ISAIAH KEHINDE DAIRO MBE 
1931 - 1996 
Dapo 
Adeniyi 
FOR years, it had seemed to me that two separate I.K. 
Dairos existed. The one who was the popular musician, 
whose fame completely embraced the whole of the 
West African sub-continent in the early 1960s, possibly 
the entire African continent or even the whole world! 
(Afterall wasn't he the one who roused the English 
royalty during a 1963 invitation to the United Kingdom 
by Queen Elizabeth II, who also awarded him the MBE? 
He performed at the Westminster Theatre in 1964 where 
his audience included the late Nasser of Egypt and 
members of the House of Lords).
And then there was the other I.K 
Dairo whom we knew within the walls of 
our own compound in Ijebu-Jesa and also 
in family circles in Lagos simply as 
'Daddy I.K.' And so, it was little surprising 
that the man should die twice. 
Before the decease in Lagos on 
February 7, he had fallen ill, immediately 
following his return to Nigeria from a 
year-long residency programme in the 
United States of America where he was 
available as a resource person to 
American Universities. Word about the 
illness even frittered through to the Nigerian 
press and thus prepared the public mind 
for what became the inevitable. But still, 
is not in any way near what I described as 
the 'other death.' 
Two years ago, a female rushed 
into our home in Lagos and announced 
between gasps for breath that Daddy I.K 
was dead. The consternation, disbelief 
and bewilderment experienced differently 
by individual recipients of this news in the 
household goes beyond description. We 
remained in this state for about a half hour 
before word came to us again that it was 
not our uncle the famous musician that 
died but rather the father of a friend to one 
of our younger cousins living some streets 
away from us; that friend to our cousin 
was nicknamed ' I . K' and it was her 
daddy who had died; our first informer 
misheard. 
Therefore when two weeks ago a 
much older relation arrived in the morning 
and woke us to the news of yet another 
death we somehow hoped for an eventual 
annulment of the death for a second time 
but, this time was not to be; in less than 
an hour afterwards his old-time records 
began to waft out from the different 
national radio bands with continuity 
announcers bemoaning the passing away 
of a legend and a phenomenon, and with 
it, a whole musical era. 
And if Dairo indeed died two times, 
it is no wonder, with hindsight, that he 
should have lived two lives. Over the 
years I have tried to reconcile the public 
figure with the private figure, finding very 
little resemblance between the two - 
beyond perhaps the facial, the 
demeanour; for whether at home or at the 
marketplace our own Daddy I.K. 
maintained that benevolent facial 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 1/NO 3 
expression much resembling a fixated 
mask which he ensured that he never once 
took off, saving of course that this one 
mask was much capable of distensions 
and pleasant muscle movements. 
Before I fall into the temptation of 
eulogising, I may hasten to say that nearly 
every person with a public image lives 
more than one life — from the great 
statesman, the athletic star to the scientific 
inventor or church reverend, and others. 
Public perception is often not nearly a 
good replica of the other life lived in the 
private, beyond the glare of strangers. It 
was at home that they were reduced to 
human beings, and shown to be capable 
of chattering excitedly among friends or 
sitting uninhibited at supper behind a high 
mound of eba or pounded yam. 
At home, he certainly was not a 
musician. No evidence, beyond the usual 
clump of BLUE SPOTS bandboys who 
milled around the outer block of the vast 
family compound in Ijebu-Jesa, that he 
was musical in any way. No drum strayed 
into the living quarters, no disused guitars, 
and Daddy would never hum at home. As 
a boy I compared the tremulous voice from 
the phonodisc album that spun atop the 
ancient 'changer' or resonated from the 
radio with his, in private conversations at 
home and found no correlation. I could 
have sworn that they were two distinct 
persons and certainly concluded that he 
did so deliberately. Also, we mixed freely 
with the bandboys, most of whom indulged 
us boys with shining 'shilling' (actually ten 
kobo) coins; some offered us discreet 
lessons on the rhythm and bass guitar - but 
we knew Daddy would disapprove. Time 
also proved our instincts to be correct. The 
first person to get into trouble was an older 
cousin, Victor, spawned by Taiwo Dairo 
(thought to be the twin of Daddy I.K. Truth 
however was that Baba Taye is the elder, 
their mother having excelled above all the 
other larger family wives in her ability to 
spawn twins repeatedly; Baba Taye's 
Kehinde had died early, only for their 
mother to deliver another set of twins. The 
Taiwo of the other set died too and left 
Daddy I.K.). 
