Queen Salawa Abeni: The Housemaid Who Modernized ‘Waka’ Music And Became A Legend

    She was the first female Nigerian musician that sold over a million records.
  Even today, the Nigerian music scene is dominated by men. You can count on one hand the number of female artistes at par with their male counterparts.

40 years ago, it was 40 times as hard. Yet a young teenage girl broke off the chokehold Fuji/Juju/Highlife/Afrobeat held on the music industry and carved a niche for herself, one she has ruled for four decades.

Born in Igbogun, one of the mangrove villages that borders Ogun and Lagos Sate, young Salawa Abeni‘s life started out hard: as one of the several children in a polygamous family, hers took a sad turn that her other siblings – her mother was sickly and she was sent off to work as a housemaid in the closest big town to her village, Epe. Although her father did not particularly care about education, the ‘guardian’ saw to it that she at least got the basic primary education.

But she had a gift that was spotted early by her minders: her melodious voice was perfect for ‘Waka’, the indigenous traditional Yoruba music sung mostly by women.

The genre had become widely popular in the proceeding decades, pioneered by Alhaja Batile Alake. As matter of fact, Batile Alake was one of the musicians that entertained Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Nigeria in 1956.