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Missing Links
- When I arrived in England on December 31st 1958 I had been a DECCA WEST AFRICA (Nigeria) recording artist since two years, from 1956 on. According to the contract recording sessions were stipulated to be quarterly or bi-annually. This is so to buy time for the recording engineers who must travel up and down, Europe and Africa, to record. Having acquainted myself with London, I set off one morning to the Victoria Embankment location of DECCA to get to know, and negotiate any future recordings in London.
- Expectation is one thing, reality is another. DECCA, without mincing words and witha straight face told me. my contract was valid only for Africa. "DECCA" the man said, "does not record African music in London." Yet I could buy in London, Tottenham Court Road, Sterns West African Records, my records, recorded in Lagos, Nigeria.
- Succesful African musicians based in Europe and America are not taken on concert tours to Africa, holding these artistes back from their people. Also because these European music promoters do not want to patronize the naira economy!
African artistes are seldom offered endorsement contracts. That why it was such a joy to see Manu Dibango advertising the Peugot car. But we should point out that this is only one in a thousand of African musicians and a car. African musicians are not seen to advertise musical instruments. In Africa European instruments manufacturers and dealers prefer drawings, caricatures than the professionals themselves modelling the instruments they work with.