Jabborro Blog

By Uduak Umo   I stumbled recently on a Justin Bieber music, and my attention was arrested. Reason: I heard on it a beat we used to play and dance to on Calabar streets in the mid 90s. That beat was in every Orthodox Church praise session, by way of handclaps; some kind of 4/4 played in soukous music. I've also heard other West African native music beats on a number of pure whitey disco music. My confession: I've been a Nollywood/Nollymusic naysayer for long. But now, I'm a believer in those industries. This country can funnel back capital that takes flight through corrupt oil sector management, through Entertainment. We can recruit a patriotic citizenry, we can revive dying dialects, we can revolutionize West Africa's economy, we can make blackness popular, we can even colonize foreign countries; there's so much we can do using our Arts. We need information, we need strategy, and we need the will to initiate and to sustain the