Rolling Dollar with Ebenezer Obey during a performance in Lagos...three years ago
More stakeholders continue to highlight the essence of deceased music star, Fatai Olagunju – Rolling Dollar – as he is buried in Ikorodu, Lagos State, reportsAKEEM LASISI
Amidst eulogies by top musicians such as Ebenezer Obey and King Sunny Ade, the remains of veteran juju/highlife singer, Fatai Olagunju, alias Rolling Dollar, have been buried.
Rolling Dollar was buried on Thursday in Ikorodu, Lagos State, at a site he was still developing before he bowed to death on Wednesday.
The choice of where he would be interred had initially fuelled speculations, with the family said to have contemplated taking his body to Ede, Osun State, his home town.
Sources said they considered this seriously because the musician hailed from a royal family, which means that it was culturally befitting to have been taken home.
Other considerations seemed to have, however, overshadowed the thinking as Rolling Dollar was interred in Ikorodu.
Before, during and after the interment, stakeholders poured encomiums on the artiste who died of lung cancer at the age of 86.
Among such were juju maestros Obey, Sunny Ade, Dele Abiodun,Prince Adekunle, Dayo Kujore, Shina Peters, Segun Adewale, Ayo Balogun and Foly Peperenpe.
Since Wednesday, they have been visiting Rolling Dollar’s house in Oko Oba, Agege, which was given him as a gift by the Lagos State Government.
Another artiste in the Lagos State chapter of the Association of Juju Musicians, Alhaja Fatimo Olayinka, spoke on the taste and attributes of the deceased.
According to her, Rolling Dollar’s favourite food was amala and gbegiri, while he was a generous man at his own level.
While the Chief Imam of Akute, Ogun State, Alhaji Kamaldeen Olanrewaju, noted that Rolling Dollar exhibited dispositions of a good man while alive, Abiodun, otherwise called Adawa Super, said he was humble despite the fact that he was an icon.
Said KSA, “We will miss him because he was a legend of the game.”
Kujore also said, “Baba was a very nice man. We can never see another person like Baba in the industry again.”
At the event, the Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba, represented Governor Babatunde Fashola.
…CORA, iRep celebrate him on Wednesday
The carnival expected to trail Rolling Dollar’s death will begin on Wednesday.
That is when the iREP Documentary Film Forum, iREP, the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA and the Freedom Park will hold a tribute and performance party for the octogenarian Kokoma highlife musician in Lagos on Wednesday.
According to a statement signed by one of the organisers, Mr. Jahman Anikulapo, this would involve reflections on his life and reviews of his career. It will also involve the screening of what the organisers call perhaps the only documentary film on his life, titled Rolling Dollar: A Legend Unplugged, roduced and directed by Femi Odugbemi and released in March.
There will also be a session of musical tributes by his fellow veteran highlife musicians, and many young ones whose careers he affected, and to some extent helped to shape by his own exemplary service to the music industry.
The late musician’s acolytes note in the statement, “Fatai was one of the last mainstream practitioners of the music still very active, well to his death; giving the impression of immortality.
“Highlife music is a unifying genre, a result of the introduction of the guitar and other wind instruments into traditional Nigerian music. It grew rapidly along the coastal towns of West Africa at the height of the demand for independence across the continent, benefiting from the mood and aspiration for liberty.
“Fatai was one of the few Kokoma musicians, whose main instrument was the agidigbo (the thumb piano) coupled with the palmwine-type guitar playing style, that embraced the new fusion of traditional beat and western form; and thus influenced and shaped the direction of Highlife music as it is known today.
“Rolling Dollar’s symbolic death, on the 20th anniversary of June 12, 1993, is instructive of the unique contribution that the artist brings to the discourse on national well being.
“A tragic loss to the Nigerian world of music and the collective of the creative Industry of the continent. Fatai’s passing is a forceful reminder of the need for our country to re-evaluate the essence of the culture producer and give the species its proper due.
“FRD’s legendary artistic life affects not only individuals but also institutions to which he lent his services as a performing musician and as well as his humane, generous spirit.
Fatai Rolling Dollar should be mourned as an expression of our humanity — for his life and career affected our individual beings in divergent ways. But FRD deserves more to be celebrated by the collective of the creative industry for the effect of his artistry on our collective essence as artistes and creators.
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