Oba Omega is a household name in the musical industry in Rivers State, Niger Delta and beyond. His musical career has taken him to several countries, including Ivory Coast and other West African countries. He has no doubt paid his dues in the entertainment industry as testified in his rising profile. In this interview with Barth Ndu he bares his mind on the challenges confronting showbiz in Nigeria, as well as prospect in the profession
Excerpts:.
May I know you officially Sir?
My stage name is Oba Omega, but my real name is Emmanuel Amachree. I am from Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State Tourism, Ambassador, Grand Lager Beer Brand Ambassador, Nigerian Police Force Ambassador. I am also Award Winner, Best Artiste of Niger Delta 2011,2012,2013 and the originator of Soccer Dance.
What do you mean by soccer dance?
Soccer dance is from the popular football game. It is all about playing football on stage without the ball.
How come that you are always originating different dances?
Yes, everybody has his own talent, that is my gift. You know before now, I’ve originated ‘etighi dance’ from the Calabar cultural dance, which became popular in the country and now I’ve come up with soccer dance, which is already mesmerizing the musical world.
Tell us more about the soccer dance?
It is a new dance originated by me, called soccer dance. inspired by the popular game of football. This is a dance on stage where football is played without the ball. Just like I promoted the etighi dance that the whole world is dancing today.
Where do you derive your inspiration from?
God has given everyman his own gift. Inspiration comes from God. Soccer dance is all about life playing the technical part of football without the ball. God has given everyman his gift and creativity. It is my own creativity that is bringing out this. Soccer dance is all about life. Life is like a football game. Life is a very hard game and putting in dance on top of the kind of music I play. It is the creativity in me that is bringing out that.
What do you want people to gain from that?
Life is like a football game, pending how you play the game. It is a very hard game and as you play ,you defend, and so on. If you play well, you score goal, if you don’t play well you won’t score. Life is like a football, when you are playing,, you must jam other strikers, if you don’t play well you won’t score goal.
Those defence are like challenges of life .It is just a lesson about life.
How long have you been in music?
I’ve been in music close to 17 years. I celebrated my 16th year in music last year, this is my 17th year.
How did you come into music?
It was through my mum, my mum was a local musician and in school I also met some friends and that was how I started.
Even though you have been around in the music industry for sometime now, but the kind of incursion you made recently in that subsector is remarkable. What is the secret behind this success?
Well, there is no secret apart from God, even in the music industry, my friends had often told me ,Oba Omega look before you can make it in this business, you must go to juju house or enter into some kind of forest, but I discovered that there is no strength bigger than heaven. My strength comes from heaven, sometimes I ask myself where is the source of my power. Where is the source of this my rapid growth in the music industry?
I love God and I cannot do anything without him. I cannot say that I am not a sinner, but I love God so much.
Where do you classify your music? What kind of music do you play?
I play variety, if you put all together, you call it ‘grikata music’. My music is a combination of highlife, hippop and sucuzi .
How did you get the name grikata master?
It is from the sound of the motorbike . If you want to start a bike, it makes that noise of grikata zoom. That is why they call me grikata zoom master. I like bike, I used to have one or two bikes. You know if you want to deceive the devil, you speak the language he does not understand. That is how I got the name grikata master.
How many albums do you have to your credit right now?
I have three albums and they are, Identity, Etighi and Soccer Dance.
Now that you have made so much waves in the music industry in Rivers State and Niger Delta at large, where are you going from here? What is your next plan?
My next plan is to hit the world, I can be in Rivers State or anywhere and promote the ‘soccer dance’ internationally, because is like football game, many people like it. My dream is to become world popular musical artiste.
How do you intend to do that?
Yes, I want to start from my State by organizing an urban tour for soccer dance, with a grand finale at the Civic Centre by August.
Who can you say is your idol in show biz?
I have three idols, one is Late Rex Jim Lawson when it comes to highlife, Hippop, Chaka Demus and Sucuzi, Kofi Olumide.
What are your challenges in the course of your profession?
Challenges are much, basic amongst them is finance. The government here does not support entertainment, they do entertainment, but they don’t support us, the local artistes. It is not their fault but the organizers, government will ask them to organize entertainment, but they prefer to go outside the state and import musicians and pay millions. For us they will say Oba Omega is my friend I will give him peanut and he will come and play. Our organizers are not helping us in anyway.
What are you doing to break this jinx?
Our association is not strong to break the jinx. We are divided, when you talk of PMAN it is dead here. The only way is to pray to God to recognize us the local musicians, that’s all. It is more in Rivers State, in Cross River, they empower their local content, our promoters are not encouraging government to empower the local artistes. Our local musicians here are supposed to be promoted internationally.
I am aware that previously you were empowering up-coming artistes in the state, how far have you gone with that?
The program is still on, we got some talents, we carry them along whenever we have shows, but there is no money now to continue the project, we are still looking for funds. My appeal to promoters in Rivers State is that whenever there is event, they should remember the local musicians here and encourage them instead of importing the ready made artistes outside the state, if they pay the imported artistes N150m, they can just pay us N50m and the job will be done, if not better. Because we are the pride of Rivers State, we are to promote Rivers State outside the state. Government should call all the musicians together and find a way to empower us. We are so impoverished that we don’t have money to fuel our cars, but come to think about it, you find out that almost all the renowned artistes in Nigeria started from Niger Delta.
What is your message to your teeming fans all over the world?
The should always expect the best from me and pray for me too.