Victor had shown more than a mere 
interest in Juju music. At school in Ede, 
near Osogbo, he enrolled in the college 
choral group and began to try his hands 
on the talking drum. Soon, Victor's craft 
began to be known around the schools in 
the local division, his reputation being 
obviously enhanced by his association 
with his famous musician uncle. Adivisional 
competition among schools became 
Victor's crowning event; he revelled on his 
drum with such craft that he won himself a 
new gangan drum and certificate of 
excellence. 
If Victor had been only wiser! He 
brought his trophies home and brandished 
them before his parents expecting praises 
Daddy I.K. could not be more displeased; 
Victor only narrowly escaped taking a 
scar back to his college on his back! 
Looking at it again now, Daddy's 
demurral of his siblings' treading the same 
path as he must have had its root elsewhere 
and not merely in a wish to have us try 
other professions outside of music. My 
own trouble with him on the same subject 
will bring this out more clearly Victor, to 
be sure, earned I.K.'s reproof perhaps 
because it was in Ede, the location of 
Victor's secondary school, that I.K. himself 
started out in life, first as a local tradesman's 
apprentice with one Jewole and later, as 
the story goes, with another Osomaalo, 
Bolarinwa Ajilore. He also worked at Ede 
and its environs under the civil construction 
company, Cappa and D'alberto, stealing 
off to associate with inchoate juju groups 
during their weekend gigs. The harshness 
of those years, and their sheer waste, in 
Daddy's own estimation (considering that 
he was blundering from profession to 
profession - he even tried to be o carpenter 
-) must have contributed more directly to 
his disapproval of Victor's 'blundering' 
into music whilst at school. 
But so did Ranti, another of his 
nephews in our own college in Ijebu-ljesa, 
and I. (Ranti's father is Oye, the only 
member of the Dairo family in the Blue 
Spots Band. Oye will be I. K's successor 
now, after the decease). How mine began 
is hard to recall beyond the fact that I 
started first to be attracted to the person of 
one of the teachers, Alfred Nana Osei, a 
Ghanaian, who owned an electronic 
guitar, shipped in from Ghana, complete 
with its pristine amplifier and home-built 
loud-speaker. I was assigned from the 
dormitory to take water to Osei when I met 
him twanging away in his quarters. Hs 
dismissed me with difficulty that first time 
but could not prevent more frequent calls.
Ronti had the same idea and before we 
knew it had brought in more of our friends, 
girls included, to form the school's highlife 
band. Ranti and I had drumming 
backgrounds from the church of the 
Cherubims and Seraphims which we 
attended at home but Ranti also 
distinguished himself as a vocalist. Word 
did not leak to the town about our activities, 
but that was until I had more ideas of my 
own. I pestered my mother for funds 
(needless I say, that included inflating the 
costs of school books and boarding house 
requirements) which got me a brand new 
box guitar! Since the mstrument had to 
follow me home from school, it did not 
take long before questions began to be 
asked about how I came by it, and so on. 
And unfortunately, Daddy I.K. had just 
returned from one of his tours and therefore 
was on hand to witness my 'court-martial.' 
His was a combination of remonstration 
and bemonderment: 
'You actually intend to go on and play 
music?' 
'No Daddy.' 
'But this guitar... why then did you go 
and buy it?' 
Others jeered and suggested my 
instant withdrawal from the school and be 
enlisted with the Blue Sports Band. Daddy 
however did not find it funny. Shrugging, 
finally, he said, 
'Not that I am totally opposed to 
your playing music. you see, you have to 
understand the nature of handicap which 
some of us had to experience. You need 
education, son. If you will only be patient... 
read your books first... you can even go 
to England and read music. ' 
I wanted to let him know that I 
already had acquired the application 
forms to the Trinity College of Music and 
the Royal Academy of Music, both in 
London but knew it wouldn't help my 
case. 
I watched I.K. transform elegantly 
and gradually from his private self to the 
public whenever the opportunity presented 
itself to ride with him in his brand new 
'civilian' bus on his musical outings around 
Ijebu-Jesa town and suburbs or to llesa. 
Sometimes we accompanied him on his 
visitations to acquaintances of his and 
friends. If he had but known that I would 
later stray out of school and follow one of 
Mesa's juju bands on their nightly 
engagements, having made my own 
contacts through Mr. Osei with Kayode 
Okere who enlisted me as an unofficial 
apprentice but guessed nothing of my 
filial ties with their great hero. 
