MARRIAGE IS NOT TOO LATE FOR ME

Amebo source do small Amebo with the Samba Queen, Stella Monye, on her 30 years on stage, challenges and other issues

Was the tag ‘Samba Queen’ coined by you?

I got it from an album I did a long time ago titled ‘Arigo Samba’. The press just picked it up and tagged me ‘Samba Queen’. It wasn’t as if I came up with the name.

You have been in the industry for so many years but somehow, some people, especially the younger generation, don’t know you as much as they know some of your contemporaries…

I am not in peoples’ faces because I wasn’t ‘sitting’ on television sets or newspapers and radio stations. I was just working and I didn’t need to go to the media. I wasn’t particular about the klieg lights. I was still doing my shows, going for engagements and all that. But then again, there was a time I went on break for six years, during which time I worked with an NGO. The NGO is a faith-based one and the head office was in Apapa, Lagos. The founder of the NGO invited me to come and assist him to run the place. When he saw my administrative ability, he kept me on and on and I almost forgot I was an artiste. It was a little distraction. Then again, I did human right activities with the founder of the NGO. We did road shows and we did a lot of social work. We fed beggars and the less privileged. I was neck deep in that project.

I guess the NGO was Guranga Foundation owned by former PMAN president, Bolaji Rosiji?

Yes.

Did you have a mere working relationship?

There were lots of misconceptions when I worked with Bolaji. People didn’t know I had known Bolaji for more than 20 years. Then, he wasn’t a member of Hare Krishna. He came from Spain to set up a studio in Nigeria and I used the studio for my recordings back then. From there, we became good friends. We would sit down and talk and talk. I guess he didn’t have lots of friends in Nigeria. I came in handy then. After then, he left the country and I think he became a missionary. He was travelling all over the world and there was no communication.

You didn’t see him again?

No. the next time I saw him was at PMAN secretariat when Charly Boy invited him for a programme. He told me about the NGO and he said I should come on board. That was when I discovered I had administrative abilities because he gave me so much liberty. If you needed anything from him, he would tell you to come to me. So, people couldn’t understand why he gave me so much power. He could go to sleep while the job was done.

But the story was that you people were in a relationship…

That was very sad. I took charge but only because I was doing my job. I attended to everybody that needed to be attended to. He directed a lot of people to me. It meant I knew what I was doing. I don’t why people had to turn the story around. You know that people are wicked. People just sat down in their homes and cooked up stories. They never came to me for anything that I didn’t attend to. They never brought any issue that I didn’t tell Bolaji about. They just referred to me as an obstacle. If I was an obstacle, I wouldn’t have lasted that long.

Why did you leave?

I had already stayed six years and I had to bow out. It wasn’t as if Bolaji said he had had enough of me. But I told him I wanted to go and do an album. I wanted to bounce back to work. I told him I needed to be what I used to be and he gave me his blessings and said he would be there to support me. That was how it was.

Some of your contemporaries, dead and alive, became more prominent than you. Were you not envious of their success?

Envy is not a part of me. I don’t come out to the forefront like some other people. I don’t like to throw myself out there, I withdraw a lot. If I had my way, I wouldn’t have wanted my pictures on my tracks. That is the kind of person I am. But while the others were busy getting to the zenith, I was busy doing other things in the background such that I didn’t want to push myself about. I went into Samba Wears. Then again, I was representing my country at different fora. I attended a lot of festivals. It is sad that others were getting national honours and nobody thought of me. But life is how you programme it or how God makes it. You have to take authority over your life. It might be that my PR was bad in the past and I didn’t have anybody to project me.

You mentioned PMAN earlier. Is it not sad the way things have been on in that association?

It is very sad. In fact, so many things have made me sad in these 30 years of my career. I think we, the icons, should take the blame in this issue. If we didn’t vacate the place, hooligans wouldn’t have taken over. It is like when you leave your father’s house in the village and nobody is there to take care of it. Of course, grass will take over the place and hoodlums will start hanging around the compound. That was what happened in the case of PMAN. All the real musicians and important people left the place. Now, everybody is crying foul and saying we ought to fix PMAN. Why did we leave it in the first place?

You sing in Yoruba.

I sing in so many languages, including Hausa and Igbo. But the DJs preferred playing the Yoruba songs and they made me more popular.

You grew up in the South-West?

Yes. I was born in Ibadan but I grew up in Lagos.

You got into the music industry when it was not so popular for females to be singers. How did you cope?

Ah! It was very tough. My dad wanted me to be a lawyer. He tried to stop me. He would come with policemen to arrest me, he would burn my clothes and at times, he shaved my hair. But all those didn’t deter me. I was 14 years the first time I went to Art Alade’s show. I found my way to NTA and I told the man that I could sing. And just like that, he told me to come the following Monday for a recording. I couldn’t believe it. I ran home and I went back to NTA that Monday and I recorded. I told my parents that they would see me on Art Alade’s show. At that point, my father had to relax a bit and supported me and since then, I never looked back.

Scandals trail female singers a lot even till now. How did you cope?

It is so funny. When musicians do something, everybody gets to hear about it. It has to do with our profession because we are into show business. We have so many loose women in other sectors but nobody talks about them. If you go to Allen Avenue, you will see so many prostitutes standing on the road. They are not musicians. As we have bad habits in every sector, so we have in the music industry.

Would you say that your profession may have been the reason you are not married?

It absolutely had something to do with it. I told myself I would take care of my career before getting married. In the process of wanting to take care of my career, it took so long. It is just like travelling to a far place and instead of eating, you decide that you’ll wait till you get to your destination and somehow, you die before you get to your destination. I felt there wouldn’t be any Nigerian man that would understand that your work was a career. It was a misconception on my side. I never took time to give men a chance.

