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Legendary? oral? poet,? Ogundare? Foyanmu?s?? death evokes memories of his immense contributions to traditional poetry, writes GBENGA ADENIJI
If one calls the mobile phone of prolific chanter, Ogundare Foyanmu, it will ring because it is an active line. But the sad part is that it is not the creative poet that will pick it. As this correspondent experienced on Wednesday, it is one of his wives that will answer the call. Reason: the artist has since transited to the world beyond.
Family sources told this correspondent that he died on October 13 and has since been buried. In an emotion-laden voice, one of the deceased?s wives, Mrs. Rachael Foyanmu, says he died in the midnight of that day.
She explains that he was not particularly sick the day the incident occurred. According to her, there are plans to hold an event akin to a tribute night for the late performer on November 3 in Ogbomoso, Oyo State.
Rachael says, ?? I will miss him so much for his sound judgment and wisdom on many issues. The Ogbomoso communty too will miss him because people used to come to him to seek counsel? on family-related matters. And God really helped him to resolve them amicably.?
She recalls that she met Foyanmu some years ago after a theatre performance which he was one of the facilitators. ??I used to be an actress but now I sell amala (yam flour). After we finished a performance one day he told me he would like to see me. When he eventually met me, he proposed marriage to me. The rest as they say today is history as I have given birth to both male and female children for him.??
Rachael, who adds that he produced an album titled Ojowu Binrin (Jealous Wife) before his death, notes that his last outing was at the palace of the Elejigbo of Ejigbo in Osogbo, Osun State during a festival.
One of the children of Ogundare Foyanmu, Bose, who says she is into buying and selling of consumable goods, also states that her father died without any sign of sickness. This shows that the Ijala chanter had survived the stroke that initially kept him bedridden for some years.
In a telephone interview, celebrated author and lecturer, Prof. Akinwunmi Ishola, described Foyanmu as an excellent cultural artist. He adds that the country had lost an important person.
The don recalled that in 2007, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation recognised him and another Nigerian, who was a sculptor artiste, Lamidi Fakeye, as Living Human Treasures-as part of its project aimed at preserving the human heritage.??????
Ishola says, ??I was at the event held in Abuja. He was a very good artist and if you listen to his works, you will learn a lot about the Yoruba culture and about how to behave and so on.??
It will be the joy of Ishola to see the production of the works of the late chanter into CD. In this regard, he urges another oral poet, Tubosun Oladapo, to take up the challenge, as he notes, that he has all the recordings of the deceased?s numerous works.?
Perhaps what Oladapo needs to do now is to upgrade the ones he had accordingly converted before Foyanmu?s death.
Although the career of the artist, who had entertained the rich and poor when he was hale and hearty, suffered a setback due to the ailment, he had over four decades of outstanding performances and production of the oral poetry into cassettes.
Our correspondent had met with the distinguished chanter in May last year at his Ile Foyanmu Oke Taraa in Ogbomoso. During that encounter, Foyanmu disclosed that he had a stroke some years before then.
Foyanmu had said, ??I have arun romo-lowo romo-lese, (Yoruba term for stroke). It is the toughest challenge that I and my career are currently facing. I fell down in this house 11 years ago. But it was seven years ago that I got struck with stroke.?
The oral poet, who contributed hugely to the popularisation of Ijala (a poetry chant by Yoruba hunters), is known by the appellation: Foyanmu keru o beko, pagbin je keru ob?osa, a metaphor for doing the unimaginable.
The Ijala performer also narrated how he got the name, ??My grandfather was a fighter during the time warriors made slaves of those in the kingdoms they conquered. The women among those they came back with were always given to the king and powerful people in the town. In one of his outings, Abidogun, as he was called, decided to keep one of the women for himself. The woman gave birth to a male child but none of his other wives had a male child. The women were not happy with her fortune. So, whenever they prepared pap for their female children, they would feed the child of the woman with pounded yam. She told her husband about the issue and he, in response, called other wives to ask why they were doing so but they denied the claim.
??The woman then cursed that the children of any of the women, whether male or female, would survive if only they fed them with pounded yam as they did to her own child. But that their children would not live if they fed them with pap because they never fed hers with pap. And the curse took effect. That was how our family home became known as Foyanmu.??
The rancoteur added that their family house was not called Foyanmu before then, it was known as Ile Alagbo Omo-the house where children were cured with herbs because children were usually rushed to the place whenever they were experiencing convulsion and many of them were healed with herbs.
He further said he later adopted the name ?Foyanmu? because it fitted his oratory style.
The messages in his works are didactic thus responsible for their relevance till date. Foyanmu noted during the interview then that some men told him that their wives initially burnt his cassettes when they bought them home. But they later encouraged them to buy new ones after listening to the messages contained in them.
??I was told that some of the wives called their husbands to ask them if they were the one who asked me to say certain things I said in the cassettes because they mirrored their lifestyle. And the husbands would in turn say they never knew me but only heard the performance and decided to buy the cassette. Art and life are bound,? he said.
According to him, he was given lands by kings and ?dashed? a woman by her father after a captivating performance. The woman, he told this correspondent, bore him six children.
The raconteur, whose improvisation and histrionic ingenuity were superb, expressed hope that he would still sing more and produce his numerous cassettes of ijala into CDs as soon as his health allowed him.
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Source: http://www.punchng.com/entertainment/arts-life/ogundare-foyanmu-death-of-a-living-human-treasure/
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