Music or song, if we go by its definition by the Greek Philopher, Plato, is what gives soul to the universe, wing to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.
For an average Ebira man and woman, Plato has just aptly read their mind about what Music is all about. Almost every Ebira man sings. Everything gives him a song. He values music like food or water or air. Many of them sing songs for living.
One of such professional Ebira Musicians is Ohiare Opata- Fregene. His fans know him as Fregene. He is a household name in the land for his melodious, philosophical and popular songs.
Fregene started his music thirty nine years ago(1983) when he lived at his mother’s place. He performed for just two musical seasons before he moved to his present sprawling compound in Oboroke where he annually holds his Ikede music
Fame is not his problem for his music is good. But there is something he is still hungry for. He wants to modernise his music. He wants to expand it beyond the boundary of local musical instruments. If his music has come of age, it should cut across language barriers and boundaries.
For Fregene, his audience should no longer be only Ebira people. He wants to play for Yoruba audience. He feels he should play on occasions held by House or Igbo or any other Nigerian tribe.Therefore, he said he needed to up his music, blending traditional and modern musical instruments for a vast audience.
To buy the needed modern musical equipment which he will blend with local drums, a whooping sum of money will be needed.
Speaking with The Graphic newspaper recently, Singer Ohiare Opata-Fregene said he wanted to realise his dream of taking Ebira music to the next level where those who listen to it, chorus it and dance to it will, irrespective of tribes and tongues, compare it to any music anywhere else.
” I want to expand the horizon of Ebira music. With good and modern musical instruments, our music can have better and wider appeal. We can be called to perform in any occasions because we can meet up with the standards. This blending cannot erode the nativity of Ikede. It rather enriches it,”
According to Fregene, he might need up to over three hundred million naira (#300,000,000.00) to buy mother equipments, build studios and music theatre, buy vehicle for conveying his musical instruments and mobile music Performance Stage. And he was hopeful that illustrious sons and daughters of Kogi State and other Nigerians will not disappoint him at the fund- raising event.
Success, he prays to God to give him at the end of the Fund raising occasion. He appealed to the guests to be generous in their help to make him realise his life long dream to carve a new brand of Ebira Ikede Music for the people
The event will hold on Saturday,June 18, 2022, 9 a:m at the Ministry of Women Affairs (Children Amusement Park), Lokoja.
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