I am Lyte and this is Benin city music in choral style again. This time, you also get to see how they dance in the culture. Here is the link for the video, https://www.google.com.ng/url?q=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DiowJbhbICvs&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwi9yNPKtZDZAhVQYlAKHfT6AskQtwIwAHoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2b9EaMu3vCQMhCZUYBChFZ
The title of the song is Abi Jesu Oyemweno, meaning ** The birth of Jesus is Joyful**. It tells of the Joy that Christ brings, which is basically Oyemweno so yemweno i.e The Joy of all Joys, thus, no joy can be greater than that. If you've watched the video, you get to see how happy the song is both in the music and in the dance. What this simply shows, is how the people of the tribe will rejoice when their prince is born and the excitement that it holds. The song aims at telling the people of the tribe who are Christians that their Prince of Peace and King of kings is born and that they should rejoice for he brings redemption and salvation. Just as other songs before this and those to come after it, showing Christ, the glory he brings and sufferings he received, to the people of the country through their own traditional style of music will help win them closer to him and help them love him more.
The song was composed by Okpebho Omogiade, a graduate from the University of Benin in Chemical Engineering. It's probably not wierd to some of us, that such beautiful piece was written by someone who's not a music scholar. I'll say some thing later about being a musical genius without being a musical scholar.
The dance in the video was choreographed by a traditional Benin man whose name is unknown, even to the choir. You're now asking how he got to us, well, our parish priest got him to teach us dance steps in Benin tradition and so was it. The Benin people are known for their lifestyle of ease/pride and gait of grace and and you'll agree with me that the dance has a great deal of graceful movements, especially with the ladies.
Hope you were blessed by the music and you enjoyed it (cos i don't expect you to understand what they're saying, lol).
Cheers!
