What about when you travel to play at foreign gigs, do you still travel with such large numbers of band members?

In the 1980s and 1990s, I used to travel abroad with about 27 to 28 members. But now, we have had to cut down the numbers of our band members travelling abroad for shows to below 20.

During some of your musical tours abroad, have you had the experience of some of your band members absconding?

Yes, I have. But I usually tell my band members that if you are travelling with a band to go and perform abroad, and you are planning to escape, if care is not taken you will be a loser. The moment you are there and your visa expires, the police will be after you. And once they catch you, you are deported home. And once you are back home, you can never join the band again. Most of the people who absconded in the past are now home.

Doing what?

I don’t know. I never bother to find out. I have warned most of them before. I told them that it is better to be at home and live with what we get here. There is no place like home. A lot of things that we take for granted here, you can’t try it overseas. We can do a lot of things with the little that we have here. In fact, it pays them more because for a musician like me, once I travel, I play nearly every day except on Monday. It is by God’s grace. The moment promoters abroad are aware that we are coming abroad on tour, they engage us for more shows and that is extra something for them.

What is your take on the sliding relevance of Juju music in Nigeria?

Let me say that it is not only Juju music that is confronted with that challenge but other traditional genres too. I believe generally, Nigerian music industry needs surgery. Nevertheless, there are some challenges facing our genre. Running a band is a very expensive venture. Look at it this way: given the Nigerian economy, how many musicians can afford to buy musical instruments for their bands? It is just few, because to buy a very good guitar will cost you nothing less than N60,000, except you just need an anyhow guitar. Most of the instruments do not come cheap. In fact, most of us rent some of the instruments; and they also don’t come cheap as well. They come in different categories and rental prices range from N500,000 to N1 million.

You are a Juju music maestro but in the global music scene, your brand of music is categorised as ‘World Beats’. Why did you agree to that categorisation?

When I was given that title as the King of World Beats, I did explain this question. When African music started gaining recognition at the international level, it was very difficult for them to categorise our kind of music. And essentially, because of my own music they now created World Beats. They noticed that if there is a Jazz festival, I would be there and perform very well. Rhythm and Blues or Soul concerts, I will be there. At Reggae festival, I will be there. In fact, I was the first Nigerian musician to play at the Reggae Sunsplash. So this sort of confounded them. They initially categorised me into the Cross Over but it didn’t sit well until they came up with World Beats; and World Beats fits well.