DAZAA DAZAA

DAZAA DAZAA... from Europe with love for budding talents

DAZAA DAZAA may not strike a familiar cord for many Nigeria audience but not so for the global audience, especially in Europe (Germany) where he is known for his artistic and creative exploits, which over the years, have won him and his group as well as Nigeria - his country of birth, many international accolades.

In his over eight years of sojourn in foreign land, the Enugwuabo Ufuma, Anambra State born artiste is known for his blend of musical creation though with universal appeal but heavily lazed with Nigerian flavour. He sings most times in his native Igbo dialect.
Based in Berlin, Dazaa Dazaa has in the last five years maintained a compelling presence and potent force in the promotion of Nigeria at the ITB Berlin, a yearly travel and tourism exposition where he and his cultural troupe put on captivating performances drawing people to the Nigerian stand whenever Nigeria marks its day at the fair.

The list of honour for the UNESCO Cultural Ambassador includes a 2004 acclaim he got for himself and Africa in Turkey; A UNICEF tolerance award of excellence world peace; a UNESCO award in Uzbekistan in 2005; and a 2004 award in Kazakhstan at a world international cultural concert.
A multi-talented artiste, Dazaa Dazaa's areas of creative enterprise span music, poetry - traditional folklore, stage design and technical work. Aside singing and dancing, he also drums and makes costumes. With a Diploma in General Arts, he studied Events and Projects Management; Public Relations and Administration and also the German language.

Recently, Dazaa Dazaa was at the Rutam House, the Lagos office of The Guardian, where he unveiled his new love. With his trade-mark deadlock, spotted a white T - Shirt and jeans trousers, the artist looked his usual ebullient and good natured self.

Since arriving in the country late last year, he has been busy with children in his Enugwuabo Ufuma community through his Dazaa Foundation, an organization, which he says is devoted to identifying budding talents and helping to groom such talents.

Having made a success of his sojourn in Europe rising to the top as a Nigerian musical ambassador, he says his commitment now is to use his fame, wealth and connections to nurture Nigerian youths, and create the enabling environment for them to realize their dreams.

This certainly is a tall ambition and this Dazaa Dazaa knows too well hence he has evolved a wholistic programme since 2007, which extends to the parents and then the youths. He sees parents as not encouraging their children to identify and build up their latent talent besides sending them to school.

His is a classic example as his parents vehemently opposed his choice of career then. "When I started my music, my parents were my biggest problem not that they didn't love music but because they were not really aware of what music entails or what it embodies,'' he recalls.

Knowing the stigma and opposition that he had to contend with all these years before climbing to the top, the Berlin-based artiste says now is the time to liberate the children from the stronghold of their parents.

"The greatest thing that I have to do is to go back to those things that were big problems to me, especially parental bondage and the inability to have motivators.
"Fighting the negative impressions that our people have about the talents that are natural to their children. I want to set the pace, those things that I know that the people didn't make easy for me, I now want to use my time and connections and power to make it easy for the youths'' he enthuses.
Already, he has launched what he calls attack on the parents, which is geared at what he describes as 'liberating them' so that they become positive influence in grooming the potential of their children. His mother that was once against his musical career is now in the forefront of this liberation struggle since she has seen the light after visiting the son in Berlin and feasting on his successes.
"Right now my mother is joining me with my other family members on the campaign talking to other families, talking to parents, telling them of the future that abounds in talent,'' he says insisting that this is very important as "these are the things you don't go to school to learn, you don't pay any money but you only need a motivator. And that is what I am doing, passing it on to these kids, motivating them, liberating them and educating their parents.''

