January 16th marked the 52nd memorial of the death of Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson. But the music of the Highlife King and the values for which he dedicated his life have kept his memory burning both at home and abroad.
The airwaves and the social media have been abuzz with the music and testimonials about a man who sang and played for love, peace, unity and understanding; a man, who died living his passion and became a legend out of it.
Virtually every radio station in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital dedicated time to play hit tracks of the Highlife King along with phone-in and discussions sessions. Seki Dance Drama Foundation run by Yibo Koko, the Director General of Rivers State Tourism Agency, dedicated a performance to Lawson called The Cardinal, “that chronicles, celebrates and commemorates the sterling strides and evergreen rhythms of the great Osima Rex Jim Lawson, the unsung Cardinal of Highlife Music across Africa.”
Koko said, though Lawson has been long gone in flesh, “We believe he will live forever through his music.”
Lawson’s recorded music which he began making at the age of 14 has not only been played over millions of times, it has been remixed and recreated over and over again into different flavours and genres by succeeding generations of musicians and even his contemporaries.
One of the latest that was recreated is Sawale which Flavour N’Abania remixed into Nwa Baby. For two years in the last decade, Nwa Baby topped the charts as the most played track on African dance floors. But the originality of that music belonged to Rex Lawson, who released the original version late in the 1960s. Sawale was also remixed by Aex Zitto into Baby Walakalombo in the 1980s and Feladey remixed it with the original title. Yellow Sisi was remixed by Orlando Owoh. Larry Gaaga’s Iworiwo is an inversion of Lawson’s Classic Love Me, Adure. Timi Dakolo’s I Never Know is a remix of Lawson’s Baby Play Me Wayo. His other hits include Jolly Papa, Gowon Special, So Ala Teme, and Bere Bote.
Born in Buguma in the present-day Asari Toru Local Government Area in 1938 to a Kalabari father and an Owerri mother, Rex Lawson grew from obscurity to world acclaim through his music. His father named him Erekosima, meaning Do Not Name This One in Kalabari dialect, because he looked too weak to survive. But he survived and packed a life that was too full and strong for the 32 years that he lived on earth before he died in 1971 in a motor accident.
The Highlife king was an example of one artiste that placed passion above material passion. Sir Maliki Showman, the late saxophonist, who played with him, said Lawson always placed music over money. “A highly emotional musician, Lawson was known to weep and shed tears while singing his own songs on stage,” said Wikipedia about him.
Without much and special education in music, he developed his music skills rapidly and at such a young age was able to play the trumpet, the guitar and saxophone. At the age of 23 he had begun to lead a band that was travelling around the country and in the West African sub-region. During his travels, he picked up languages on his path very easily and rendered songs in them. So he sang in Kalabari, Nembe, Izon, Igbo, Efik, Ibibio and dialects from Cameroon and Ghana.
Writing about him, his kinsman, Sopriala Bob-Manuel said Lawson used his music to preach love, unity and understanding. During the Nigerian civil war he played for both the Biafra side when his homeland was under secessionist rule, and the Nigerian side when Rivers State was liberated. However, he song Ewu N’eba Akwa (meaning goat is shedding tears in Igbo) released just about the time the first mutiny was carried out in 1966 and it nearly cost him his life. Some elements misinterpreted it to mean that it was a mockery of the victims of the mutiny and while he was performing in Kano, they moved on the venue. He left just in time before they could reach him.
He was crowned the King of Highlife Music at the age of 27 in 1965 when he composed over 100 songs. The Nigerian Guardian declared him post-humously as “one of the greatest, most famous band leaders Nigeria has ever produced.”
Opubo Daminabo, a respected writer on Nigerian affairs, said of him, “So far, with respect to Ijaw and Rivers peoples’ culture through music, Rex Lawson is the greatest we have ever produced.”
And he was quite handsome and personable. Steve Ayorinde, a literary writer and former Commissioner for Information in Lagos State described him as “witty, affable and good looking,” and said that his name “will be written in gold as one of the most gifted musicians in Nigeria. Music was Rex Lawson’s life and Highlife was his forte.”
He played with Highlife greats like Victor Olaiya, Bobby Benson, Victor Uwaifo, Sammy Obot, Chris Ajilo and even Fela Anikulapo-Kuti but they did not dim his star. Rather he emerged out of them shining great and illuminating more than half a century after he passed on.
To immortalize his name his home State Government named a street after him in the 1980s and many years after Governor Nyesom Wike named the reconstructed ultra-modern Rivers State Cultural Centre in Port Harcourt after him.
Some of his contemporaries like King Sunny Ade, Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, Prof. Victor Uwaifo, Chief Orlando Owoh and Erasmus Jenewari paid tributes to him in their music.
Amaopusenibo Bobo Brown, a former President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, thinks government and the people of the state have not done enough in the name of Rex Lawson. He said economic and cultural developments could be built around the life and art of the late highlife king, which is more than just naming a monument after him.
Some of his immediate family feel not enough has been done for Rex Lawson and the family he left behind. Osima Jim Lawson, who was born three months after his father died said, “For the hope and consolation that my dad’s music brought to fans all over the country, we feel he has largely been forgotten. No one talks about him anymore and no one remembers him as time goes on except a concrete legacy project is named after him. The way he was forgotten is the way his children have been equally neglected. Is there any wrong if government gives his grandchildren scholarship for example?”
