Yorùbá Online Classes Begin in November

 

Yorùbá Language Classes with Ìyálóde Ìràwọ̀ begin in November. ✌

 

Whether you live within or without Nigeria, you are covered because these classes will be taught online.

Register for yourself and your loved ones to get a grasp of this beautiful language.

 

MEET YOUR BOOK TO FILM SCREENWRITER

Today is October 5, 2023.

It was a delight to spend my Teachers' Day at the feet of two top Nigerian scriptwriting and filmmaking teachers;

1. Mr Jude Idada

2. Mr Femi Odugbemi

...at the Quramo Publishing: Festival Words event held at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos.

DJ Irawo

Both teachers say that ADAPTING STORIES FROM BOOKS TO SCREEN, STAGE and other forms is more difficult to achieve than writing original scriptwriting stories because of the following:

1. Deciding on what to keep and what to do away with from a book;

2. Interpreting a character's thoughts;

3. The ability of a filmmaker to afford the shooting of a film at different locations mentioned in a book;

4. Obtaining copyright permissions and intellectual property rights to a book.

ADAPTATION OF STORIES FROM BOOKS TO SCREEN AND STAGE is my area of concentration in SCRIPTWRITING.

So, as an alumnus of:

1. Scriptwriting, Africa Film Academy, Nigeria.

2. Intellectual Property Rights Law (Copyright X), Harvard Law School, USA.

3. Music, PEFTI Film Institute, Lagos, Nigeria.

4. Book Adaptation student of these two great teachers......

I can achieve what I set my mind to do.

Therefore, if you want to convert a book into a film, stage, song or poem, I am here to help you recreate your dialogues, set up a film production team and other matters that will help your audience delightfully experience your story.

I can also direct the music for your project as a Music Supervisor. 

Mr Jude Idada and DJ Irawo

HIRE ME!

#screenwriter

#screenwriter

#bookadapter

#musiccomposer

#musicsupervisor

#soundtrackcomposer

 

 

 

THE DRUMMING NEW WORLDS PROJECT

 

Our group award as presented to us by the director of Goethe Institut, Lagos on Friday, September 15, 2023.

Last week, I mentioned on my Facebook profile that I was going to defend my project about the Dùndún Talking Drum and the Yorùbá Language and how they relate to technology at the Dreaming New World technology pitch.

Honestly, at that time, I did not understand what was going on. I did not even believe that I would be selected for the long list as I was simply going around in a rigmarole about what could be a suitable project idea.

How does technology concern the talking drum and the Yorùbá language? 😀

Well, my personal project explains it.

It is titled:

THE ACE in the ACHILLES' HEEL of AI

This project was among the long list of twenty projects selected from the multitude of entries.

Here, I wrote about:

💢Speculative Futures for Indigenous Technologies

This refers to the multiple ways in which indigenous knowledge is used to improve the lives of humans and ancient practices that have existed in various parts of the world and are still relevant and prevalent today.

What is relevant today in my indigenous culture, is the talking drum and of course, the Yorùbá language, which is the primary language used to play this talking drum.

Thus, no matter the existence of AI, there are some things that AI cannot do yet like manufacturing a talking drum or creating beats from it.

💢An Evolution of Language in the Face of Emerging Technologies.

Technology expands indigenous languages by generating new words with them such as internet, emoji, hashtag, artificial intelligence, infographics, gifs, etc.

The Yorùbá language is a dynamic one which evolves according to the growth and improvement in technology.

For example, social media can be called AYÉLÙJÁRA in the Yorùbá language.

This word did not exist in the Yorùbá language twenty years ago.

So, the existence of AI in technology is to my advantage as a Yorùbá indigene because technology enriches the Yorùbá language with more words.

💢Ethical Approaches to New Technologies in Africa

Information generated from Artificial intelligence cannot possess intellectual property rights in many countries as they are reserved for human beings only.

Thus, restrictions to aid the protection of rights have been enacted in countries like the USA where, if a person must use AI to generate words to write a book, lyrics, scriptwriting, etc., it must be mentioned in the article that that content was generated using AI.

This is because the information provided by AI is pulled from online sources which have been uploaded by their copyright owners from all over the world.

AI does not seek the permission of these copyright owners before using these intellectual property rights from the sources of information which it provides to those who use ChapGPT.

