BEVERLY HILLS, May 24, (THEWILL) – If someone describes himself as an Africanist, you know exactly what he means – a champion of anything African especially culturally. If the same person tells you of his ambition to run a television network devoted only to African arts and culture, you know he wants to live up to his name.
Oluwayomi Bosede is the most unlikely individual you ever hope to take up a continental cause like he has. He was born in Akure, Ondo state but studied Molecular Oncology at the University of Ilorin, Kwara state where he graduated. So, anyone would reasonably expect the science graduate specializing in the root causes of cancer at the molecular level to be in monkish seclusion in a spotless lab coat peering in petri dishes in equally squeaky-clean laboratories.
It has not been so. Indeed, for several years now after his youth service in Asaba, Delta state, Oluwayomi has turned away from what he read in school and taken up music. For one, he describes himself as “naturally talented in music,” having logged in more than 20 years in the profession.
It all began when Oluwayomi aka Yomi Africa started as a tenor at the Cathedral of St David’s Church, Akure, where he won an award as the best tenor. Of course, he has the perfect build of men who fill concerts with their remarkable voices, voices that can carry far without the aid of a microphone. (Here, the great Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, comes to mind. Usually, such men are well built, complete with bull-like necks sitting on equally powerful chests, two parts of the body tenors cannot do without in resonating their voice.)
By his own admission, Yomi Africa has also directed church choir groups at Ilorin and elsewhere. He would later improve on that during his youth service in Asaba, Delta state where he took up the piano and keyboard, eventually ending up as the state pianist for his batch fellow youth corp members.
More than anything, however, the molecular oncologist wants to start a television station dedicated to arts and culture, nothing but arts and culture. If he pulls it off, then he would have scored a first in the continent.
“My idea of setting up a continental television is based on my drive to showcase the beauty in African culture,” Yomi Africa told THEWILL in a WhatsApp message last week. “I believe Africa has a very rich cultural heritage and dynamic ways of ethnic groups with different traits. We have our culture, we have beautiful places in Africa, we have our museums and different festivals…to showcase these features to the rest of the world, but through our music, hence the African Art Music TV.”
As it is, there is an online version, “an already established TV network dedicated to promoting African classical music or the Art Music of Africa,” Yomi insists.
The online version is as important as the expected network. “It is an electronic TV network for now,” he told THEWILL, “because we need to create enough awareness, and the social media is a very important tool to achieve this.”
Of course, setting up such a TV network is capital intensive. Yomi is aware of that more than anyone, a point he conceded during the interview. “Starting a new TV network and transmission may be difficult to sustain. If there is enough information, online awareness and convincing evidence that the network will impact lives positively, especially the target audience.”
And who are the target audience? AAMTV is aimed at both old and young people but specifically at music directors and conductors, music teachers and their wards, choir members and instrumentalists, even art and culture enthusiasts. What are they likely to watch on AAMTV?
Mostly African inspired programmes, compositions by African musicians, the companies that employ them as well as cultural festivals and interviews with culture personalities.
All well and good if he manages to pull it off. AAMTV has networks in 10 – 15 African countries, Yomi insinuated, with plans to “create branches in all those countries in a short while.” He also says that with AAMTV, “we can network Africa as a whole and even connect with Africans in the diaspora.”
“Production and delivery of excellent, creative and quality musical contents are our core values,” he continues, “the originality of African music because it connects us to who truly are…to create an impression that will lead to a paradigm shift in the way Africa is perceived globally.”
It is just very possible that when worshippers converge this August at Osun River for the annual Osun Osogbo Festival, viewers can sit back at home and watch thousands of devotees dip themselves in the sacred stream for spiritual rebirth.
It isn’t that such pilgrimages don’t make it to a few local channels. They do. But no one television station has devoted as much time to a spectacular cultural event as they would a run-off election anywhere in Nigeria. True, there is Art House in Channels Television for now, a 45-minute programme popular with the culturati. But there is no known station that can boast of airing only arts and culture programmes. This is what African Art Music TV aims to do.
Book fairs and book presentations will be fair game for AAMTV when it begins transmission, just as famous writers such as the one and only Kongi, Odia Ofeimun, Chimamanda Adichie and many more will have their time, if only to discuss what they know best – writing and literature for a change from the all-too common talk on and about politics.
“The ultimate goal of African Art Music TV,” Yomi has said, “is to showcase African Art, Culture and lifestyle through music.”
Sow a thought and you reap an idea. Sow an idea and you reap an action. In no distant time, the culturati in the continent will benefit from Yomi’s grand idea about a television station with a specialized broadcast – arts and culture, nothing but arts and culture.
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.
