Groundbreaking opera in Pidgin mixes music for cultural harmony
THE cheering crowd in southwestern Nigeria is thousands strong but when the performer on stage in a yellow catsuit and glittering cape beats out eerie rhythms on a steel drum, they hush.
Then as Helen Epega begins to sing, her powerful voice filling the air at the outdoor auditorium, the crowd roars.
The musical genre may be unusual in this part of the world but people understand it – Epega is singing what she and organisers of the festival in which she is participating say is the world’s first opera in Pidgin.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, with many ethnic groups and hundreds of languages.
But Nigerian Pidgin – a lingua franca sometimes referred to as “Broken English” – is understood by almost all.
“The reaction has been overwhelming,” said 37-year old Epega, who performs under the stage name The Venus Bushfires and comes from the southern Nigerian cit y of Benin.
“People are really excited about it,” she said. “Perhaps it is because they feel they haven’t had a voice, or had a chance to express themselves in this way.”
Written by Epega herself, the opera has yet to be staged in its entirety but it will involve several singers and an orchestra.
But she has performed long excerpts with various drums and guitar, in Europe, Cape Town and Lagos, among other places.
And as Epega performed at the recent African Drum Festival in the southwestern city of Abeokuta, the audience danced along, breaking with tradition for an opera.
Bridging cultures
Tit led Song Queen, it is about a warrior queen and people who “sing a peaceful rea lit y into t he world” through music, she said. The crowd loved it.
The use of Pidgin, which is understood across Nigeria, provides unaccustomed access to opera.
“It is not the music I t hink of when you talk of African drumming,” said student David Ikeolu at t he fest iva l.
“But she is singing our language, and t hat is specia l to hear,” he added.
More than just serving as a lingua franca, Pidgin can also help to bring people together, Epega said.
“It shows that it is not only OK to break barriers – in fact, we must,” said the singer, who has also lived in Britain.
“If we are going to have a dia log ue about unit y and peace and love, we must find ways to build bridges bet ween ourselves.”
Pidgin power
Pidgin, which is endlessly changing, was once scorned by some as a language of the street.
But it has a powerful and growing cultural influence across all classes.
The BBC has started a Pidgin radio and news website, stand-up comedians are entertaining packed audiences and novels are being written in t he language, noted Nigerian aut hor Richard Ali.
He said he had recently helped t ra nslate an 11th-centur y Arabic stor y of Al-Hariri of Basra into Pidgin.
“Adaptable, ja zz-like and subversive,” t he writer said of Pidgin in a recent art icle.
Ali also praised Pidgin as a bridgebuilding tongue that enables even rival groups who cannot understand each other to speak to one another and laugh, turning “competitors into comrades”.
With her hair in long tresses dramatically looped up in curls around a horizonta l baton, Epega beats out rhy thms on a “Hang”, a Swissmade percussion instrument.
‘Afro-futuristic’
Two steel shells, one upon t he other, resonate when she taps the Hang with her palms, creating a ghostly sound like t hat produced by Caribbean steel pan drums.
Like Nigeria’s forever changing Afro-pop music, Epega’s sound fuses very different musical styles together for something she describes as “Afro-futuristic”.
It is a mix of old and new, bringing together “a blend of the rich African tradition of storytelling, using Nigerian Pidgin English, with Western classical opera,” she said.
Epega’s inspirations – f rom Nigeria’s late Afro-beat icon Fela Kuti to Brit ish singer Kate Bush and Mozart – reflect her upbringing in both Nigeria and Britain.
“I think I’m finding a way to marr y t hem a ll toget her,” she said, grinning.
Unity in diversity
Celebrating the strength of unity in diversity was another key theme of the festival.
Wole Soyinka, the 1986 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature who comes from Abeokuta, acted as an adviser to its organisers.
“When you watch a performance of drumming, you are listening to poetr y too,” Soyinka said, addressing the opening ceremony.
“If you listen to a recital, it is all about rhythm.”
For Epega, mixing t he beat of traditiona l drums with the sounds and rhythms of modern instr uments conveys a powerful message about inclusion.
“I’m saying that no matter where you’re coming from, and where you are on the musical, cultural and social spectrum, I believe we all meet when we speak the same language,” she said: “Music”.