Elder Steve Rhodes has seen it all in the music scene from the very beginning. For decades, he has, in his public comments, consistently stressed the need to create a proper industry setting for music to thrive in Nigeria. Now in his '80s, Rhodes stands on his point. Nigeria is still in search of a music industry.

WHAT do you think are the basic problems that really need to be addressed in the Nigerian music?
Well, first of all, I'll go back to my position which has been the same for a number of years now, and people don't seem to be listening and, therefore, nothing is happening. That is, we do not have an industry.

We must first create an industry. Now, what I am talking about here, is not the situation you have somebody who comes up overnight and releases a record and you are saying that, you have an industry. An industry consists of the various specialists who make up that industry. For instance, a singer should be a singer. That singer should be packaged, like you package toothpaste, by a group of specialists that will include a manager, songwriters, arrangers, musicians, costumiers and stage designers. These are all people who would package that product which is the singer.

And the legal people will make sure that, that singer's rights are protected today, tomorrow and for the future. Now, all these things are missing. Today, we have a situation in which if a fellow can sing reasonably well, he goes up and says he must become a songwriter, arranger, producer and what have you. But this is crazy, because he cannot do all those things well.

If he is a good singer, he's lucky, if he could be a reasonably good songwriter as well, but for him to be all of them rolled into one, that will be stretching it a bit too far. I mean, after all, we are not all a nation of geniuses. Now, when we reach the point where we will be prepared to respect the integrity of the various specialists, then we shall be approaching an industry status, once you've got that, you then have a situation where you have a product that is properly merchandised and marketed.

You have proper promotion people who are working on that product internally and eventually. You got good league of people who are guaranteeing that, that product is well protected, then you begin to move further, and then you've got what we called an industry. You see, the point I have been making for a number of years now is that, until we reach that point when we have got these things, we cannot talk of having an industry.

If you are lucky to be standing in the right place at the right moment, to them you got it right and they will say ah! you're wonderful. But what could you have said, if you cannot replicate it, you must be in a situation where because the structures are there, whatever success you have today can be replicated tomorrow because you know how to do it.

Do you think Nigeria's cultural policy should be blamed for the inadequacies in the entertainment industry?
First of all, the artiste is an individual, or part of a group that is responsible for creating an image for himself. That image is what will give him a livelihood. That means he's got to work at that. Whatever is coming out from a cultural policy or any such document is complementary to what is already on the ground. I mean the cultural policy cannot create artistes.

A cultural policy will help artistes who are already there. So, for anyone to blame the cultural policy for the inadequacies of the entertainment sector, I think is wrong. The artistes have the responsibility which in many cases they have not lived up to.

So how do we get there?
By doing what I am saying, by respecting the various specialists at the moment. For example, a young fellow who thinks he can sing, will immediately see himself as a songwriter, he will not go out to look for somebody who is qualified or competent to handle him in those other areas.

But don't you think this is so because he may not have the wherewithal to attract a Manager?
I don't think so, because, in the first place, you don't employ a manager. What we are saying is recognition of the various specialists. If people recognise these specialists, then they will start to work, using these specialists. At the moment we don't start to work, using these specialists, and there is a problem.

Insecurity and dishonesty have been identified as some of the vices militating against the Growth of the industry. What can be done to remedy the situation if the entertainment sector must move forward?
I refuse to accept that type of pessimistic approach, to these things, I mean, you've got to look at what is wrong and try to remedy it by doing the right thing, that's all.

You have seen it all, as a broadcaster and a musician. How do you feel about the type of music you hear these days from our musicians on radio and television stations?
Very sad. I feel sad because when we started this discussion, I used an expression, by selling one's birth right. Unfortunately, that is what is happening, you know. I regret that I am living to see this happen where reasonably talented young Nigerians would rather be somebody else than who he is. It's a great pity and it makes me sad. But then, it comes

back to what I've been saying. If that young man had, when he was in secondary school been told about the Fela Sowandes, he would have seen the possibilities of his achieving that height. That is part of what is wrong here, that we have just failed to create heroes in an area like the music industry which has a lot of glamour and glitz.

