conversational delivery with traditional instrumentation to deliver poetry that is accessible, relatable and at once punchy.

Describing himself as an incurable advert man, and an award-winning copywriter and Creative Director of 7even Interactive, a fast-rising advertising agency in Lagos, Nigeria, Onuoha however isn’t letting his passion for spoken word performance wane because as he maintained, “ It is a very important tool for keeping social issues on the front burner of society, and should be kept alive by all means.”

“Nwa Chukwu”, Spoken word performance, he disclosed, was inspired by the need to start a conversation about identity, adding that “More and more, we see many young Nigerians shirk their identity in favour of Western ideals. So, I wanted to start a conversation about identity and what it means to be Nigerian.”

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According to him, the presentation at the Lagos Fringe Festival was the first of many performances. “This is my first theatre production, so I had to learn as we went along.

Vanguard