Metro

Kelechi Anyikude: The Cultural Artist

This year, during the Wazobia Festival held at Muri Okunola Park Victoria Island, Lagos, the comedian and Compere Kelechi Anyikude put on a wonderful performance which left the crowd in awe of his art.

I have heard about Kelechi and his cultural performances on Arsenal Fan TV and his social media handles, but this will be my first time of seeing him perform live. I personally love his stage presence, swagger and how he heavily involves Nigerian culture in his act. He managed to hold the crowd spellbound during his awesome performance.

More to the point, the performance of Kelechi grabbed my attention at once. His performance began with fog rolling out from the main stage. Then, his voice came over the loud speaker, informing the audience that there would be no flash photography for the sake of the performers and that all cell phones were to be turned off. Any violation of either of these rules would result in a trip to Mr. Igwe’s barbershop for a close shave.

Next, the curtain rose and we found ourselves staring at a stage full of swirling fog littered with a mysterious figure that began to sing “way” by falz. Now, everybody knows that Kelechi’s act involves singing and dancing (he even sings and dances before interviews), all of the music in the show is was written by different artists, so really you have to give him credit that he didn’t sing it perfectly.

It wasn’t so much that he was out of key (though the Good Lord knows that career musicians like to change up the key as often as humanly possible), Of course, Kelechi also comes up with the most ridiculous rhythms on the face of the Earth, I’m supposing just to keep the audience guessing or something like that.

Anyway, skipping ahead, it seemed that most of the show, or at least his first act, was made entirely out of songs. It really just made the show seem more like an opera than a comedic performance. Yes Kelechi had jokes on him too and cracked the crowd up on occasions, but I still think that the singing formed a mature part of his performance. I’ve also never really cared for the way the Kelechi moves around the stage. He doesn’t mix and match his acts, which I think kind of takes away from the magic of the performance.

At any rate, for having the audacity to come from London to perform to such a crowd, the show was good and for all the flaws. Kelechi really knows how to put on a good show.

Bolarinwa Olajide (On-Air Personality, Cool M, Wazobia FM & Nigeria Info)
Published – 13th February, 2018