Besides educating the parents, Dazaa Dazaa says, "right now I have started a programme, which is almost two years old based on talent hunt. We started with football but right now we have expanded it to other categories of sports. We are launching a very wonderful attack on liberation of our children from parental bondage as a result we are planning a carnival (Ayaya Carnival 2010) based on the promotion of talents through natural endowment.''
He reveals how he has invested - By Andrew Iro Okungbowa

DAZAA DAZAA troupe steps up plans for Ayaya Carnival

PREPARATIONS are in top gears for Dazaa Foundation's December Carnival, which aims at providing platform for Nigerian youths to express themselves in sports, music and cultural presentations.
The foundation, set up in 2007 by Dazaa Aniama (a.k.a Dazaa Dazaa), a Nigerian musical exponent and cultural activist based in Berlin, Germany, lends support to young talents in two popular community activities: football/general sports and traditional/modern performing arts. It also seeks to build bridge of unity among people of all races and ages.
'Charity,' they say, begins at home, hence Dazaa Dazaa decided to build his foundation from his country home - Enugwuabo-Ufuma in Orumba North Local Council of Anambra State, Nigeria.
To win the acclaim of the people, he introduced youth football competition in primary schools called Dazaa International Cup.
The football competition in its first year (2007), saw three schools from three of the villages in his community partaking in the event. The schools were Primary School Enugwuabo, Community Primary School, Ikenagu, and Community Primary School, Umuaguosibe from Enugwuabo and Umuaguosibe villages in Ufuma. These communities put together are traditionally referred to as: 'Ikenagu.'
In 2009, more schools bought into the project, thereby bringing the total number of participating schools to 10.
By July, the foundation intends to begin the second phase of its mission programme, which is the introduction of traditional and contemporary musical programmes in schools within his communities. This is in addition to the skill acquisition, workshop and seminar activities introduced earlier on in the year.
"Our music programme is beginning in July after few years of experimental programme in general sports. We are motivated to carry out general music," he says.
Part of the working modalities for the musical talent hunt project, is to identify children with musical talents on the streets and support them through training and funding. Outside working with the schools to establish cultural and musical clubs, plans, according to Dazaa Dazaa, are on to organise a world-class carnival in his Ufuma country home. This maiden edition, which is tagged 'Ayaya Carnival, will hold on December 29.
"Ayaya Carnival Enugwuabo-Ufuma is a carnival of music and culture. Therefore, I wish to cultivate and showcase our rich tradition in performing arts. Festivals are all about entertainment, while carnival is a way to maintain, promote and commercialise skills, talents, and creative ideas," he says.
Part of the aim of the carnival, he reveals is to preserve the cultural heritage of the people: "We are organising this carnival as a way of bringing back our almost forgotten culture. The event, which will be held every two years, would be used to bring people from outside lkenagu and Ufuma communities to our beautiful land." He reveals that the procession would cover a distance of 500-800 meters (Primary School Enugwuabo to Ezieze market sqaure) in Enugwuabo-Ufuma. Some of the lined up activities include cultural and musical displays, traditional wrestling, Igbu-oja, Ima-avu (mbube), masquerade and cultural dances.
It will also showcase musical and cultural groups from other parts of Nigeria and outside the country.
Dazaa Dazaa says he counts on the supports of Mrs. Cordelia Okafor, Mr. Sunday Chika Uchime and Emman Okechukwu as well as his village union. "I am very sure that it is going to be a wonderful parade of talents,'' he says.
Professional juries (of three - five persons) would make up the panel that would evaluate the musical and cultural performances of the different groups while awards and prizes, which include recording contract/release (CD and DVD), and paid trip Berlin, Germany, for a cultural exchange programme.
On his musical career and cultural activism in Europe, the awards winning artiste reveals that he has completed works on his new album, which will be released in May. He also plans to tour Kazakhstan in the same month where he hopes to represent Nigeria at the world music festival.
- By Andrew Iro Okungbowa

DAZAA DAZAA is not only a singer, dancer, composer, designer, choreographer and actor, but also a guardian angel for many people in need. He is a warm-hearted, traditional Rastafari from Nigeria and has been living in Berlin for four years. His life he describes as a walk along many paths lead by destiny – he changed directions from time to time, found his own style and learned to promote his originality. In Nigerian culture music accompanies everyone’s life right from the cradle and although it is for the most part a chanting and dancing culture the spirit of music is understood worldwide, which is what gave path to his road of life.

Why did you come to Berlin?
I think there was no special purpose! Destiny made it possible for me to come here.
When I devoted myself to music, after having walked through so many paths of life and having experienced so many different things, destiny sent me to Berlin. I was officially invited as a musician. That’s how it started. I came to Berlin and destiny told me to stay! Plus, there are also things one cannot learn at home. Migration always provides possibilities - it means learning, integrating, cooperating, unifying, understanding.

