Remembering Oliver De Coque:The Highlife Meastro

It is three years now since Oliver De Coque, the artiste who introduced flamboyance and showmanship to highlife, died. By his exit, the scene did not only miss his colourful stage presence, it also lost perhaps the last gasp of the guitar highlife movement, which he crusaded with great commitment and formidable force.

He was a product of the agitated guitar highlife tradition set by Prince Nico Mbarga of the Rocafil Jazz on the one hand, and the typical Igbo guitar highlife of the Oriental Brothers and the Ikenga Super Stars on the other. He started by playing strict Congolese-oriented highlife, but found his direction in 1979 with perhaps his greatest hit, Peoples Club of Nigeria, which sold considerab1y. But it was with Funny Identity in 1981 that he gained national recognition.

Evidence of the song’s popularity and acceptance were established at the time by concrete sales figures, which came out of a scientific research by Research and Marketing Services, a top research company headed at the time by Mr. Tejumola. Collated results relied on questionnaires, which his staff took to the field. The area of coverage at the time was Lagos, where his men stood at designated shops – small, medium and large – to ask pertinent questions from prospective buyers of records. The early ’80s was a big boom for the Nigerian music industry.

The questionnaires attempted to capture an expansive field of enquiry, which included age, religion, sex among other details. The collated results were broadcast by the then Radio  Nigeria 2 on the Top 10, a hit parade created by veteran broadcaster, Ikenna Nduaguba who was then the station’s Director of Programmes.

Funny Identity entered the chart at number one to compete with entries from Ebenezer Obey and Sunny Ade – the two powerful icons, who often dominated the chart. It moved to number two the next month and number four the third month to give way to new entries.

However, it reflected in the charts all through the existence of this hit parade even though it slid below the number 10 slot.

With reissue, Funny Identity is still selling till today as an evergreen. A pointer to this fact was engendered by a phenomenon where the song along with such evergreens as Ebenezer Obey’s Board Members reflected in the unofficial Top 20 that was kept for marketing purposes on the advice of Mr. Akinyemi, who was then the Managing Director of EMI Records. The late Ahanite was a great composer and a prolific songwriter.

He had many other hit albums, even though dominated by praise singing, among them Ugbana, Papa and Mama, Udoka Social Club, Destiny, Ana Enwe Obodo en we, Nunukwu Mmanwu, Bili Kanu

The guitar highlife movement took over from the big band, conventional type with homs­around 1972 with the arrival on the scene of the Oriental Brothers. The different factions of the Oriental Brothers led by Warrior, Kabaka and Dan Satch Okpara tried to establish this trend as a popular vehicle. But it was the likes of Oliver De Coque who introduced the element of group-vocal harmony singing to put a final polish on its evolution as a big band vehicle.

A highly committed artiste, he was always willing to perform in live settings; and garnered a lot of well deserved honours, including the long contribution award bestowed on him by the organizers of the Nigerian Music Awards held in Owerri, Imo State capital, the year he died.

An artiste with a clear vision, he was well groomed for the profession and knew exactly how to take his career to the top. Said he: “I can call myself a naturally talented musician; nothing inspires a talented musician. It is just like a born scientist who does not fall short of ideas in his brain. What he thinks about always is how to invent something and a born musician too thinks of how to create music. He does not think of money because when he creates, the money will surely come.

Benson Idonijo