Ayo Osinibi trained as a quantity surveyor but has found life in the arts. He’s a music collector, DJ, record label owner, music producer and visual artist. After living in the West for several years, Osinibi is back in the country to contribute his quota to the development of Nigerian music and art.
A label on the wall by the front door with Multi Kulti Arts written on it was the first indication that there is more to Ayo Osinibi than just collecting music. I had set out with the intention of engaging him on his vast music collection but upon entering the airy living room of his Maryland, Lagos home, I knew at once that we won’t be talking music alone.
Adorning the walls were large beautiful paintings and scattered on the floor were his re-designed exercise balls covered in bright, colourful fabrics.“I was told you only collect music, I didn’t know you also paint,” I said to my host who had just finished his morning workout and was still in T-shirt, slacks and trainers.
“I am involved in all areas of the arts,” he answered, walking to a table to make coffee. He offered me a cup but I declined; I don’t do coffee. Holding his cup of coffee, the DJ takes me on a quick tour of the living room and his music library, explaining the source of the artworks and why he has not finished arranging the CDs on the shelves.
I was impressed; more so when I later learn that he is a quantity surveyor. After completing his secondary school education at Government College, Ibadan, Osinibi headed to England where he did his A-levels and read Surveying at the University of Salford. He later capped this with a Masters in Business Administration from Syracuse University.
Dissatisfied professional
Interestingly, unlike some people who started their romance with the arts from an early age, Osinibi found the arts by hanging out with artists. Living in Nigeria, Tanzania where he was a volunteer for the British Voluntary Service Overseas, the UK and New York where he later founded Globalista Radio and co-founded Mulatta Records, the soft-spoken music promoter related closely with artists across genres.
Explaining why he finds the arts so alluring, Osinubi said, “It stemmed from not having any satisfaction in what I studied; I had to detach myself from that level of unfulfilled professional life and gravitate towards an area where I naturally have affection for,”
Young music collector
Music was Osinibi’s first love. “My father was a big collector; I suppose he sang in the choir. He was a diplomat working for international organisations and was constantly out of the country. When he came back, it will be with some fresh sound in the early 60s till 70s. I was always scouring through his collection and listening to them. So, when I decided to find my own taste, I started to collect as well. I bought my first album, an LP at 14 and I bought Fela’s single, ‘Jeun Koku’. I bought some Ghanaian singles too in the early 70s, maybe I was 12, 13 and I was already collecting,
“When I got into rock which was coming from abroad, there was a records store that was selling clothing as well by the Bristol Hotel area on the Island called African Bazaar. The Lebanese used to bring in a lot of rock and R&B though it wasn’t called R&B then, it was soul album. So there was me the 13 year-old. At Government College Ibadan, I was a member of the school band and in a way we were always into music from abroad. We were into Santana, I was in the set of people who were fascinated by Woodstock and we all of stole out of school to watch the Woodstock Festival at Scala Cinema or one of the cinemas ; it was a big thing for my generation.
People were always bringing in some new music into the school and that encouraged my interest in music. By the time I went to do my A-levels in the boarding school, I just went on collecting. I was collecting heavily from the middle 70s; from around 1975. By 1980 I had like 300 or 400 LP.”
The collector, who has lost track of the number of albums in his collection, has an eclectic musical taste. Starting with rock in Nigeria, he got into jazz at the university in UK where he also found Brazilian and other Latin American music.
“Sound is what fascinated me and I was getting influenced not by my immediate surrounding but by my response to other people,” said the proprietor of Multi Kulti Arts who is also a music producer.
Probed further on his musical preferences, Osinibi said, “I’m more into electronic music and cross cultural music so what I do are projects. I could call some drummers from Guinea to jam with some jazz musicians and get some electronic people or I get some electronic techno people to do some work on top of it.”
Failed trader?
Underscoring Osinibi’s love for music is his Mulatta Records based in New York where he also had a music store called Multi-Kulti Records Store.
On the music store and what became of it, he said: “The music store was selling across the board which include African, Latin, Arabic, Gypsy music. Jazz, modern classical, and I would call it old pop music. I was not a trader in spirit and I realised that for me to sustain the store it was either I give it to somebody to be running for me or I close it down because I had to become a trader instead of a musicologist interested in guiding people.
I am interested in research and scholarship more than I’m interested in making money through having a retail outlet. I would rather be paid for my knowledge or consultancy for people or for my creativity rather than be trader. So, after seven years I tried to join it with an art fashion boutique. But by the time people were stealing all the fashion items because I didn’t have a good manager, I just felt there was no way I could continue so I just found somebody to sub-let the shop and I was making profit from it.”
Trailblazer
After several years sojourn in the West, Osinibi is back home in Nigeria where his mission is to “support the musical minds of the musicians and producers.”
How do you intend to do that, I asked him?
“By introducing them to new sounds; let them see what direction they could go with their own current talent. I could play them things that would give them an opportunity to see a new way that their own musical configurations could be better used to produce a more creative output.”
As part of efforts to do this, Osinibi has already interacted with the likes of Wura Samba, Ayo Bankole, Funsho Ogundipe (Ayetoro) and some DJs from Classic FM. He also organises a Jazz Night every Thursday at Freedom Park and is also trying to collaborate with the MUSON Centre.
Resourceful producers
Asked his take on Nigerian music, Osinibi returned a positive verdict. “I’m impressed because some of the producers, like Cobhams and Don Jazzy, are borrowing from other cultures. Don Jazzy really knows how to borrow but Nigerians think it’s all from his head. He was borrowing from international music. ‘Eminado’ he did with Tiwa Savage, he borrowed it wholesale from Bachata music of
Dominican Republic.
“I am always impressed when I hear things like that but a lot of Nigerians just copy each other and the Nigerian audience, they are not really musically sophisticated to be able to appreciate nuances. Generally, Nigerians are into familiarity. Give them some lyrics that they can recognise in their own language as being funny, of the street then it’s already a hit because all they want is something familiar.
“The audience do not really challenge the artists and the artists too do not go far to challenge themselves except for some of the producers that really go out of their way to try something new, particularly Cobhams. Then, the Chocolate City crew are really trying to get into new techno ideas.”
Osinibi, whose friend had a gallery in New York eventually decided he would also become an active player in visual art when he came into some money by selling a land and investing part of the proceeds into collecting artworks and producing his own works with the assistance of artist Larry Isimah. Works made by the duo carries their joint signatures.
The overriding goal of Osinibi, who also has a very rich film library containing over 2,000 movies from across the world which he is planning to start screening to the public soon, “is to explore all the resourcefulness that I have got; whether it’s music or in cinema. My thing is to mentor. I have already been to seminars where I presented stuff to help the students. There is a lot of need to open the minds of the young and professionals who have never been out of this country to see what other people are doing and maybe learn from it.”
