How Alariwo Influenced My Career+ Reasons I am Organizing Awards For Drummers, Ace female Talking Drummer, Ayangbajumo Entertainment.
How Alariwo Influenced My Career+reasons I am Organizing Awards For Drummers, Ace female Talking Drummer, Ayangbajumo Entertainment.
by comSlider.
Just No doubt, Eniola Lias Abiodun popularly known as Queen Ayangbajumo is one of the highly successful female talking drummers in the world today. the Ogun State born female Artist has already carved a niche for herself and she has become a force to reckon with in the entertainment world. Ayangbajumo, who is currently based in United State of America, is a great singer and a competent master of ceremonies, also talented Wedding Engagement compère(Alaga iduro-alaga ijokoo). The daughter of a Retired Major in the Nigerian army recently shared her journey into the entertainment world to the media, along her project ‘Ayan-to-gbajumo award, which second edition comes up on the 27th day of July 2019. Ayangbajumo, the multi-talented and award winning drummer-cum-singer in an interview with this magazine has these to say: Excerpt.
Reading from my family background! By birth name I am Eniola Lias Abiodun, my stage name is Queen Ayangbajumo. My parents are Mr. and Mrs. Abdulazeez Lias. My father is a retired Army from Gbagura town in Abeokuta, Ogun state , my mother is from Ilesha in Osun State. I was born in Ogenusa Barracks Benin City in the late 70s Relating about her Education, she said: I had my elementary School at Army Primary School, Benin, completed at Koko Atan Primary School, Atan- Ota, Ogun State. My secondary school was Ojodu Grammar School, Ojodu, Ikeja, Lagos. I also attended Humble Commercial Institute of Secretarial Studies, Ogba, Lagos, NIIT Ikeja Lagos and Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State. Narrating how she picked interest in drumming, Queen Ayangbajumo said : I am not from the family of drummers, I picked interest in drumming from my grandmother whose tradition permits set of twins to be taking round the village and beg for money to take care of their needs while they sing and dance in the process.
my mum who is a born and brought up of Ilesha, Osun State, hailed from a well known rich man who had 3 wives and each wife had three to four sets of twins, my mum was the last set of twins from the first wife. The common practice of taking twins round the village to dance and beg for money was not in my grandfather's diary being a wealthy man. He rather convert the process to a house warming party for his own twins whereby he buys drums and invites well known drummers in Osogbo, to sing, drum and dance for his own twins right in his compound every last Saturday's of every month. Therefore, he invites his friends and colleagues to party with his beloved twins, his eminent friends and colleagues usually spray the twins during the parties. All the wives together will be singing different lyrics of the twins known as (Ibeji) in our local dialect to celebrate the twins and to entertain those that have come to party with them. This practice was on for many years before my grandfather passed on. After his death there was no mins to continue with the process of inviting the drummers, do the cooking for a large party as usual, this prompted my grandmother who had the last set of twins to be drumming and singing for her children in her own way till she got the knowledge of the talking drums. While in my tender age, we were taking to Ilesa from time to time to visit and spend holidays with my grandmother. Among all the children, I was the only one that usually bring down the drums from where they were hanged beat the drums with no rhythm just to hear the sound. My grandmother saw the potential in me, she later taught me the drumming part and by myself I started joining words to make it meaningful.
After my secondary school, I joined Alariwo of Africa as a backup artiste. I was with him, when he released an album titled ‘Yawa go gas’ after which I left him to face my studies. When I graduated from the Polytechnic I was into Ewi poetry, still on my drumming career, though not perfect yet. One day, a male friend introduced me to Lagbaja’s band leader, Mr. Muri Ayangbola and it was him that taught me the nitty-gritty of the job. When I got there, I met Ayanbinrin who had already been learning the job but later left while I was still learning. Ayangbola taught me Apala, Iya-Ilu, Gangan and others.
Queen Ayanbajumo futher says: I started my artlet career early in life, my parent especially my dad was against this trade, all he wanted was a banker child. He is a retired soldier, a Major in Nigeria Army, who cherished education so much. It was God that intervened and I thank God today, I make him proud. She added: I face a lot of challenges when I started, especially financial problem, but with my passion, commitment and God’s grace, we are glorifying God for His mercy today.
Apart from drumming, we learnt that Queen Ayangbajumo also sing and she said: I have been a singer right from my childhood days but I preferred drumming to singing and I did combine both to entertain fans and admirers. “I sing, dance and beat drums, I have many successful records to my name.
About her first stage performance outside Nigeria she said : Before my first American tour, I was in Germany for performance. I got to know that female drummers are well appreciated in the western-world than Africa. After my Germany tour, Luku Jazz Entertainment, a promoter in America, New Jersey, invited me to America for performance. On getting there, I met a lot of promoters and one of them, OLANTECH Global Promotion picked interest in my performance and took me all over the states in America for live performances. I played in Dallas, Texas, Posting, Maryland, Georgia, Delaway and New York. Most importantly, I played for Musiliu Akinsanya (MC Oluomo) in New York for his birthday celebration. I have performed in South Africa, Germany, Amsterdam, Boston and France, I did lot of shows in New Jersey where I am a resident. I’m happy to let you know that I have received lot of honours and awards, the recent ones are Yeye Asa of Texas and Cultural Ambassador in the Diaspora; The experience was very awesome.
About her Annual Award, Queen Ayanbajumo said : The first edition of my Annual Award held in Nigeria in the year 2016, it attracted a large turnout of people. To the glory of God, I am so delighted to inform you that the 2nd edition of the award comes up in the United State of America, on the 27th day of July 2019. Ayan-to-gbajumo award is meant to appreciate both male and female drummers all over the world because I have never seen or heard about a talking drummer being appreciated or celebrated before and yet they are the power behind music. Drummers are not well known like the musicians, ‘AGA AWARD’ is the first to appreciate drummers and up till this moment I have not seen anybody coming out to do the same thing or adding the drummers into the well existing entertainment awards. So I am using the award to show them love and appreciate their God's given talents. In this year, we have two major set of awards, Legend drummer and the drummer of the year, the legend drummer is for old drummers who the musician he played for is late, for instance, Orlando Owoh is late, but is drummer Baba Elemede is alive. Likewise, the drummers whose musician still lives and the drummer is alive too, for instance, Obesere is alive and his drummer, Sharafa is alive too.This year, we shall have appreciation awards to make it bigger than the previous.
My kind gesture Queen Ayanbajumo
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