Global InformationTunji Oyelana information
Tunji Oyelana | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 4, 1939 |
| Nationality | Nigerian |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, actor, lecturer |
Tunji Oyelana (born 4 October 1939) is a multi-award-winning Nigerian musician,[1] actor, folk singer, composer[2] and once a lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Tunji Oyelana is of the Yoruba ethnic group and is a native of Nigeria. Most of Tunji Oyelana's songs are in Yoruba. In the early 1980s, he teamed up with Nigeria's first and only winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka, to record a musical album that satirized the corruption of the Nigerian political elite. He was the musician for Stéphane Breton's 1994 film Un dieu au bord de la route.[3] Oyelana is credited with having sold the most albums by a Nigerian High Life musicians.[4] In 2012 he released A Nigerian Retrospective 1966-79, an album from Soundway Records. Apart from Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade, Oyelana is regarded as one of the most played Yoruba musicians.[5] He and Soyinka composed I Love My Country and, in 1996, were both charged with treason and forced into exile by Sani Abacha while touring internationally with Soyinka's play The Beatification of Area Boy. Oyelana, the leader of The Benders currently lives in the United Kingdom.
- ^ Balagun, Sola (2 August 2014). "Encounters with Soyinka". Daily Sun. Naspers. Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
- ^ "Buhari greets Tunji Oyelana at 80". Punch Newspapers. 5 October 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
- ^ "Un dieu au bord de la route (1994) - IMDb". IMDb.
- ^ "Dusted Reviews: Tunji Oyelana - A Nigerian Retrospective 1966-79". Dusted Magazine. 8 November 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
- ^ "Glo's Evening with Wole Soyinka holds with Tunji Oyelana, D'banj". The Encomium. 20 August 2015.