By Aramide Pius
Like Dr. Alban, the dentist turned international musician, Beautiful Nubia has come a long way to getting to where is he is today.
A Veterinary doctor before he opted for the glittering world of a musician, Beautiful Nubia originally born as Segun Akinlolu takes us into his world of adventure.
This is how he started his story…
“I was a very brilliant student, excelling in both the arts and the sciences, but I always wanted to play music and write. But I was first convinced by my mother and teachers to learn a trade or a skill to make me a better and a more rounded person. And, today, I am happy I listened to those voices of wisdom – studying veterinary medicine. Working for years as a veterinary doctor has made my music career an easier path to tread”.
So acquiring an education was no waste if you’d agree with me…
Education in any form is never a waste. And University education is a means to an end, not an end in itself. I still practise as a Vet doctor. I still provide consultancy services to people on veterinary-related issues though not as much as I used to do in the past. I’m a very dynamic person. I have always been a multi-dimensional character. So, I can be a Vet doctor when I need to be and an artiste when I need to be.
What has been the motivation that has kept you from turning your back on music and returning to veterinary practice?
The main motivations are the millions of people who love and support this music and who keep requesting for more. Apart from that, to be honest, I don’t need any motivation to keep making music.
I enjoy doing it.
Music must be paying off then?
People always ask me this question as if it is possible to survive doing music alone. But if your needs are very small, why not? I grew up sleeping on a mat and bare floor, so I’m not a stranger to frugal living.
Hence, if I make any amount of money, I know how to manage it. The problem with a lot of our people is that they cannot manage a small fund. I don’t make a lot of money from music, whether in Nigeria or abroad, but I live within my own means and manage my funds very well. That is why you cannot see me anywhere or being reported in the papers, because I don’t go anywhere. I don’t have any flashy thing to show off.
In the early days when I started travelling abroad to play shows, I would buy a return ticket, travel abroad, save all the money I make from the concert circuit and return home with it.
Because of the kind of music I play, I don’t make a lot of money.
If I want to make a lot of money, I know what to do. I could play a populist kind of music, but that doesn’t come easily to me. The music that comes easily to me is the kind of music I play now. My personality is the way I was brought up and the environment in which I grew up, and that is very difficult to change.
I’m always happy with the kind of response I get from my fans, which is quite different from what my other colleagues get. My fans write me profound messages about how my music inspires them and making their lives better.
That for me is more fulfilling than money. Naturally, at times, I wish I had more money. But I’m never moody because tough times don’t last. Beside, I’m the kind of person who knows how to make onself happy.
I see life as a wonderful gift to be enjoyed. And I like challenges too, because life without challenges is not worth it.
How does one classify your genre of music?
I call it folk or roots music. People ask me, ‘What kind of musician are you?’ I tell them I’m a folk and root musician. My music is contemporary folk music. It is message-driven. I also like to say that at the scientific level, it is a reflection of the root of a lot of the major music genres that some many celebrate today.
The problem with we Africans is that we tend to define our music like the western people. We don’t appreciate the kind of music we play here.
Was there any form of research or study that helped you develop your genre of music?
I started writing songs when I was nine and that was more than three decades ago.
And I can say I have become an expert of sort. What we are doing cannot be divorced from what has been done in the past. Anybody who says he is a music creator is not telling the truth. What we do is born out of the things we listen to, whether we acknowledge it or not. I cannot tell you that these are my influences now, but I can tell you that what I’m playing now is a reflection of the music I have listened to all my life. I grew up loving music dearly.
So, I’m not surprised when people say ‘oh, your music sounds like this or that’. The ones that are traditional Yoruba songs are the ones I remember my grandmother singing. I have others I learnt from the old people.
The truth is that most of my songs are either from my past when I was growing up with my grandmother or with my mother.
If you started writing songs as early as nine, why did you still go ahead to study medicine?
I was very brilliant as a student in school. Right from my first year in the primary school, I was first ahead of mu classmates. I was the best student. And when I finished huigh school, I graduated as the best student in science and arts class.
And when it was time to go to college I was expected to study either engineering or medicine.
I had an uncle who seemed to understand me well and who advised that I read Veterinary Medicine.
He said it was all about nature and animals and that I will enjoy it. He talked me into opting for Vet Medicine.
The man said, ‘Don’t worry, you are still a young lad. After graduating as Vet Doctor, you can still play music.’
I had another uncle who worked as an engineer in Decca studio in Lagos. When I told him I wanted to play music, he’d say go and get a degree first and then come and record music. I was also told that I could play music even while studying in the University. So that was how I ended up in school and became a vet doctor. I have no regrets because it’s taught me a lot.
Like what?
It enabled me to learn perseverance and how to overcome adversity. Vet Medicine is a difficult course, and in learning it, I learnt how to take up challenges to face life and music, which on a good day is full of obstacles.
Vet Medicine too has made me a better person. I have both scientific and artistic view to the way I see the world. I practised it for eight years and worked at the highest level managing human resources, and that is helping me now in music. I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing now if I had not studied Medicine.
So the practice for eight years was not enough to lure you away from music?
Oh no. I still was playing music. And the moment I left the University, I recorded my demo and started taking it round recording companies.
Unfortunately, it was during the June 12 crisis, when everything went into decline.
I got little response from the recording companies.
They said the kind of music I was playing could not sell. But I kept struggling and by 1997, I’d set up my own company and released my first album. My first two albums were released while I was working as a vet doctor. And when I decided to quit my job, my company wished me well because they knew I would make it .
Did the tough Nigerian music terrain force you into exile?
I didn’t really relocate to Canada. It was my friends in the media who spread that story.
What really happened was that I used to travel a lot to places like Ghana, South Africa and Zimbabwe because of my involvement in performance poetry at a time. But when I went to Canada in 2001, I spent eight months.
Then I came back and released ‘Jangbalajugbu’, and when it became a hit, everybody started saying I was Canada-based.
I tried to tell them I only spent eight months in Canada. But I think people love this idea of being described as living abroad. So, when people started writing Canada-based, it stuck. But I am not based in Canada.
I only travel there and spend one, two three months in a year. I am in Nigeria most of the time, but you will not know because I live very quietly. When I went to Canada the first time, it was by accident. It was the period no record company wanted to release my work.
I was down then and suddenly, I saw an advert in the papers that Canada needed vet doctors. On the spur of the moment, I applied for it and forgot about it. Two years later, they wrote me and said ‘can you send us so and so documents for your immigration visa’?
I was confused, because I didn’t remember that I did anything like that. I didn’t take them serious and didn’t do anything about it until one day, when a brother of mine saw the document and urged me to fill the form since it would not cost me anything.
I told him I was not going abroad for anything. So, I filled the form and forgot about it for a whole year until they wrote me again to come for an interview in Ghana. Incidentally, I was already preparing to attend an international trade fair in Ghana. I went there, they interviewed me and said I was going to get the citizenship of the country.
I said okay without any excitement, because I knew there was no big deal, because it was not as if they would give us money. We were actually expected to spend some money and I knew that the country was very cold. So I left and a whole year went by before I got the papers. Then I started considering the possibility of doing something on my songs and albums while there. So I went there with the hope of releasing my albums.
But when I got there, I realised that I was a novice and it was the worst winter in Canada. I went through hell. That was when I started developing the songs for ‘Jangbalajugbu’, and when I was through, I came back home and recorded the album. All my albums have been recorded in Nigeria.
My band is in Nigeria. So, when people say I am based in Canada, they don’t understand. How can I be based abroad and my band is here in Nigeria? We are here at times for eight months.
But most of the time, I am in Nigeria.
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