Sonny Okosuns

Published Monday 18 August 2008 at 16:45 by Trevor Grundy

One of Nigeria’s greatest guitarists, songwriters and singers, Sonny Okosuns, has died after a long fight against cancer at the Howard University Hospital, Washington DC, at the age of 61. During his long, illustrious musical and theatrical career, Okosuns released more than 40 albums.

Okosuns was born in Benin City, southern Nigeria on January 1, 1947. As a youngster, he adored Western pop and would later marry it to traditional Nigerian folk songs and rhythms to produce his own style of music, Ozzidi, from the Igbo word for ‘message’.

He performed using a variety of Nigerian dialects and in 1981 caught the attention of the late Sally Mugabe (dictator Robert’s first Ghanaian-born wife), who asked him to fly to Harare the following year to celebrate the country’s anniversary of independence on April 18. In 1985 he joined Bob Dylan, Miles Davis and Bruce Springsteen in a series of anti-apartheid concerts.

In the mid-nineties, Okosuns returned to Christianity and became an evangelist, begging Pasor TB Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations at Ikoton, Egbe to help cure his colon cancer through prayer and song.

Okosuns was known for his ability to discover stars in the making, including the diva Onyeka Onweru and the samba crooner Stella Monye. In 1994 he was elected president of the Performing Musicians’ Association of Nigeria. In recent years, Okosuns’ physical health declined and towards the end of his life he was unable to speak. He died on May 24.