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Broda Martyns
“The name Broda Martyns emerged one day when my producer said that my names are too long and that it consumes more space on banners, flyers, etc. He then suggested that since I sing in pidgin, why couldn't I be known as Broda Martyns? And so the name stuck till date.
Absence from the scene
“I have not left the gospel scene, as a lot of people tend to believe. It would amaze you to know that after my debut album, Mushin Olosa album, I've recorded about 18 other albums and released about 8 of them and all of them are award winners. My challenge has been in marketing the albums because I discovered that marketers are poor in promotion of works.
“I put a lot of money in my first album, which made it an eye-opener in Christendom. It was digital recording, which cost so much money, and it enjoyed a lot of airplay. The video clip which facilitated the album, I wrote the script, edited it, funded and recorded it in 1990/91. These should not be my functions. But till date, the recording company that marketed the work is yet to do a video for it.
“I did another album, which I gave to another recording company. Up till date, a video has not been done for it. I had to adopt a guerrilla tactics that rather than harping on airplay, I went underground, did my work and amazingly all the albums I produced were award winners. The last effort won the FAME Contemporary Gospel Music Award in the year 2000. After that was the 2001 HIV Project album, which I have been distributing free of charge in many African countries.
“My message is that condom is not the best way to check HIV. Proverbs 15:25 says “there is a way that seems right to man but the end thereof are the ways of death.” I mentioned that though condom looks attractive and available, but at the end, it does not guarantee 100% protection. Even the medical scientists have agreed that there is a degree of porosity in condom. Also, Robert Hooks' Law says that the elasticity of any object is directly proportional to the pressure applied, provided the elasticity limit is not exceeded.
“People still get pregnant in spite of using condom. So condom does not offer full protection. The ten percent risk of using condom, compared with our 120million population, is a lot. Can we afford to toy with 12million lives? Condom also promotes promiscuity. Must we give condom to people outside marriage? Sex is not for singles. It is an exclusive right of the married. It is not a game for youthful exuberance. Sex outside marriage is an abomination to God. This has occupied my time so much.
“Year 2003 marks my 15th year in the ministry, and I'm planning to release about 10 albums. But I will release only two CDs because of other challenges including finance. |The albums are ready.
Evangelist
“I am an evangelist who uses music as his medium. A lot of people respond to music irrespective of their social class, tribe, etc. Everybody responds to music one way or the other. Music becomes the tool for the people to receive the message of the cross.
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Full time music and food on the table
No, in Nigeria, gospel music does not put food on the table. It was one of the reasons why I delayed answering the call t full time music. When the burden was on me, I looked at the economic factor surrounding it. I looked at my background, with a master's degree, my wife and my family. I don't want to suffer. I went to God and said, if you want full-time, convince me.
"God did this by having my wife promoted twice within six months where she works such that her salary in a month alone tripled what both of us earned in a year or so. With that, I was able to go out.
“Even then, I was still scared because I had a jeep and I was telling God, I don't want to go out and become a poor man or deteriorate more than I was because it won't be easy for me and I won't be happy. This is the problem because so many music ministers are in penury. People tend to respect and cater for church pastors more than they do for the music ministers.
“The mind set of the average Nigerian is that people who are into music are drop outs, people who couldn't do anything else. Such examples are truly legion but there are some musicians who are well educated like Onyeka Onwenu, Panam Percy Paul, Charley Boy, Dr Alban, Buchi, Dupe Olulana, Gbemi Olaleye and Toun Soetan. They are excellent professionals any day. I've been to places where people did not believe that with my education I could sing Mushin Olosa.
“In fact this cynicism is common amongst pastors many of whom did not know Christ when the song was released. This in itself has affected the economic strength of the gospel acts. When you sing in their churches and they give you honorarium of N5000, they believe they are doing you a world of good.
“In the bible, it was only the Levites who did not have their inheritance given to them. God said I am their portion, which means everything offered to God in the church belongs to the ministers, so you cannot honour the minister who teaches without honouring the minister who sings.
