Fiesta is the result of the combined efforts of 23 of the finest Nigerian musicians, featuring youthful heartthrob Mr. Kool. The producers are the best in the country: Nelson Brown, Chris Okoro and Angel Michael, with the active collaboration of Nigerian musical celebrities like Daniel Wilson, Stella ‘Atupa’ D’lyte, Black Tribe, Joane, D.J Rumple, including Patience ‘Pepe’ William Frank Easy-Daniels from the U.S.A.

The album which was elaborately recorded in Goldmine, V.I.F, Dolphin and Bob Ejike Studios presents tracks like Jealousy (featuring Mr.Kool), Iyawo Mi, (a highlife/makossa love song), Fiesta (featuring Stella ‘Atupa’ D’lyte), Mirror, Mirror, Guessin’, Surulere (featuring Black Tribe and D.J Rumple), with a remix of Ejike’s masterpiece Does Your Mama Know? Sala Maleku Africa, No Vacancy, and Adamma. The CDs were manufactured by Bob Ejike Studios, Lagos. The video clips and a backing documentary on Nigerian arts are presently being shot in Europe.

All the songs were skilfully scripted by Bob Ejike who is a gifted writer and celebrated Nollywood actor. Ejike, a former consultant to The Italian Embassy, who was recently flown into the country from Europe (where he currently works as an associate professor, author, editor, translator and international journalist), as a special guest of the Abia State Governor Dr Orji Uzor Kalu, declared that he was impressed by recent developments in the Nigerian music industry. His words, ‘for several years I have been at the vanguard of the campaign to bequeath Nigerians with a deserving entertainment industry, film, music etc, to propound our cultural heritage and improve our economic well-being. I shouted my pen dry in my Klieglights column and other publications, but no one seemed to be listening. I can proudly say that Nigeria is now beginning to develop a real music industry, not the traditional ineffective one-man-show.

I predict that within the next five years we will transfer the same magic we made in the video-film renaissance to music and music has easier acceptance than film, so I visualize a Nigeria that will be running the world music industry within the next ten years. This is why I hastened to set up the Bob Ejike Studios in (Nollywood), Surulere. I am taking charge and that means that the Nigerian youth to whom I am fully committed is taking control. There is no stopping us now!’

Professor Bob Ejike, the protagonist of Tears in Heaven, Outcast 2, Sharon Stone 2, Polygamy, Wasted Years, Wanted Alive, Maximum Risks, Homeless and Confusion among other Nigerian films is the most pronounced Nigerian artiste on the Internet www.nigerianartes.com where his music and books are already on worldwide sale. He however lists his greatest achievements as ‘launching Lillian Bach and R.M.D. ‘I pulled the behind-the-scene strings that got Miss Bach started out in Nollywood and R.M.D got his first T.V exposure in my NTA Benin movie Echoes of Wrath’.

On his invitation as special guest of the Abia State Governor, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu, Professor Ejike had this to say, ‘it was a great honour in recognition of my thirty years of varied artistic efforts, His Excellency and I put minds together to devise a modus operandi for the development of Nigerian arts and culture, this is a testimony to the high esteem that the Governor reposes on the Nigerian youth and his understanding of the oil wells that lie in our creative ability. The Action Governor assured me that when he is elected president he will do all in his power to see that Nollywood transforms into Hollywood. I think it would be wise for the youths, and indeed all Nigerians of all ages to support Governor Kalu, because he is truly committed to our future. As a show of solidarity I recorded a campaign jingle for him and I dedicate this new album Fiesta to Orji Uzor Kalu’.

Mary M. Ajayi