With Daddy IK 's decease, they 
are now mostly gone, beginning with The 
Historian (the writer's father); the guard of 
uncles and fathers have severely 
dissipated. Dairo hardly recovered from 
the loss of The Historian (who kept family 
records of mostly births and deaths and 
national catastrophes) when our dearly 
beloved General de Gaulle, older than 
I.K. by a few weeks (says The Historian) 
followed the same way. The proceeding 
year swallowed Barber, another uncle 
and his wife Bernice, the washerwoman; 
she was a cherished companion of mama 
Wuraola, I. K.'sown mother, and Itanola, 
I.K's immediate older sister, who together 
pursued a proud career as washerwomen 
in Ijebu-Jesa. February 1996 had not 
elapsed when S. O. Dairo, the carpenter, 
also had a failed surgery in Ibadan and 
died. 
The Unfinished Portrait 
For us in the house, it signifies that 
a generation is passed, drawing all of its 
own with it. For Nigeria it signifies no less, 
that a musical phase of its history is 
concluding. The last decade has in like 
manner seen the transition of icons like 
Adeolu Akinsanya (Baba Eto), Roy 
Chicago and Bobby Benson. For me, the 
twin signifiersare, first of all the depletion 
of the human operators whose work helped 
to define the generation in the first place. 
Secondly is the succession of stylistic 
types (among the musicians) which depart 
essentially from their older types, however 
much they are linked. 
Dairo is undoubtedly a national 
loss, a loss shared passionately by the 
whole world of music. The inevitability of 
death notwithstanding, he died at V_ 
youthful age of 65; qualitatively, a man of 
that age has not finished his work. For 
instance, he had been increasingly 
involved with educating musicians and 
students of African music in recent years. 
This regrettably has been appreciated 
more and sought by universities outside 
Nigeria. The death then means in essence 
that a vast treasurehouse of musical ideas 
has gone up in flames. 
Much earlier than the events of my 
boyhood venturing into music was a sort 
of obsession with fine art. In fact it held no 
fascination as such as a college subject 
but as private pastime. I found my latent 
ability, waiting only to be released, in the 
area of drawing. I could observe 
phenomena and trace my perspective out 
on paper, with pencil. Then, I turned to the 
almanacs on the walls of the parlour of 
our home. My favourite initially was a 
coloured almanac of Jesus with 
outstretched arms, the words, 'This I Did 
for You' inscribed boldly on it. My handdrawn 
version became quite precise about 
His curly hair and face, which struck me 
at that time as uniquely Indian. Even 
indifferent, illiterate elders stopped by to 
comment about the adroit replication of 
the 'sacred heart' and the streams of 
blood that made fine impressions on His 
cheeks, seeping right into His tubula 
garment. 
Next I turned to two framed 
photographs in the bedroom. The first 
was that of, we were told, a dear friend of 
I.K's, whose name pronounced as 
'Igbinedoh' (Chief Igbinedion of Benin). 
He donned a suit, and flashed such 
impressive, robust cheeks. It was he, 
according to one of the boys, who 
endowed I.K's outsized truck, a brand of 
the Hino. Rested on the wardrobe was a 
photograph of I.K. himself, resplendent in 
ofi tops and headgear (handwoven cloth). 
No doubt he was conscious of the historical 
significance of this one picture and gave 
his best pose. There was the usual hint of 
benevolent smile on his face. I turned on 
this photo and carefully carved it out with 
as much precision as I could muster, 
tracing the hat first and then the frame of 
his face. But I never went beyond the 
arena of nostrils; somehow something 
about the slab of nose resisted replication, 
and remained so even after days of 
greater sweat-soaked effort. In the end I 
had to be content with the portrait 
unfinished, and abandoned it. 
This like hundreds of such childhod 
recalls receded into the fog of memory. 
But that is, until the occurrence of the 
death last month. Somehow, this same 
photograph resurfaced in Lagos and was 
mounted in the house in Lawanson, Lagos! 
African Quarterly 
an the Arts 
VtLVNOi
Under it lay the visitors' condolence 
register. UnJer it also were the great 
memories of I.K. Dairo's unsurpassed 
honours inscribed by his hordes of fans 
and journalists which thronged the house. 
The theme is: 
'Books - Essential Tools 
for Development.' 
The book fair will bring 
together publishers, 
booksellers, writers, printers, 
librarians, journalists, 
distributors and various book 
lovers within the sub-region. It 
will be a meeting point for 
literary specialists from Africa, 
Europe, USA and other parts 
of the world. 
Accra, with this event, 
reasserts itself as the gateway 
to the rich and vibrant book 
market in West Africa and it 
will host the Ghana 
International Book Fair every 
two years. There will be other 
events like conferences, 
seminars and workshops. 
