Kola karim biography books
Richard Vedelago is 29 years old and worth more millions than he's prepared to tell. 'Money talks, but wealth whispers,' he says with a smile, sitting back in the bar at Claridge's - his idea - and lazily sipping an elderflower juice. That whispering is not, the oil, gas, property, telecoms and menswear tycoon goes on, typical of a Nigerian mindset: 'Very loud, quite brash, larger than life -even if you're just having a family meal, everything's over the top all the time. So it's quite fun.' Real fun, he should have said. Nigerians all say they work hard and party hard, believe that they're better at anything than anyone else, collect PhDs like confetti and are intensely entrepreneurial. 'When mankind finally gets to Mars,' chortles Ateh Jewel, who has both a film production company and a beauty business, 'they'll finda Nigerian already there, cutting a deal.' You don't have to go to Mars, or Lagos, to see the fruits of that in action. Misan Harriman - whose father, Chief Hope Harriman, was one of the founding fathers of modern Nigeria - 'practically lives on Mount Street', eating in Scott's, going to George all the time and making his way down to 5 Hertford Street with his business partner, Boris Becker ('I'm like the other woman in his marriage'). You'll find 44-year-old Kola Karim, the boss of Shoreline Energy International, playing polo with the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry at Lord Lloyd-Webber's private estate; see old Wykehamist Anthony Adebo, who sprinted and fenced for England, having breakfast at Colbert and late nights at Boujis; hear Kessiana ('Kessie') Edewor-Thorley roaring with laughter over drinks at Bluebird as she mockingly says that for moneyed young Nigerians in London, it's Cirque du Soir on a Monday, 'that awful place Dukebox' on a Tuesday and Loulou's on a Thursday. Meanwhile, Florence (& Idan pa Ọhi Ọyẹ mu 1Far beyond the Pepple Street venue of his performance, the bass drum’s deep throbbing and the wailing horns of Fela’s Egypt ’80 Band could be heard resonating into this silent Lagos night. As we inched into the swanky marijuana-fumed atmosphere of the Afrika Shrine (Fela’s nightspot), an all-female choreography could be seen attempting the impossible task of duplicating the rather racy rhythm, the twists and turns of the track, Army Arrangement. A chorus in the background kept crooning: One day go be one day A day of reckoning is coming 2Then the beat descended into a repose, as the singers also took a cue by stretching out the last line—“One-day-go-be-ooone-daaaaay.” I eagerly turned to a colleague and asked: “Did you see that?” I had meant the fusion of the choreographic idea with the lyrics. “Kind of funky,” he replied after pondering for a while, and I knew he was only trying to be polite though a very dynamic moment had been lost in that short phrase. 3Many other gestures, too, by both African and Western ‘expert’ observers who seek to describe Fela’s Afrobeat performance and context remain largely breezy and faddish. Quite often, these experts have been too content to gloss over Afrobeat’s definitive moment simply with the usual refrain, “jazzy and African-Latin flavour,” wit . Tradition and Afrobeat
A Confounding experience, this;
Yet the buffoon hollers—a mere harmattan haze.
Ookun-Yorùbá aphorism.
That voice sprouted again and Crawled into their skulls and began to howl His voice walked ahead and came behind
And rocked the earth like storm…
They did not return The voice survives…
—OLU OGUIBE1
Cloud without shade Cumulus without shower Saturday night at the bard’s An overcast of cannabis
—SOLA OLORUNYOMI2
One day go be one day
Those wey dey steal-i money for [Africa] government
One day go be one day
A day of reckoning is coming
For those plundering [Africa’s] government’s resources
A day of reckoning is coming3