Were you already a musician in Nigeria?
Assami buman. Music is in our blood. Right from the day we are born. In our society there are customs for everything. When a baby is born people greet the new life by singing and dancing. So, from the very beginning and throughout my life I was surrounded by music, by singing and dancing. I grew up with it. It was not until I was older though that I started doing music professionally. I did many different things, like bus conducting, a lot of technical jobs, auto-mechanics. I wanted to study mechanical engineering at the university! That did not work out though. I was also quite good at football, which opened many opportunities for me. Music, however, was still always a part of my life – supplementary to the other things I was doing. I didn’t know then that it would be my major thing after all. With football and my general public affairs I got to know many different people. And then at some point I got more and more involved with music - singing for people, sometimes only for myself etc. My mind really started to get occupied with music and I lost interest in so many other things, like the auto-mechanic job I was doing. Before I even had the intention to join the Nigerian Army, but then I figured that I could get killed in the war, so I withdrew from that idea. At one point I wanted to be a professional wrestler! I didn’t have the chance to though, so I continued football. I got into the professional league, which is the Bundesliga in Nigeria. For some reason however, the club had to be disbanded and I decided that football was not my future.

And then I put all my power and energy into music. I studied traditional music on my own and founded several cultural groups. I was one of the dancers in my village and many people knew me. I created a dance group and worked with them. Then I realized that what I was doing was not only for my own people, but for everybody. I wanted to work with foreigners as well; send my message, you know? I started getting into English music. Not in schools, but in different studios, mingling with musicians, exchanging knowledge and experiences with them. It was then that I really got to know how studio recordings worked. I became a studio “rat” – that’s what the gofers were called in Nigeria. I mixed the drinks, carried the cables – those kinds of jobs. That’s how I got to see how music was being done. At that time we still worked with cassettes and turntables. My dreams about being a professional musician started manifesting during my time there. One day we were all hanging out at the studio while a recording was going on and the manager approached me and said that one of the backup singers didn’t show up, and they needed me to sing. He knew I had a good voice and told me to take it as a challenge. Now was the time to prove my talent. I was so frightened, mind you! I was standing in front of the microphone, completely unprepared! After a few minutes my nervousness settled and I sang the backups. So, from that day on I was asked frequently to do backup singing for other groups and one day I got the chance to sing the lead for this one group, whose singer had some issues with his tongue and wasn’t able to pronounce the words properly. When the record was released they asked me to join the group. So, that’s how I got into the music business in Nigeria. I played a few concerts with them, but we didn’t get along so well, plus, this was not my dream! I was there by mere chance, as a substitute for somebody else. People already knew me though, and I continued my cultural, traditional music – either with one of my groups or as a one-man-show! I moved from East Nigeria to Lagos and after I settled down I joined a group called “The Vibration Boys”. I also started a cultural - by Krzysztof Jarzebinski

The word OMEKAGU in Nigerian language (Igbo) means Brave Man or Woman. OMEKAGU has two roles to play: a dancer and a warrior.

I used my bear to remind us of the origin (ROOTS) of Cultur and Tradition (Identity) of Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. Cultur and Tradition is the only thing that unifies us, but has been more and more forgotten by today's people. Are you aware that the way to the Garden of Eden is not easy to trace anymore!

My bear represents Unity, which is shown by the mixed colours. It represents Peace, which comes through its dances and dramas. It portrays freedom and liberty obtained through braveness. And it teaches love through respect, tolerance and understanding.

The face shows braveness. The hip is the NWIGBA. On the belly, there is the OFO (rightside) and the sword and AKPAGWU (leftside). On the backside, there is the UGBOATA.

Finally, my Nigerian Bear OMEKAGU preaches the power of UNITY through music, which is mightier than weapons.

Aniama Kenneth DAZAA performt in Berlin, Istanbul and Kasazthan with his buddy-bear.

Charity: Unicef

Sponsor:
Embassy Nigeria in Germany - OMEKAGU