Dr Sikiru Ayinde Barrister was 34 years and a few months when he waxed the album titled IWA in 1982. His new band members, which replaced his former Fuji Londoners allegedly led out by the captain Alhaji Tunde Oyadolu, was just two years old.
That restructure was inevitable but notwithstanding
With his natural self-belief and renewed confidence in his new lead talking drummer, the versatile Alhaji Kamoru Ayansola, who was said to have supervised the recruitment of the new band members while Barrister was on holiday in the US with Alhaji Buhari Oloto, his loyal fan, he struck incredible rhythm with the new members and recorded AYE, a 1980 elpee which would later earn him honourary doctorate degree in the City University, Los Angeles, USA in 1985.
Odofin compound, Osogbo was then too far from Fuji Chamber in Isolo for me to have got an inkling of the inspiration which entered Barrister to compose IWA. However, his previous OORE LOPE and SURU BABA IWA both of which are 1981 releases ought to guide discerning consumers of his music of the background to that elpee.
The content of the main theme brought out a preacher in Barrister who teaches morals on human relations, matrimony, posterity, charity, modesty, gratitude and hope.
On matrimony, for instance, he warns against using flesh as determinant of love partner, telling the young to rather consider acceptable conduct before tying nuptial knot. He stresses the hovering danger in marrying one who freely disrespects her parents and the elderly, raising the alarm that the deviant will turn round to also insult her in-law some day. He sings:
Oju e lose bu baba to bi lojosi
Oju e lo se bu mama to bi lojo si
‘I love you toritorun’ n lo n wi o
Abiko
Akogba
Omo lasan
O ti ri pe kii gba ko to fe
Iwa ni o ku e ku teba fera
Barrister also reminds us on need to think more of life after this terrestrial space. Tigbagbo timale Ka lo muwa mesin, Iwa la o jere ni kiyaomo (Christians and Muslims should combine humanity with their respective faith, because humanity is ticket to paradise in the hereafter)
After he exhausts his sermon, he retraces his step and pays tribute to Mr Olabisi Ajala, a public relations consultant to popular musicians of that period. Barrister needed to devote a track to Ajala as appreciation for his second thought over litigation against Barrister who had earlier in his OKE AGBA, released in 1980, taken him to the cleaner depicting him as a parasite. Save for the timely intervention of Evangelist Ebenezer Obey, the late MKO Abiola and others, Ajala was determined to take a pound of flesh in Barrister and render him insolvent.
The flip side of IWA contains tributes to a select deceased, including a wife of the late Apala maestro, Alhaji Haruna Isola, and grand father of Tade Makinde, a colleague in Tribune House. Tade, who is an entertainment journalist, would argue that Barrister ever mentioned him in his elpee until the day I told him in office. I am more charmed by the track in which Barrister displays his ambition to capture the souls of more elite for fuji genre. He sings:
Fuji sound is beautiful
So nice
Beautiful
Fuji sound is beautiful
So nice
Beautiful
From this melodious track where, in impeccable English Language, he explained how far his efforts to internationalis
The conspicuously intermittent tone of trumpet at background of the percussion essentially provides additional melody to the elpee. Good morning.
