Government, banks should partner Sound engineers, Osagie

Success Damian:

AIG Giwa Osagie, a Sound Engineer, has gathered Sound Engineers under one umbrella with the purpose of moving the industry forward, even as he urged government to come to the assistance of the sector.

Osagie also called on the banks to come into the sector to understand the business of sound engineering in order to engage in worthy business deals with the sound engineers.

Osagie made the calls at a Sound Engineers’ hangout which took place at Fola Jinado Playground, Gbagada, Lagos on Monday, March 25, 2024.

Osagie appealed to the government to come to the assistance of the sound engineers. “The government should come and help us; we are suffering due to lack of proper equipment to match international standard. If I tell you sincerely, we cannot do a proper international show, we have the gear, we have the technical, but we have more technical than the gear, but we need the gear and we need to go round the country, the people that are here are those in my group and it is just in Lagos State.”

Speaking on the cost of equipment used by sound engineers and what can be done to bring them down, he said, “We cannot control the price, we can only control the quality; there are tons of equipment worldwide, my choice might not be somebody else’s choice, but the thing is we just need to get the right thing and the right thing to be done. Now we need the banks to back us, somebody in the bank needs to come into the industry, and see how the industry works; they shouldn’t be asking us for collateral. For instance, I want to buy a mixer N10million which is collateral on its own, so why are you asking me to bring a house, when you have an invoice that is worth your money? Because all these equipment, they have second hand value, and for life, they hire them, if I have something they hire for life, that is used by an engineer, that is not going to spoil, automatically I will earn money from that for life. I still have some equipment I bought since 1990, and people still use it. All these things are things we need to talk about. The banks need to understand us.”

On the reason he brought the sound engineers together, Osagie who has worked with big names like King Sunny Ade, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Shina Peters, Sunny Nneji, among others, was to bring them together to know one another. “I decided to have this so that the sound engineers can come out, meet each other, know each other and see how we can do well in the industry, because most of the time we seat at the back of the stage.”

On how he came about the idea of bringing together the avalanche of sound engineers from different backgrounds, he said “First of all, all of them are in my Whatsapp group, they have wanted to meet me. Some of them just know my name, some just like what I do, so they want to see me, they want to meet me, and finally I created a group and we all meet, then I said let’s have a hangout.”

He spoke further on the number of sound engineers that participated in the hangout and the criterion for bringing them together, “We have a lot of them, we have Irukka, that is Wharfdale, Mapex Drums, Vibetools, Cousins, among others, I just told them, come, I am not telling you to do anything, just come, come and meet sound engineers, because you are the ones selling us gear, we need the gear, so let the buyer meet the seller so that they can talk. It is not the middle man thing, most of them don’t know them directly, some of them have their phone numbers, and they talk on phone, but it is easier when you know the person, he knows what you are talking about and it is faster, and you are more comfortable, next time when you are doing business, you do it free and fair.”

On his plan for sustainability of the hangout, the Sound Engineering guru said, “It is not a one off thing, we will be gathering, this one is the first one, we will start putting checks and balances together, who is an Engineer, what steps do you need to make an engineer? You see all these equipment, I am going to tell them, you must know all these equipment, because they are your tools, as an electrician you must know your cables, as a mechanic you must know the parts you use to work. It is part of why I am bringing all of them together, we must have a group, these are sound engineers, this is what they do, and this is what they cannot do, so that is it, by the time clients are talking to us, they would know that the people they are talking to know what they are doing.”

On what he has been doing to get to his present position, Osagie responded, “Well, first of all the business is my hubby, I love doing it; I have been doing it for over 30 years. Since I left secondary school it has been in me. I found out, okay this is what I want to do, it is somebody’s job abroad and I created my own way of doing it and it worked well. By the grace of God, I went round in the 90s and I found out that I am actually the only sound engineer who is freelance, every other sound engineer worked with one artist or the other, but I decided that, you know what? I want to be freelance, this is what has kept me going, that has helped me do many things, go many places over the years.”

On what he was doing before he became sound engineer, he said “I started sound engineer immediately I left secondary school, when I left school, my mum said, go and work, I did summer job with ministry of health, and after the summer job I still came back and honestly, by the grace of God, I have been doing it since that time.”

On whether it has been paying his bill, he said yes. I do nothing else.

Osagie who stated that sound engineering has been paying his bills hinted of the intension to form an association of sound engineers. He said, “By the grace of God we Sound Engineers we are going to come together as an association.”

Talking about the big bands he has backed up, he mentioned big names like King Sunny Ade, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Shina Peters, Sunny Nneji, among others “I was their sound engineer, and out of all of them it was only Sunny Ade that I spent three years with, fully, the others I was their sound engineer but it was not on full time basis. When I was with King Sunny Ade I travelled the world with him, anywhere he was, I was there, but other artists I worked with them locally because I was working with other artists, like churches and other small artists.”

He decried a situation whereby sound engineers are heard but not seen and said they want to be seen and also want to be respected, because the whole sound Engineers, they are not respected.

“Now in Nigeria everybody calls sound engineer, in that industry we have the electricians, the stage technicians, everybody has their own different jobs, but they refer to all of us as sound engineers, which is wrong, we need to break it down to pieces so that everybody can pick and know, so that when they identify us, they will respect us.”

On what he intends to do to minimize quacks, and non-professionals, he said piracy helps one to do better, “It means your product is good. If somebody is trying to be like me, it means what I am doing something that is good. So yes, as I said this is my group, it is only a Whatsapp group, but I have guys all over Nigeria, in fact all over the world in that same group. We are still going to gather one day. If we are together we would hold the profession properly accountable, if you are not using standard, it can’t work and we would be able to advise clients against quacks, because quacks just want to wreck them of their money which is actually their primary goal, we are tired of the stress you give us, we need to come together and make it real and make I work.”

Speaking on the cost of equipment used by sound engineers and what can be done to bring them down, he said, “We cannot control the price, we can only control the quality; there are tons of equipment worldwide, my choice might not be somebody else’s choice, but the thing is we just need to get the right thing and the right thing is done. Now we need the banks to back us, somebody in the bank needs to come into the industry, and see how the industry works; they shouldn’t be asking us for collateral. For instance, I want to buy a mixer N10million which is collateral on its own, so why are you asking me to bring a house, when you have an invoice that is worth your money? Because all these equipment, they have second hand value, and for life, they hire them, if I have something they hire for life, that is used by an engineer, that is not going to spoil, automatically I will earn money from that for life. I still have some equipment I bought since 1990, and people still use it. All these things are things we need to talk about. The bank need to understand us, so that we help them, we are already helping them.”

Speaking on the future of sound engineers in Nigeria, he said very very bright. One of us who happened to work with me at a time, his name is Dayo, is Burna Boy’s sound Engineer, born and brought up in Nigeria, so if that one could learn through me in the 90s, we were going around together with Shino Peters and other small artists, it’s bright. So many people want to be in his shoes, so why won’t I be happy? I am super proud of him, not only that, there are so many sound engineers, they are n abroad, America, everywhere, I am just using him as example because, he is a Nigerian, born and brought up in Nigeria, and he is doing his concert worldwide, that alone makes us proud.