Popular Music star and guitarist Majekodunmi Fasheke, popularly known as Majek Fashek, is dead.

According to his manager, Umenka Uzoma Day revealed that he was seriously ill and is presently at a medical facility in London. "Majek Fashek is very sick as we are currently at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Woolich in England.

The sad news was announced recently by popular music producer Samklef on his page on IG. May his soul rest in perfect peace.

naptu2:
Throwback: Majek Fashek’s 1992 US tour (videos, articles and memories).


Majek Fashek was part of a band called Jastix in the mid-1980s and they achieved modest success (their songs were played on Radio Nigeria and they performed with The Mandators and Evi Edna Ogoli), but his big breakthrough came when he went solo in 1988.

Majek’s debut album, Prisoner Of Conscience (which included the hit song Send Down The Rain) was very popular and he became even more popular for his stage antics and his anti-government and politically conscious songs.

I was watching one of those government programmes c1989. They were launching one thing or the other and the chief of general staff (vice president) Vice Admiral Aikhomu was the special guest of honour. Majek Fashek was invited on stage to entertain the audience. His band started playing their hit song Free Mandela, Free Africa (which is his own version of Kiss Him Goodbye by Steam), but Majek flipped the song. The chorus of the song goes:

Now now now now, Margaret Thatcher, hey hey hey, free Mandela,
Now now now now, George Bush, hey hey hey, free Mandela

But Majek sang this instead:

Now now now now, Ai-kho-mu, hey hey hey, free Nigeria.
Now now now now, Ba-ban-gida, hey hey hey, free Nigeria.

And the crowd went wild. This was right in the presence of the chief of general staff!

There were also several times when he started singing his famous song, Send Down The Rain and it actually started raining. On one occasion, which was shown on Morning Ride, he had to run off the stage because the rain was too heavy.

Majek released the following albums in the late 1980s and early ‘90s:
Prisoner of Conscience (1988)

I&I Experience (1989)

So Long Too Long (1990)

Spirit Of Love (1991)

Majek was in the United States late in 1990 and early 1991. He recorded the album, Spirit Of Love (produced by Steven Van Zandt), while he was in the US. He appeared on Morning Ride when he returned and that’s when I first saw the video for Majek Fashek In A New York.
He then went on a tour of the US in 1992, in order to promote the album. He opened for Tracy Chapman on her Matters Of The Heart tour (he also performed with her on stage at several of the concerts), performed live on The Late Show With David Letterman and recorded several songs while he was there.

This thread contains videos of some of his stage performances in the US in 1992, a video of his performance on The Late Show, videos of some of the songs that he sang or recorded in the US and an article about his performance in Chicago, which was published by the Chicago Tribune in 1992.

Tracy Chapman and Majek Fashek, Wednesday at Poplar Creek:
May 29, 1992|By Chris Heim.



Don`t ever hope to be a critics’ darling. Sooner or later (usually around the third album), the very things that once were singled out for praise will be turned into weapons to smash your latest work into little bits. Chapman was everyone`s favorite a few years ago when she could be cast in the role of charming street-singing waif with a conscience, an authentic voice of the people whose spare folk songs and anger at injustice allowed pop music and its minions to bask in the glow of humanity and significance again.




Chapman hasn't changed all that much since then. She's actually a slightly better (i.e., more emotional and flexible) singer. Her songs are occasionally more pedantic than poetic, but they have always been. And now sometimes they are also more personal and revealing. (Hear, for example, the incisive "Matters of the Heart," the title track of her new album.) The only major difference is that the reception greeting her third record consists largely of sermons about the importance of artistic progress and a show of disdain that is usually reserved for animal-sacrificing, death-metal groups targeted by the PMRC.




Opening here is one of the most interesting new artists to emerge from the burgeoning African reggae scene. Unlike other highly praised African reggae artists such as Alpha Blondy or Lucky Dube, Fashek gives African influences (in this case, richly rhythmic and percussive Nigerian forms) a much larger and clearer role. His fusion of the classic reggae of Bob Marley and the innovative soul-Afrobeat of Nigeria's Fela (with much the same angry yet poetic social conscience both artists exhibit in their work) inserts the kind of sharp, smart and even stylish new energy into reggae that it has needed for some time.

naptu2:
Majek Fashek performing at Reggae On The River in California in 1992


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD3Fm9IjnLU

naptu2:
Majek Fashek performs So Long, Too Long on the Late Show with David Letterman.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WU94jnHfTM

naptu2:
Majek Fashek performs at the African Festival of the Arts in Chicago.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z58FhIH_0g

naptu2:
Majek Fashek performs at the Africa Mondo Festival at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Qo3UFNUaI