The first Ghana 
International Book Fair is being 
organised by the Ghana Trade 
Fair Authority and Ministry of 
Education in collaboration 
with the Ghana Book 
Development Council, the 
Ghana Book Publishers 
Association, the Ghana 
Booksellers Association, the 
Ghana Association of Writers, 
the Library Association, the 
Ghana Printers and Paper 
Converters Association and 
the Children's Literature 
Foundation. 
Activities 
The Book Fair will be 
held in Pavilions D, E & F in the 
spacious Accra International 
First Ghana International Book Fair 
THE first Ghana 
International Book 
Fair (GIBF) will be held 
at the International 
Trade Fair Centre, 
Accra, from 6 to 12 
November, 1996. 
Trade Fair Centre. The first 
two days, 6 and 7 November, 
1996 will be set aside for 
trade visitors. The Fair will be 
opened to the general public 
(schools, colleges, etc.) from 8 
to 12 November, 1996. 
Stand construction will 
be undertaken within the 
period 25 October - 2 
November, 1996. 
Seminars, conferences 
and workshops on various 
topics will be organised for 
publishers, printers, writers, 
librarians and booksellers 
during the Fair. 
The prestigious Noma 
Award for 1996 will also be 
presented during the Fair. 
Facilities 
The Ghana International 
Trade Fair Centre covers 
approximately 49 hectares. It 
is within easy reach of the 
Kotoka International Airport, 
and the sea-port of Tema. It is 
about one kilometre from the 
Atlantic Ocean. 
The Centre has spacious 
enclosed pavilions. The 
Conference halls are fully airconditioned. 
There is a 
children's play-ground as well 
as an open air theatre. The 
scenery of the fair grounds is 
as refreshing as it is delightful 
to the eye. 
The Centre provides 
business services which include 
postal, fax, telex, telephone, 
IDD and secretarial services. 
There is a clinic, police post 
and full-time banking services. 
There are over twenty 
restaurants serving both local 
and international dishes. 
The Centre offers a 
secure environment for 
business. There are also 
generous car parks. 
Exhibition Space 
Exhibition spaces are 
as follows: 
International Exhibitors 
Type A - 2 x 2m2 (four book 
cases - US $450.00 
Type B - 4 x 2m2 (eight book 
cases) - US $900.00 
Type C - Open spaces (Indoor) 
- US $100.00 per m2 
African Countries 
Type A - 2 x 2m2 (four book 
cases) US $225.00 
Type B - 4 x 2m2 (eight book 
cases) US $450 
Type C- Indoor/Open spaces 
are allocated in multiple of 
25m2 each 
The Organizers will 
provide the following at each 
stand: 
(a) Book cases (with four 
adjustable and detachable 
shelves) made from Ghana's 
rich 'Sapele' wood with 
veneer finishing. Each book 
case measures 1 m x 2.5m. 
(b) 1 Table 
(c) 2 Chairs 
(d) Fascia board with 
exhibitor's name 
(e) Catalogue. 
Accommodation 
Ghana has hotels of 
high international standards. 
It has three to five star hotels 
within a five-kilometre radius 
of the Fair Centre. The 
Organisers have made special 
arrangements for competitive 
travel and accommodation 
rates for visitors and exhibits. 
Tourist Attraction 
Ghana is noted for its 
rich culture and festivals. There 
are coconut fringed beaches, 
forts and castles, wildlife parks 
and tropical rain forests. 
Vital Information 
on Ghana 
Country size - 239,460 sq. 
km. 
Population - 15 million 
Capital - Accra 
Language-English is the official 
language. The major languages 
spoken are Akan, Ga, 
Ewe and Hausa. 
Religion - Christianity, Islam 
and other African traditional 
religions. 
Communication - IDD CODE 
233-21 
Foreign currency - Foreign 
currencies are freely 
exchanged at numerous forex 
bureaux and banks. Credit 
cards are accepted by major 
hotels, airlines and some 
shops. 
Currency - Cedi = 100 
pesewas. 
Applications for further 
enquiries may be addressed 
to: 
The Director-General 
Ghana Trade Fair Authority, 
P. O. Box 111, 
Trade Fair Centre 
Accra, West Africa. 
Tel: (233-21) 776611-15, 
772376 
Fax: (233-21) 772012. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
VolllN03 
They include among several, his 
representation of Nigeria at the 1965 
World Negro Arts Festival in Dakar, 
Senegal and the World Popular Music 
Festival in Tokyo, in 1972 where he was 
named among the world's best six 
musicians; he was also awarded the MBE 
two years ahead of The Beatles. GR