Thus, artificial intelligence tools and the works generated by them need to be protected by copyrights and patents.

Therefore, as much as AI helps to make my creative process faster, I do not support that it should be used to create the sound of the talking drum as it is unethical.

Its use will steal from the intellectual property rights of the indigenous drum composers and rip off their daily bread as most of the indigenous talking drummers from the Àyàn families have no other means of livelihood.

💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢

Afterwards, the twenty participants were grouped into four groups of five each.

So, we had five projects from each individual in a group to choose from.

My group members chose to work on my talking drum idea by finding ways to improve its sound and features by developing a new prototype for it.

The following team members will be bringing on their expertise in the following areas:

Member 1: Directing, Film and Photography

Member 2: Design and Experiential Technology

Member 3: Research and Experiential Planning.

Member 4: Poetry and Storytelling

Member 5: Music, Linguistics and Research (Irawo)

So, we came up with the name for our group project; DRUMMING NEW WORLDS.

Out of the four groups, my team, TEAM 4, won the competition!!!💥💪😇

Below are our group pictures and my personal award:

My team and I as we accepted our award from the director of Goethe Institut.

Our Project

Brainstorming Session before our presentation

My shirt was designed by my first son who is a visual and applied artist

It is a pleasure to work with an amazing team. I look forward to the presentation of our exhibition in November. ✌

Musically yours,

DJ Irawo

TRIBAL LANGUAGE SHOULD NOT CAUSE A DIVISION IN THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF MUSIC

 

(c) guardian.ng

Did we understand Awilo Logomba or Fali Ipupa when they were serenading us with their makossa beats in their incomprehensible African languages?

Yet, we appreciated them.

Na Naija carry dia music for head pass.

As for Àṣàkẹ́'s beats, they fall under one sub-genre of afrobeats which is amapiano with a different melody and pitch all of the time.

His messages are happy and feel good.

His singing and chanting styles of call and response are his logos.

Àṣàkẹ́ lost the Best New International award to Cameroonian star, Libianca.

Fans of Libianca say she sings in the English language is the reason why she won the award. 😏😒

I have a feeling that this opinion rubbed off on the BET award academy too.

They say they do not understand Yorùbá but they will spend millions to go and learn Mandarin in China.

You rate Swahili over Yorùbá.

Ọna no dey alright rárá!

Yorùbá to the world!!!

Just because of the popularity of Nigerian music in Yorùbá, the world will start paying Yorùbá teachers to learn this beautiful language.

I am proud of you, Asake. Keep doing what you do.

I love your style of music. 💓

Musically Yours,

DJ Irawo

Gender Discrimination in the Nigerian Music Industry - A Musician's Reflection

On Day 5, Saturday, June 24, 2023, I presented a paper at the Lagos Studies Association Conference at the University of Lagos on the topic of Gender Discrimination in the Nigerian Music Industry: A Musician's Reflection. 

I decided to convert my conference speech into a journal. Below is my abstract. Also, click on the journal image below to purchase it at N1,200. 

ABSTRACT

With the gendering of popular culture, the music industry has become sexualized, politicized and controlled by male music business executives hence creating an absence of self-esteem, self-respect, self-realization and career dissatisfaction among female musicians that automatically disenables the treatment of these women with fairness, justice and representation as ingenious artists, thoughtful composers, critical commenters on socio-political issues and above all, humans with their own emotions, feelings and flaws. This paper proffers solutions on how female musicians can navigate the music industry on their own terms in a society that sees the female body as a toy and lesser performer before it sees her creative abilities. The primary sources of data used in this research are based on the writer’s personal experiences as a musician and disc jockey and from answers gotten from chatting with three anonymous female musicians. The secondary sources of data are derived from blogs, podcasts and journals which focus on the experiences of nine female musicians namely: Queen Oladunni Decency, Salawa Abeni, Onyeka Onwenu, Waje, Simi, Tiwa Savage, Niniola, Niyola and Yemi Alade. DJ Irawo’s experiences also reveal that some of the problems experienced by female musicians are self-inflicted or caused by nature. This study concludes that feminism must play a role in encouraging female musicians to have self-esteem and strive for longevity in their careers by working hard and smart, independently and collaboratively in the achievement of their music goals.