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Ace Singer, ONYEKA ONWENU Tells City People
The elegant stallion, Onyeka Onwenu, is one of Nigeria’s most respected, most admired and accomplished singers. She has been in the music industry for about 5 decades running, with dozens of hit albums and awards under her belt. Though she clearly does not look it, she is already 72. And her love for her craft and the arts has not waned one bit. She is still very vibrant, very active and her voice is still as crisp and as clear as it has always been. Onyeka and her contemporaries in the 80s gave us an endless stream of beautiful and impactful melodies that have remained etched in our hearts for the rest of our days. She also ventured into acting and made tremendous success of that foray. She instantly became a household name in the movie industry just as she became in the music industry. And from seculart music, Onyeka also ventured into gospel music and made quite an impact in that genre of music as well. And she has not even slowed down yet. This ageless beauty still breathes music every minute of the day. She still performs and her vocal deliveries have been astonishing for her age.
Last week, City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) had a conversation with her at the book launch of renowned Journalist, Azuh Arinze. She spoke about her relationship with Azuh and how she has coped with the excesses of the Gen Z Generation on social media. Below are excerpts.
What are your impressions of today’s celebrant, Azuh Arinze? How would you describe his personality?
Azuh Arinze is a wonderful human being. He is a very hardworking youngman and very dedicated to his craft too. He takes his job very seriously and he is always looking to take his career a notch higher. Azuh Azuh respects people. He genuinely respects people and you can see that he is not pretending about it, that’s who he is. Those are some of the qualities I like about him and the fact that he is such a humble and respectful young man is one that I really appreciate about him. A lot of our young people these days don’t know how to talk to elders, as they pass you on the way they could knock you down without even saying excuse me or I’m sorry. I blame us parents, we need to go back and teach our children how to respect other people, not just elders but other people as ageds well, the elderly, middle geds, young people, it is important that they learn to respect other people. Things like how to give people right of way, how to give people their space, how to allow people to express themselves and be what they want to be. This is lacking in our education and I meet up with it everyday and I try to teach these young people the right thing to do. If you brush past me, I will stop and I will call you back and say to you, that’s not right. How you should do it is to say, excuse me, and I will move out of the way, but you don’t brush past me or very nealy knock me over because you feel I am in your way and I don’t even realise it. It’s something I have taken upon myself as a grandmother teaching young people how they can conduct themselves. When you put out respect, it comes back to you, if you don’t, you don’t get any.
Tell us, ma, all of these madness on social media, for someone like you like you who has come from that era when discipline was the watchword, how have you been able to cope with it and manage all of these excesses from the youths?
Yeah, I’ve done very well because I have these guys in my house, they laugh at me if I can’t post something on instagram, so I had to learn all these things and I do it for myself and believe me, I have seen a lot on social media. I’m not on facebook much because of people creating accounts in my name and putting out all kinds of things, so there’s a lot to grapple with, but you go with the flow. This is life as we see it, we’re living it on social media. We’re using social media for so many things, that’s what it is. You take the best out of it and leaver whatever you don’t like about it. You don’t have to engage in all that name calling and abuses, no, you cut off from all of that nonsense. But I use it to spred my music, to spreafd goodwill and to talk about issues that are important to me and important to society.
I know it couldn’t have been that easy for you to cope with all of these madness, especially when you come from that era when children were taught to respect elders, those days when you dare not speak back when an elder is upset with you and is expressing that anger towards you…
You dare not speak back! My mother’s back hand will be waiting for you. One look at you and you know you are finished for that day and the best thing is for you to go and find a relative who can come and plead on your behalf. Those were very critical phases of our lives. I used to ask God, are you sure this woman is my mother, she’s so harsh on me? When I started having children, I had to go and thank God for the trainng that my mother gave me and that’s what has seen me through life even now. That discipline of being very, very focused on where you’re going and being midful of the people around you, to make sure that you’re not living a life all by yourself for yourself, you’re living a life with all the gifts and opportunities that God has given you, you’re living that life so you can impact positively on those around you and the society at large.
Where do you find your passion, ma, the passion to be the best at what you do?
Because I’m so lucky and so blessed and I’m so grateful to God for all the things that He has given to me and that He has his hand on me, so what can I do for a God like that, what does He need from me? The only thing I can do is to be the God that the next person is seeing, to be impactful in their lives so they know that God is there. You know, God Himself is not going to come down and do thoser little littke things, its you that will be His hands, His feet, His voice, to reach out to people. And so I do that on a daily basis, I ask Him, what do I do for you today because there’s nothing that is enough. We don’t say thank you enough, we forget. We are always complaining, as He’s finishing with one and giving it to you, you haven’t even said thank you, you’re asking Him for another one and saying hurry up, give me quickly, please, please. But what about you, what have you given Him? So, that’s my passion when I wake up every day, what am I doing for Him that would glorify Him today? I don’t always get it right because I’m human, He understands that because He made me but he’s patient with me and He teaches me to get better on a daily basis.
What are your impressions of the content the young musicians these days put out there?
I have been asked this question several times and I say, the young shall grow. Allow them to grow. As they grow through life, they will find out that everything in life is not about sex, body movement and shaking bumbum, that there are serious that we, who are artistes, are placed in a peculiar issues position to bring attention to those issues and to bless God’s children. So, they will grow, be patient with them.
How I Cope With The Gen Z Generation was last modified: April 9th, 2024 by
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