Dipo sodipo biography of donald

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The quick summary of his public life is that he was a keyboardist and vocalist. Listen here. To hold a note on a microphone and hoist a piano chord simultaneously is truly the stuff of genius.

Witness the one man band: usually, a pre-programmed percussive rhythm runs amok on his keyboard. Running through all his songs, besides his light sermonising, is a social commentary that aligns both with the Yoruba worldview and urgent contemporary realities.

Might I add that Dipo Shodipo’s cult fame was smack in the middle of one of Nigeria’s most devastating streaks of military rule?

He was the Czar of the One Man Band, a popular fixture of the Yoruba music scene of the late 80s and 90s.

The shrinking of bands at the time could have been an economical response to the austerity that did not exclude the music scene, but a one man band demands a level of ambidexterity  Pope handled effortlessly. He was also the lead singer of K12 Voices before he broke out alone as a one-man act.

He belted out memorable medleys like the soulful ‘Iya ni wura’, the livelier ‘Jekowo Wole Mi’, and the cautionary ‘Bola Bade’.

Then he gives chase with his vocals and punctuating with simple piano riffs. A time when even the vivacious party-loving essence of the Yoruba was threatened by widespread insecurity and a struggling economy—Pope was a fixture of Abeokuta parties.

Being an Egba man himself, he was loved both at home and abroad.

I wonder if you can really categorize his music highlife. At this time, the Pope had died. Ever so often, he allows flourishes of complicated piano chords—but this technical verbiage hardly accounts for how well rendered his music is.

Before Wizkid and Lax rendered the femme fatale Caro, Dipo Sodipo had updated the fair skinned lady who may or may not have been the subject of Rex Lawson’s soulful tune, ‘Yellow Sisi’.

Every one remembers the first time they heard Dipo Sodipo.

Pope created music in a way that encompassed all the instruments, giving his music its originality."

"We believe Pope is a hero.

Dipo Sodipo was physically present in Ibadan in the 80s where he studied music and became the Head of Department at the Polytechnic. He was known to be a renegade highlife musician. By abroad, I am referring to the sleepy university town of Ado-Ekiti, where a certain medical doctor, wading through a painful marital separation, found succour in the soulful songs of Dipo Shodipo some thirty years ago.

Travelling at top speed in my cousin’s car on Road 1, OAU Campus, Ile-Ife, windows down with the consequent rush of wind competing with his booming baritone. At a time when even the vivacious party-loving essence of the Yoruba was threatened by widespread insecurity and a struggling economy—Pope was a fixture of Abeokuta parties. Mine was circa 2004.

Being an Egba man, he was loved at home and abroad.

There is hardly a biography extending beyond a paragraph. Did he live on the edge? Mine was circa 2004. Perhaps his nickname Pope is a consequence of the Basilica. His sobriquets were numerous but the Pope seemed to have been his preferred.