Waka music icon Salawa “Queen of Waka Music” Abeni has opened up about the challenges she faced at the beginning of her music career, revealing how jealousy and alleged “diabolical attacks” from senior colleagues nearly forced her out of the industry.
The 65-year-old began her career in 1976 with the release of her debut hit album, “Late General Murtala Ramat Mohammed.”
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Speaking on “Rubin’s Mind” on Channels Television on Sunday night, she recounted some of the challenges she faced, including losing her voice and vomiting blood at different points in her career.
Abeni said she developed an interest in music at the age of nine and regularly performed alongside older musicians whenever they invited her to join them.
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She said, “So they (the elderly ones) would sing before I got there. But when it was time for me, they would give me a stool to stand on so my mouth could reach the microphone. So when it was time for me to sing, my brother, my voice would go. I couldn’t sing. Sometimes I would even vomit blood. But what could I do? It’s a long journey. There are a lot of obstacles. You know, how do I say it in Yoruba… in English, it’s jealousy. Yes. Like, ‘You, this small girl, who is your parent?
“Where did you come from?’ Let me give examples. Let’s say you’re a musician and I’m a musician. So you would be singing before I arrived, or I would be singing before you arrived. Then people would be shouting my name, ‘The young girl, Salawa Abeni, has arrived!’ People would leave where they were to come to my side. We would be facing each other. But that is jealousy. It’s a strong thing to say people are diabolical. Well, that is it. That is exactly it.”
Experience
She further claimed that certain obstacles she faced in her career resulted from what she described as diabolical acts by some senior colleagues.
The singer said she never considered the experiences mere superstition, citing an incident in which she and her band waited backstage for another group to finish before they were allowed to perform.
“Diabolical is not superstition. Let me take you back to one experience. They would sing before I arrived, but my band was there too, so we decided to wait for each other. When they started their own performance, I sat down, and we watched. When it was my turn to sing, our amplifier back then used to connect all the microphones to bring out our voice, our tone, so that nobody could listen to me, nobody could hear me. That’s another one again.
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“Another time, we went together to play. As you sat, I sat down here. When it was my turn, as you were sitting here and I was sitting here, I couldn’t sit down because I was very small; if I sat down, my mouth wouldn’t reach the microphone. So I had to stand up. Oh my God, from my own side, as we sat beside each other, very close like this, rain suddenly started falling right where I was standing, so that people who wanted to watch Salawa Abeni would run away. It is tough”, she added.
Abeni has several hit songs to her name, spanning decades of a career that has established her as one of Nigeria’s prominent waka musicians.
Some of her notable releases include “Iba Omode Iba Agba”, “Shooting Stars”, “We Are The Children”, “Maradonna”, “Cheer Up”, “Beware”, among others.
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