By Hardball
Guess the latest Bishop in town? Sir Shina Peters, SSP! His Afro-juju genre took Nigerian music by storm from 1989, when he released the monster hit, Ace.
Till the late 1990s, he was ace sex symbol and electrifying stage performer, who used his youth to push his catchy, seductive music. “Asiko awa youths re,” he crooned in one of his popular hits, “e ye binu wa.” (It’s our time as youths, don’t begrudge our fame).
SSP, the Aladura boy wonder in General Prince Adekunle’s juju band in his teen years, who peaked as dashing Afro-juju creator and dancehall impresario in his adult youth, is now, at 62, Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S) Bishop Oluwasina Isaac Akanbi Peters!
Waoh! SSP himself crowed, of his new status: “Bishop with swagger, God above all”! The Aladura boy, who started music in the church; and freely mixed riffs, churchly and secular, in his long music career, is now Aladura Bishop! How things change, yet remain the same!
The C&S sect has a rich, percussion-driven musical tradition: pulsating, gripping, vigorous and merry. Under its founder and Patron Saint, Moses Orimolade Tunolase, it was among the first wave of Nigerian native Pentecostals, that rebelled against the cultural imperialism of the European Orthodox churches, at the turn of the 20th century.
This clash of culture was espoused by the poet, Gabriel Okara, in “Piano and drums”. The dour European churches emphasized the solemn piano. The vibrant African churches embraced the drum, shunned monogamy and pushed syncretism of church and African tradition. For them, frenetic dancing and singing were magnets to draw and keep their flock!
SSP, the musical essence, was, well, the virtual secularization of exciting Aladura music. So, between the church boy wonder and latter-life Bishop, there appears little change — except in the use of youth, to drive his music, at its peak.
At 62, SSP is junking that allure of youth — hardly eternal! Bishop Peters is contemplating old age with more permanent traits: the Aladura faith that not only shaped his life from the cradle but also gave his secular, popular music wings to soar: a musical syncretism of the holy and the profane, so long as it itched the legs to dance, and charged the arms to boogie down, without a care!
This metamorphosis is a lesson to those who push youth as near-exclusive political talent. Youth is exclusive to no one. On the contrary, it’s the patrimony of everyone.
Everyone must be young. It’s the very beginning of the biological process from birth. But old age is the exclusive grace of fewer people. It takes braving the aging process and surviving to tell the tale.
So, don’t come strutting your youth, as SSP once strutted his on stage, as political pitch. Youth is fleeting, as is clear of Bishop Peters. But the essential Shina Peters remains, whether as popular artiste or as Aladura Bishop.
Bench mark more lasting traits, not youth that fades and wilts like the rose under intense heat. That is what gets you through life’s crucible.
The Nation
