Artmiabo International Art Festival AMIAF- 2023 News | Artmiabo
ED Keazor takes Afrobeats on memory lane
ED Keazor
Themed ‘Art of Afrobeats’, the second edition of AMIAF, led by founder, Miabo Enyadike, which holds from 27 TH April -1ST MAY 2023, at Ebonylife Place Victoria Island Lagos, is showing traces of an unprecedented art festival. AMIAF is though a visual arts event, but with its theme on Afrobeats, more creative professionals across The Arts and sub-genres have been listed as participants.
To be curated by Yusuf Durodola, AMIAF 2023 features nearly 30 visual artists from Africa and Europe, including creative professionals such as Keazor, Lemi Ghariokwu, and Babatunde Banjoko, among others with rich background of behind-the-scene in the Afrobeat music genre.
For Keazor, whose career in legal representation for the entertainment industry spans over 40 years – including trajectory in Afrobeats – the AMIAF event brings a rare space to expand his passion.
ED Keazor
From historical context, Keazor is bringing into the ‘Art of Afrobeats’ theme of AMIAF 2023 quite a depth narration. “ArtMiabo is a visual arts festival, however music is an integral part of the exhibitional framework – moreso when the Festival, on this edition, celebrates music culture,” Keazor noted. He assured that his band, Ikenga “shall encapsulate the curation concept in its performances.”
Still expanding on the historical contents, there is no doubt that Keazor and Ikenga have been enriching the Afrobeats lexicon, for several decades. “I’ve been a performing musician for 45 years with my first performance at the Museum Kitchen in 1978,” Keazor recalled his early years that would later expand into the management space. “I have performed with some of the foremost African and Afro-Latin bands from across the world. Some of these include the Nigerian legendary bands – The Funkees, Wrinkars Experience, global players like the Dele Sosimi Afrobeats Orchestra, Amaranto and African icons like the Congolese L’Orchestre Banco Musica.”
He later formed the Ikenga band, in what he described “as a project that coalesced all elements of my musical journey – which is basically a confederation of some of the great musicians I had played with over the past 40 years, all of whom were legends in their own right.” Perhaps one of the most comprehensive band in Nigeria’s post-indepence era, the Ikenga group, Keazor said, has experience covering bands like Fela’s Egypt 80, Tony Allen, Damon Albarn, Manu Dibango, Osibisa, Christy Essien, Rex Lawson, Peter King, and many more.
And with the emergence of strong energies in 21st Afrobeats, Ikenga, according to Keazor, features some of the “backing bands of artistes such as Wizkid, Yemi Alade and Ade Bantu.” He explained that the objective of the band has been consistent in highlighting the African music story, particularly “in performance form, from Traditional music through Highlife and Afrobeat on to the latest mutation.”
Included in the performing history of Ikenga, among others, are Felabration, in Lagos for several years; Lagos Art and Book Festival, LABAF; Lights Camera Africa Festival, Lagos; and Focus Africa Festival, London. For AMIAF 2023, Keazor assured that “It’s more of performance art and story-telling with music as a vehicle.”
Basically, Keazor brings into the AMIAF 2023 what he explained as “a conceptual offering of knowledge of the Afrobeat and Afrobeats genre and culture.” This much he said captures “a key operational player, insider and intellectual for over 40 years” of the genre.
Keazor’s bio includes being pioneer West African Regional Editor of Music in Africa (Africa’s premier online music platform). He was Associate Director, Head Archivist and Lead Researcher on one of the two most critically acclaimed Afrobeats documentary series – The Journey of the Beats (a Showmax original).
As an entertainment lawyer he was, for over three decades, represented clients like Onyeka Onwenu, Junior and Pretty, Osayomore Joseph, Biodun Batik etc as well as Storm Records, Nigeria’s pioneer Afrobeats label, which he registered and represented from inception.
By Edozie Udeze
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