Performing with several bands, including one called Akindele (or Dele Jolly) and His Chocolate Dandies, and in another called the Fakunle Major Band, Owoh realized that music in West Africa was developing in a new direction, and sought out lessons on the electric guitar from musician Fatai Rolling Dollar. Owoh played drums and sang with the group when England's Queen Elizabeth visited Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1956, and he continued to perform plays mounted at the University of Ibadan. Owoh's first break came when he was hired as a musician by Nigeria's Kola Ogunmola Theatre Group, one of the country's first theatrical troupes. So, having satisfied my father, he couldn't help but bless my choice of career.' 'A trade that would take my contemporaries four or eight years to learn, I mastered in only six months.

'I learned fast,' Owoh told Tosin Ajirire of Nigeria's Daily Sun. Owoh's father insisted that Owoh learn a trade as a condition of being allowed to work on his music, and Owoh obediently apprenticed himself to a carpenter. The family moved frequently from place to place, but Owoh sought out musicians and formed bands in each place they landed. Owoh's father was a carpenter who was known around the town of Osogbo as a good part-time musician, but he greeted his son's growing interest in music with little enthusiasm. News (in an article reproduced by the Africa News online service) reported that Owoh celebrated his 70th birthday on February 14, 2002, and a 2005 report in the Nigerian Sun tabloid gave his age as 73. Some publications have assigned Owoh's birthdate to the early 1940s, but Nigeria's P.M.

Dubbed the 'King of Toye,' as he dubbed his particular musical mix, Owoh entered his fifth decade of performing with his powers and popularity undiminished.Ī member of the Yoruba ethnic group, Owoh was born Oladipupo Owomoyela in Nigeria's Oyo state. Owoh's rootsy take on highlife music led him into political realms in the turbulent Nigeria of the 1980s, and he was imprisoned for a time on drug charges. Leading groups such as the Omimah Band, the Young Kenneries, and the African Kenneries International, Owoh remained popular even as Nigerian tastes shifted to the newer juju and fuji styles. Orlando Owoh has enjoyed a durable popularity that has cut across generational lines in his home country and beyond. Box 688, Belleville, NJ 07109.Ī household name in Nigeria, Dr. Addresses: Record company-Stern's Music U.S., Inc., P.O. 1932 in Oyo state, Nigeria member of Yoruba ethnic group.

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