Heroes are essential because that is what makes people aspire to greater heights because they are looking at the heights to which foreign artistes have risen and we have not told them about the height Nigerian music has risen. It's not enough to just look at it and say well, what a pity, it's sad. The responsibility is still there, to make sure that our young people have a reason to be proud of whom they are.

The prejudice on music by parents...
The prejudice has not gone away completely: you will still have parents who say don't mind my child and all that. But with current trends where those in the .profession have become highly respected members of society, many parents now encourage their children to grow in the art and are proud of it. The other side of it is that unlike in the past where art subjects were the last alternatives to look at, it is becoming the norm now that such subjects are first choices. You could refer cases of graduates coming out of the universities to study art related courses, even though they may have been grounded in professional or science related courses. This is a healthy growth pattern.

Approaching music as a profession...
I always say to young people if you want to do music, get yourself some kind of professional qualification that you can always fall "back on. And the reason is quite simple: the music industry has not grown sufficiently in Nigeria to support serious artistes who want to use it as a means of livelihood. So you find the odd ones who come up and before you know it, they disappear. But serious artistes who really have something to contribute would find the scenario difficult to comprehend. Therefore I strongly feel that those who want to identify with music in our clime need a fall back position to cushion the effects of instability in the industry.

Even in other countries where you have acting, musicals and so on so forth, a lot of people that act each of these parts, do have a thing to fall back on. They have that position to go into when the business is dull, when the season is up and so on. Especially when business becomes dull. Even in the highly developed economies, we see those in the entertainment industry falling back to other situations that add up to complement the shortfall in the system. Here it is absolutely essential for young people to have something to fall back on.

Problems...
There are two things that happened here which I think are significant landmarks. You know in the 50s and 60s, there was a booming music environment, theatre was there, people were going to the theatre and attending nightclubs for functions, there was a lot of music going on. There was a lot of creativity going on. Then there was a civil war and a lot of the people who were involved in the music scene at that time disappeared; some people died as a result of the war. Then the new trend was the band of copy cats dominated by young people at school, who got on with the "I feel alright," kind of music- the American style.

Now that did not help the growth because what happened was that you were inhibiting something, which was there and was not moving anywhere. So really the period of growth, which should have taken place was stagnated because of the war. After this, the thing that moved in was juju music, and this took over the scene and became the rave of the moment.

So there was a difficulty in generating a growth pattern in the industry. Apart from that, there was the fact that there were not enough people who were learning their craft; most of them were the people who jumped into it, they just knew how to play the saxophone, the guitar or some other instrument and they were big stars.

This was followed by the fact that there was no real developmental pattern. The record companies also helped in killing the local music industry because they were more interested in what was the trend, what was coming in from outside; thus for example, if you could not play reggae most of the record companies would not be interested in you and this added to the woes of local musicians who were held back by all these distractions.

Copycats in 2007...
The copycats are still in our midst, in fact it is still the trend and this happens when you have a lazy generation. In the 60s you had people who were creative, they were generating new ideas and concepts in music- take Rex Lawson, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Victor Uwaifo, Bobby Benson, Eddy Okonta, Victor Olaiya, Stephen Osita Osadebe, Celestine Ukwu and a host of others too many to mention and beyond highlife and Afro beat. These people were creating new ideas and themes. Today, it is just a question of making money, how you make money, do something that some one else is doing and you are successful. Even though you may be doing it badly, the copycat thing would fetch you all the money.

I keep saying to people: if you say I want to sing like Michael Jackson, every time you get on the stage and people say that boy sounds like Michael Jackson, you have sold your birth right because they are not saying that is Demola, they are saying that boy looks like Michael Jackson. So who are you? You have become a shadow. But this is something that will take some time for young people to understand.

* Excerpts from the Guardian