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Simeon Mpamugoh
Turkish-Nigeria artiste and leader of the group Raze City Playe (RCP) Loulou Dedola is entertaining local and international audiences at the Alliance Franchaise de Lagos/Mike Adenuga Centre, Osborn Road, Lagos.
The all-evening bash kicks off today Friday March 6, 2020.
Part of the event which began yesterday Thursday 5, saw the artiste who has written a comic book entitled: “Fela is Back to Lagos,” playing at the Scotch Bonnet Restaurant also in Victoria Island.
“I play mix genre of modern music: reggae, Afrobeat and Rap. Sometimes I sing in French and broken (pidgin) English. This evening I’m singing French songs in broken English. Like Fela, I’m the Orisa of entertainment. I want tomorrow’s people to enjoy my music. Anytime I enter the stage I think like Zinedine Zidane entering the pitch and saying: “ I want to enjoy this game. For me I want to enjoy this work of a musician,” he said in a chat with our reporter.
According to him “sometimes I do poetry on my song. In Turkey, I have a television show, “Poetry for Evening,” in a Turkish dialect. Though Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is my mentor, I love Kwame Nkrumah and Fela’s songs. These great global leaders share similar attributes.”
Dedola who says he has been in music for a long time added that he has traveled on playing engagement to different countries in Africa. He said: “I’m influenced by African music. I have worked in West Coast; Nigeria, and I have performed in African shrine before retiring to take care of my children’s education in music. And now they are grown up, I decided to return to Nigeria for this show.
“A lot of people are curious about my name Dedola. They want to know if actually I’m a Nigerian. The story as was told said that one of my aunt’s sisters was a Yoruba. “This is the legend,” my uncle would say.
“There is the man, Dedola Adedola for a reason of the name. But the Whiteman calls me ‘Arik Thierry.’ My uncle narrated this story centuries ago saying: Dedola, the black pirate is a legend with a flag, alongside a black man.
“So I’m a widely traveled musician, writer and poet who believe in peace and loathes racism and human indifference. When I go through the airports a lot of Yoruba call me oko mi (my husband) because of my Yoruba name,” he added.
On whether he is going to remain in Nigeria, Dedola said: “May be I will come back to Nigeria but not yet. That will be when we have a big show that will announce by return. Just like my book “Fela is Back to Lagos.” It will be “Loulou is Back to Lagos.” After the show, I will go back to Turkey where I have so many fans and then to France.”
