Why my friend called me a beast -Jojo Body Beats

Jojo Body Beats is one of Nigeria’s most unique performers because his style of performance is virtually unique to him. OSEYIZA OOGBODO BLOG met him and he revealed how he discovered his extremely unique talent. You beat your body to make entertaining sounds and music and you call it bodiophone. Is this term coined by you or bodiophone is a recognised entertainment genre like comedy, rapping, etc? Well, I actually coined the word, bodiophone, by myself as the name for what I do which is beating my body to produce sounds to entertain people and I therefore call myself a bodiophonist. I derived bodiophone from the music instrument, xylophone, and I had to do so because beating the human body to make music is not common so I had to come up with a unique name for it so people can make reference to it in future for academic studies and research. Although for laymen, I call it Jojo body beat but for corporate shows, I call it bodiophony. Why don’t you just call yourself a musician? What I do is more than just music and also more than just entertainment. I’m a creative performer, a total artist. My performance is theatrical arts and it consists of dance, pantomime, stunts like walking with my hands on stage, singing, comedy and many other elements so it’s a total performance on its own. When I performed for Professor Wole Soyinka at his 70th birthday celebration, he said what I do is poetry and that it’s not until I speak before I am a poet. When I asked people what he meant, they said he meant that I talk with my body. How long have you been doing bodiophony? I started professionally in 1995 with Tunde Kuboye’s Jazz 38. How did you know you could beat your body to make pleasant sounds? When I was very young, I was always making sounds with my voice unconsciously. I also made sounds with anything I saw to relax my nerves whenever I was stressed or bored. Even when my younger ones cried, I would also pet them by rhythmically tapping their bodies. How did you then turn it into your profession? As I grew older, it was only natural for me to start playing drums in the church and then I had this unisex hair saloon where I was always making sounds so my brother Benjamin advised me that I should join Jazz 38 which we were always watching on TV so I can become known too. He even went as far as telling them about me that I play drums and make music with my body so one day we went to meet them at 10 pm. I followed him just hoping for a meeting with them to discuss but they put me on stage immediately to perform immediately with my body. I was very raw then. I beat my body so vigorously that I felt pains all over, but now I beat it with technique, body language. What have you achieved? I’ve achieved in terms of knowing people and exposure, enough expose that can turn to wealth, but the wealth is yet to manifest, but spiritually it’s manifesting, but physically, soon. That means you are not yet where you want to be. Why is that? Is it that you are not packaging yourself properly? Not truly. I’m trying in terms of packaging. But acceptance of the art in terms of the reward is just the problem. The art itself is not for every event. Why is it not for every event? Because of the quality of production that we want to achieve and if you tell the sound man do it this way, do it that way, they believe you want to control them. The French Cultural Centre understands the quality of sound we need and they ensure we have a good sound balance but Nigerian shows are a big problem sound wise. So I try all my possible best to perform at only those events that the sound quality needed will be provided. Or is it that your style is not appreciated? They do actually. They love it but the Whites appreciate it more. Most appreciation in Nigeria is applause and presidential handshake. Most of my performances are for just honourarium. Some corporate bodies also pay well. But Whites pay me well and give me more shows. And churches too are really coming on board as I’m more or less representing God’s creativity so I praise God too with my body now and I encourage youths to hold on to whatever they have in terms of talent and not be discouraged. What’s the way forward? I’m hoping to get steady concerts. I’m also imploring organisations that have appreciation for unique art to sponsor me. I don’t perform alone again but with a 5-piece band so I’m bringing something really different and exciting to the table. Yeni Kuti even said if I have the chance to get out of the country, the sky will be my limit. Sunny Ade too said it that I have to go abroad to perform to know my true worth. KSA, Yeni Kuti have adviced you. Which of them has helped you? Well, you get verbal promises here and there, but they can’t do anything about it. Sunny told me that if he says he can help me, he’s just lying, that it’s only God that can help me. I was supposed to go to London in December but it was postponed. I have a management consultant, Yomi Opakunle, and he’s always trying his best to promote me to the best of his ability. He even plays my music on TV and radio. Has your talent been a blessing or a curse to you then? I’s a blessing oh. I’m blessed to have the talent. It’s God’s gift to me. Even though I’ve not made the money now, I’m happy because my talent makes people happy as it is unique. One friend even called me Jojo Body Beast as I’m another person totally on stage. Tell us your biggest performance till date. I guess it’s the one in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Emem, formerly of KUSH, was the one who arranged for me to travel to Zanzibar to perform in 2008 through the British Council. Even Atiku was so amazed when I was performing the national anthem that he opened his mouth. That performance was transmitted live on CNN and CNN also interviewed me.