“Another problem is irresponsible comportment of some gospel artistes. This impinges on their credibility such that it rebounds on us all. On another level, the marketers have not helped us. In a situation where your music is playing all over the place and the marketer says he has not sold anything, how do you reconcile that? Where are the Christian marketers?
“Apart from that, the secular artistes can go to the night clubs and parties, play and get sprayed while his gospel counterparts can't do that. When he performs in to the church, he is not sprayed.
The gospel minister is always seen in churches where he sings freely, you see him often and free of charge. And because what you see always is common, many Christians find it difficult to pay to watch him play at concerts.
“Don't forget that you pay heavily before you can see the secular act or invite him to play but because the gospel musician is preaching Jesus, he wants to be humble with his demands.
These factors scared me stiff when I was going into full time music. In fact, I respect the gospel ministers because they battle with a lot of challenges. Today, so many of them flirt with secular acts in order to survive. Many had even left the ministry and I can hardly blame them because it did not put food on their tables.
“Panam Percy Paul sang: “I'm serving a living God, His name is Jesus Christ… etc” not out of satisfaction. He sang it as a self-encouragement, telling God that if you are that intelligent to call me into the ministry, put food on my table.
"Panam, his wife Tyna and children were squatting from one brother's house to the other. He couldn't pay his rent or put food on the table. Yet, he was going from one place to the other to minister in songs. These are the factors we must collectively look at.
Gospel musicians and Night Clubs
“Why cant gospel acts play at night clubs when Jesus the perfect example of Christianity ate in the houses of sinners? “If you walk into a nightclub and pass judgment on smokers, drinkers and womanisers, the club owner will throw you out because you will spoil business for him.
His clientele are women of easy virtues, drunks, smokers, drug addicts and their barons. They part with their money for him to stay in business and you now come to minister in songs, persuading them to have a change of heart. If everybody stops drinking today, the brewery would fold up. Gospel messages do not help us to survive in that kind of terrain.
“However, it depends on your packaging. This is what informed my kind of music. Mushin Olosa was a mega hit because of its packaging. Hardly would you know it was a gospel affair. I can walk into any nightclub and sing it and they would appreciate it until after a while when the lyrics start to sink, they will tell you not to come again. So what we can do is to set up our own kind of club where Christians could come and listen.
Mushin Olosa
“I came by the title, Mushin Olosa through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Many did not know at first that it was a gospel music. It went far, to different parts of the world. God used it as a forerunner of many things that came into my life.
The message in Mushin Olosa is simple: Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Every other way is according to the imaginations of the individual and when the chips are dawn, we will all know.
Foreign tours
“I am not against holy ambition but we must be able to differentiate between human ambition and godly vision. The two are different; however, you can develop an ambition within the scope of the vision, which the Lord has given to you.
“You don't need to pray to go to America. If a man is faithful in that which is little, God will promote him. Our priority should be to make our presence felt wherever we are. When I was in Powerline Church, Lagos Nigeria, I was a dedicated choir member. Through that I got one of the biggest foreign invitations of my life.
"When you are faithful in that which is small, you will be given that which is much. If you have not been faithful in another man's church, God will not take you to your Samaria. If you will do well internationally, it is the people in your immediate environment who will first come to your aid.
“Why are we crazy for foreign tours? Does God want us there or is it just our desire to go? What is the song we are taking there? Other people's choruses or our original songs? God does not promote echoes. He promotes voices, not the irrelevances, which characterise many of the songs, we have out here.
Challenges and favours
“Whenever I have the opportunity to speak in the public, I always say don't pray for favour if you are not ready to face the challenges. Favour is for those who can labour. When Angel Gabriel told Mary that “you are highly favoured”, Mary never knew there would be such controversy that Joseph could think of backing out of the relationship. The favour brought about a pregnancy that is funny in the sight of men; and then the labour room. The labour room is the hottest battleground in life.
“My friend, I have gone through various challenges: in the home front, in the church I pastor, from people who ought to be friends, challenges everywhere. However, the greatest challenge I faced was that of focus.
The devil knows he cannot stop your destiny because our lives are hidden in Christ. The only thing he does is to distract us. He tried to give me a broken focus and if you cannot concentrate, you cannot penetrate.
