Building on my March 2020 Tribute to Dr Victor Olaiya – Highlife’s “Evil Genius”, in May 2020, I paid tribute to Another African Music Legend, Tony Allen, but more recently, the singer, actor, broadcaster and activist, Onyeka Onwenu, whose love ballads and songs about women’s rights were a soothing balm during Nigeria’s rocky 1980s and earned her the nickname “Elegant Stallion”, has died at 72.
As reported in the UK Guardian Newspaper, she had just finished a performance at a private party in Lagos when she became ill and died hours later at a nearby hospital, having suffered a heart attack. She was best known for the disco anthem One Love (1986), and You and I (1991), which was repurposed for the 1999 movie, Conspiracy – which she also starred in – and is widely regarded as one of the most iconic soundtracks of Nollywood, the world’s second-largest film-production industry.
Just in case you missed it, one song that stands out for me and is etched in my memory is, and remains, Odenigbo calling for the unification of her homeland, Nigeria.
Adieu “Elegant Stallion” aka Onyeka Onwenu.