So suitors were coming?

Oh yes, they were coming. One actually said a good girl who goes out to work should get home by 5pm. I didn’t understand what he was saying. I told him that my work actually starts by 5pm and ends in the morning. I became scared of him. I told him I wasn’t working in an office. I felt he was trying to ‘bench’ me and I didn’t want that. I met another one from the North who said I would need to be covering myself up more. He said he was a royalty and as such, I shouldn’t be jumping on the stage. He said his tradition didn’t permit it. So, that one had to end. I probably wasn’t lucky to have met a guy who would have taken me despite my career.

If you had met such a person, would you have married him?

I would have taken a chance if I loved him. My feelings were important as well. I would have found out if the person would have been worth spending the rest of my life with.

Have you ruled out your chances of marriage?

No way. Absolutely not! My friends would tell me that I didn’t get married in the morning and I actually think I would be able to get married now? But I tell them it is no problem. I know I will meet somebody who may be in his 60s or 70 who will desire me and decide to keep me in his house.

Wouldn’t you want a younger lover?

I am not one of such people who go out with younger men. If you are young and you give me unnecessary compliments, I will ask you where your mother is. I detest young men trying to be in a relationship with older women. I have a lot of my mates out there who I can relate with, so I have not ruled out marriage. I might see somebody who was also waiting like me. We would meet one day.

But in your sober moments, do you wish you were married and bearing a man’s name?

I don’t think so. I am a very restless person. At times, I think it might not have worked. I am so independent. I always want to be on my own. I can’t even share my bed with somebody. It is that bad. I can’t even share my bed with my child. If my child sits on my bed, I will ask him what he is doing there. If I lie on the same bed with somebody, I won’t be able to sleep. I don’t like the body contact.

Does it mean you have not been in a sexual relationship?

I didn’t say that. But I am saying it is difficult for me to spend so many hours on the same bed with somebody. It is very difficult for me.

And how will you cope if you get married?

I will have my own room and he will have his own room. That is the kind of arrangement I want. Infact, I’ll even prefer he has his own house and I have mine. That is the only way it will work. I can’t be looking at one face for too long. I get bored easily.

Tell us about your relationship with the late Sunny Okosun.

I’ll rather not discuss it. It is a whole book. I’ll write the book later. Let’s not talk about it.

But that relationship produced a child who, it is widely believed, that you have an estranged relationship with. How come the relationship is strained?

That is not true. I have a great relationship with my daughter. All I know is that she has been in America all her life. We never lived together. She left for the US at a very tender age. If you never spent time with somebody for a long time, when you eventually see, you would be strangers at first before you become friends.

Who sent her to the US?

It was her father. He sent all his children to America.

That means you never had any say in her life when she was growing up?

No I didn’t. She grew up to be very independent and strong.

Are you friends now?

We are very good friends. We relate very well. She just called me not too long ago. I don’t know what people are saying. It was just that she lived in America all her life and as soon as she came back, we just hit it off. She has a lot of my characteristics.

What of your son that had health challenges some time ago?

He is okay now.

Did you get financial help that period you needed funds to take him to the hospital?

We had a lot of challenges then. Some people made away with the money realised. Some people ran away with the money they got from several organisations. There was a time a bank accidentally sent me a letter. I found out that one NGO wrote to the bank and was asking for money for my son’s hospital bills. The bank sent the reply to me directly. I never met the owners of the NGO, I didn’t know what they were doing and nobody got back to me. People got enriched with the money they got from people that time. I was so tired that period; I didn’t even have the strength to investigate anything.

How have you coped as a single mother?

It hasn’t been easy. It means you have to work at every occasion. There was a time I had diabetes. I was taken to the hospital and the doctor asked me why I came alone. I told him I didn’t have anybody. I was admitted and I was just staring at the ceiling. There was nobody to take care of me. It dawned on me that I was alone. But I was able to take care of myself.

Why didn’t you marry the father of your son?

He died. He died when he was young. I would have considered him. He was an okay guy. He was vibrant and kind. He died at the age of 34.

Would you say your career made you commercially successful?

It did not. My first album, Oko Mi, was very successful but the record company told me it lost the sales book so they didn’t pay me anything. An engineer in that company told me that that album was platinum. But I never received one penny. But God has been on my side. If not for him, I would have been on the road begging.

You have spent 30 years in the industry. How has it been all this while?

It has been most interesting, especially when you make mistakes and you are given the opportunity to make amends. Even the obstacles along the way have gathered to shape me into who I am today.

You don’t look like somebody who has spent 30 years in the industry. Does it mean you became a professional singer when you were less than 10?

(Laughs) One prominent lady in the country asked me that recently. I tell you, time flies. Before you know it, you are clocking so many years in your profession. I just thank God for all the years and that I am still alive to talk about it.

What is making you roll out the drums to celebrate this 30th anniversary?

Actually, it wasn’t my idea. Some friends came together and said I ought to celebrate this. But I told them I wasn’t ready for that because I wanted to leave the country. But they told me that everybody that left the country came back. But I told them I had other interests which I wanted to pursue. But they stopped me and we started the arrangements and we haven’t looked back since then.

How come you decided to leave the country now when your contemporaries left so many years ago, especially when the music industry became really tough as all the record companies folded up?

Yes, a whole lot of people left the country then. But we all couldn’t have left. It would have been worse. The vacuum would have been so wide to fill. I stayed back because I believe in Nigeria, I believe in Africa. I am an African to the core. I didn’t believe you had to leave your country to go and make it outside the country. Even when I decided to leave, I didn’t intend to go and settle abroad. I had just wanted to go and do a couple of things. It wasn’t okay for me to leave my country and go and live in another man’s country. I don’t want to be anybody’s slave in another country when I am a queen here.