Waka queen Salawa Abeni has opened up on the brutal start of her career, saying she sometimes vomited blood as a child performer while older musicians sang around her.
The 65-year-old spoke in an interview aired Sunday on Channels Television. She recalled being so small that handlers put a stool under her so her mouth could reach the microphone. When her turn came, her voice often failed.
“When I finally started music, they used to call me Salawa o, Salawa Abeni o. Some said Omo Kekere, some said nine years old. Anytime they used to call me to come and play, older people used to be there too to come and play. They would be singing before I got there,” she said.
Then the ordeal began.
“But when it is time for me, they will give me a stool to stand on so my mouth can reach the microphone. When it is time for me to sing, my voice will go. I won’t be able to sing. Sometimes I will be vomiting blood. But what will be will be. It is a long journey. It is a lot of obstacles.”
Abeni blamed jealousy. Crowds left older acts to shout her name, she said, and rivals could not accept a small girl taking the night.
“It was jealousy. People saying that you, this small girl, who is your parent? Where did you come from that you just come, and everybody will be shouting your name?”
In the same conversation, the host asked if she meant some people were diabolical. She answered that that was exactly what she meant.
She started singing as a child and released her debut album, Late General Murtala Ramat Mohammed, in 1976. She recorded with Leader Records until 1986, then moved to the label of her then-husband, fuji star Kollington Ayinla, until 1994. In 1992, then Alaafin of Oyo, Lamidi Adeyemi, crowned her Queen of Waka Music. Waka is an Islamic-influenced Yoruba style popularised earlier by Batile Alake.
The interview lands as another chapter in a life she has long described as hard. Abeni has previously spoken of working as a housemaid before fame, of losing a son, and of long years of illness.