“To tell you how bad it was, I went to God in prayer on why things are not working with my songs in terms of marketing, having invested so much in writing, lyrics, production, etc. What was happening to me? And the Lord said, “didn't I read Agric Science in school?” I said “yes”.
He said “what is the difference between tree crop and subsidiary crops” and I said “tree crop takes several years to mature and once they do, they bear fruits for the rest of their lives while the subsidiary crops grow in months and are plucked only once and they die.” He then said He was making a tree crop of me. What am I saying? I was challenged by what I was seeing around me. To keep on course was difficult.
Gospel music today
“Today, the elegance of gospel music is heavily influenced by secular standards. The tunes, rhythm, dance steps and instrumentation have changed from what they were to such an extent that we now have Gospel Fuji, Gospel Waka, etc. My reaction to this is two folds: God Himself is a musician because it takes a musician to create music.
" He created Lucifer who knew the power of music, and when he fell, he held on to that power and he is using it maximally. But in Mark 16, God promised would return and rebuild the tabernacle of David and all the ruins there He will restore.
“Now, if you study the tabernacles of David, the most prominent thing you find there is praise and worship. David had a retinue of singers who ran a shift system. Every morning, afternoon and night, music was in the temple of God. In fact, it was on record that when David was returning the ark of covenant, thousands of musicians were fully kitted and he danced to a level where people thought he was getting ridiculous. Music must return to God.
"Now, whether it is Apala or Raga or Senwele or Kalangu, whatever names you might give to it, music belongs to God. Satan does not have any right on any form of music. A created cannot own himself. The things God created belong to Him.
“But then what kind of spirit does our music project? The spirit of music lies not in the rhythm, not even in its melody but in its lyrics. In John 6:36, Jesus said the words that I speak are life and spirit. You can take a popular secular music and put spiritual lyrics to it, it would achieve a different purpose from the secular song. If the spirit of the music is its lyrics, then who is giving the lyrics? That is the new question. If the gospel musician is born again, spirit-filled and consecrated, there is no telling how far he could go.
“There are people who would not respond to ballads or country music, yet God is interested in their lives. There are people who have grown up to like Fuji and other fast tempo percussion-based music, God still wants them. If we can get them through Fuji or Waka rhythm, why not? We only look at it with the carnal eyes.
" The things of God are different from the things of man. It is not the rhythm that is the problem but the man behind the music. The strength of any testimony is the life of the testator.
“On the third level, I am not against unbelievers singing gospel music. Jesus said if you refuse to praise me, He would raise stones to do so. Who are the stones? The unbelievers. I am not against unbelievers singing gospel but I am against gospel acts singing secular. Those who sing the gospel and refuse to repent would be ensnared by the words of their mouths.
Pastoring
“Music ministers pastoring churches? If God has called them to do it, why not? We cannot judge them. I have also come to realise that what we see is the point of entry into Christian service. We can't tell the point at which we will end.
" For me, God called me to start a church from the onset but I refused for three years. I gave Him my terms and miraculously, He met them all. I am a kind of person who once I begin something, I will not stop until I end it. Sometimes, God knows that not everybody loves to pastor, just like me. But He brought some of us into it through the music ministry.
“The church I pastor since 1998 is presently going through the wilderness experience. The landlord woke up one day to demand for his space. I did not want to have any problems with anybody so I left and the Lord provided a new place in 2003. I can't remember how many times I went to God to say please, if you have not called me, this is the right time to help me fold up the whole thing because I have tried enough. I am not a pastor because I want money or fame but the Lord said I should do it.
"Another thing is that in our African context, some music ministers have become so famous that their local church and pastors feel uncomfortable with them. Music is a venture that brings instant fame. You get easily known more than your pastor because one massage cannot easily make a pastor while a hit song can make the musician a millionaire and take his name, probably through out the world.
“For this reason, God may tell the gospel musician to begin his own assembly so that the weakness in man would not generate a personality clash between him and the pastor. The music ministers are all over the world, on radio, TV, all the time. Some people come to the church to see the musician. It takes a pastor who is spiritually matured to have such music minister and not be envious and intent to sit on him. This problem didn't start today. What about David and Saul?”
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