Episode 166 Taiwo Adegoke
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Welcome back to Classical Guitar Insider. This is your host, Brett Williams. And today on the show, it's Taiwo Araguki. He's a Nigerian guitarist, composer, educator, organizer. He built the first classical guitar society, we think, in West Africa. It's...

It's outstanding, the work he's doing. And I have been sort of, as you know, with a new kid and some concerts going on, you know, trying to get that going. I've been pretty busy, so this hasn't come out for a while. And I want to put a lot of people on the show.

who have been reaching out that I love their work. I've heard from some great composers and I'd like to help in any way I can. But really, this guy kind of fell into my lap. He mostly organizes his compositions on Facebook.

And so, um, he was sort of sharing some things. I think it was some Christmas music, um, African traditional Christmas music that he had sent. And I said, you know what, this is interesting. And I checked it out and the breadth of what he's doing is, I mean, he's just tirelessly, uh, working to promote the instrument in his, in his country. Uh, it's, it's, it's, um,

It's outstanding. And it's something that we should all, you know, support. And not only is he doing this stuff, he's doing it well. He's the compositions have depth. There's meaning behind everything. We talk about his, his approach to composition, his approach to community work and, you know, his, his love for the guitar. He's only been, you know, he, I think he was talking about, he started working with it in 2011 as a composer. So it's, yeah,

It's really great. The show is sponsored by SavageClassical.com. You can go to SavageClassical.com. That's S-A-V-A-G-E Classical.com. Tell them Brett sent you and look at some of the best guitars on the East Coast. That's SavageClassical.com. That's our sponsor for today. We don't have too many sponsors. Again, I haven't been reaching out or paying any attention to that. Just kind of doing the projects that I think I personally am going to learn the most from.

But keep on reaching out. You never know. Maybe some stuff will get freed up. But a lot's going on. I should say, and I asked him if I could tell you guys this, but his power went out. Taiwo's power cut out at the end of the interview. I'm not talking about his computer turning off or his internet. Let me just see here. I think Liz came home. What's that?

Yeah, his power went out. So that should give you some perspective. You know, it's just... And then I asked him how often this happens. It happens every... He said it happens two days. It's been out for two days. I go, well, how does that... He goes, not that often, just once a week. And I'm thinking, you know, we had a power outage for two days in New York in 2003. We still talk about it. It's so...

If you think you don't have time or if you think that you are up against the wall and you know, you don't have time to educate, practice, compose, do all the things that this guy's doing. You, you don't know what you're talking about. So this was a very inspiring interview and I hope you guys enjoy it. Everything is going on on my end. Wally's doing good. Liz is doing good. Wally's six months old. He's a good boy. You know, but really I just want to get to the interview.

So make sure that you support the show by going to brettwilliamsmusic.com slash support. That's B-R-E-T-1-T-M-B-R-E-T, brettwilliamsmusic.com slash support to support the show. And always visit Savage Classical. That's S-A-V-A-G-E classical.com. Richard Sage. Tom Brett sent you. On with the show. Here's Taiwo Adeguke.

Because actually, I said Taiwo. I thought it was Taiwo. And then there was a piece that you wrote called... Yeah, Taiwo. Yeah, Taiwo. But that's a different word? Yeah, it's the same word. You know, the way it is, the name, if I'm to pronounce it without squeezing the alphabet together, is Taiwo. Taiwo.

if you try to abbreviate or squeeze uh everything together and if you if you speak it uh in in a fast way it's going to be taiwan taiwan so you know when i was googling you because uh you know i was looking up a lot of your wonderful work and like one of the things i found out was that it's a pretty common name over there in nigeria yeah yeah west africa or you know

And that's where you are, right? You're in Nigeria. Yeah, I'm a Nigerian. Yeah, I'm in Nigeria. I'm in Lagos, Nigeria, presently. Yeah. No, my name is actually something that is meaningful. And I think I should start from there. Let me tell you. Yeah, I was going to ask you about the meaning of your name. What my name is all about. You know, when a mother give birth to twin, yeah,

the first child that comes out of the womb is . So they use that to differentiate between the first and the second. So, you know, and . means the first child to experience life, to taste life. So . So that's just what it means. It's the name given to the first child that comes out of the mother's womb.

in a twin kind of a part, in a twin batch. - So you have a twin? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the meaning of my name, Kayuwo, yeah.

- It is. - Experience life. - That's what it means, experience life, 'cause you wrote a composition. - Yeah. - I don't know, what I love is that I don't know if there's a lot of composers who write a composition and then call it their name. But your name has so much meaning, whereas mine just means nothing. It just means Brett. It's just like a very American to have. I named my kid, see the mobile behind me? I have a new child.

He's five months old, beautiful boy. It was the hardest thing naming him because I'm so self-conscious.

But we called him Walden. Walden. There's a pond. The listeners don't even know this, but I called him Walden. There's a pond over here where a philosopher called Henry David Thoreau wrote. It's a beautiful pond in Massachusetts. Anyway, they don't want to hear about Massachusetts. They want to hear about Nigeria and your music. So you did this. And one of the things, this piece, we should just talk about this piece for fun to start out with. But you wrote a piece called Teiwo. Yes.

Tywo. Yeah. Tywo. And you called it that, and it was actually written for oboe and guitar, which is such a cool combo. It doesn't happen a lot. We get some clarinets. We get a lot of flute.

And I want to talk about one of the other things you wrote because you did something that I thought was fantastic, which was two flutes and guitar. That to me is like, why isn't that happening all the time? It's so gorgeous. But this one, this composition right here written for oboe, it's so wonderfully balanced, those two instruments. I'm surprised we don't hear it more often.

Yeah, you know, I wrote this music. Actually, I wrote the music for flute and guitar. However, there's a friend of mine, Rick Larson. I don't know if you know Rick. Rick is a luther. He makes guitar in the USA there.

I wrote the music and I tried to arrange it for Oboe and Gita. And with the help of his wife, I was able to write something better, make arrangement of the same music for Oboe because his wife plays Oboe. So it's amazing. Together with our guidance, I was able to make an arrangement of the same music

for a boy and guitar actually it was written for flute and guitar so that's it and it it was nice and when they when they played it I actually enjoyed it better than the way it is for flute and guitar I did yeah because we hear so much of flute and guitar and this is not uh to to poopoo

on a flute and guitar duo. There's nothing, there's a lot of them and they're great, but to hear this, this was so interesting. And you're saying that that was, it happened by accident.

Yeah. By necessity. And let me tell you something. This year, I wrote another music known as Voyage Across the Lagoon. And it is also written for Oboi and Gita. And I'm dedicating that music to Rick Larson and Lisa Larson. So I actually enjoy music for Gita and Oboi. I think it's one of the most beautiful kind of combination that you can get to listen to.

So I agree with you with that. Oboe is so beautiful. It calls the heart. It really calls the soul to some kind of a lovely journey. So I love that instrument. I love it. Yes. Yeah, it's an instrument that I don't think we think of very often as being something that would pair with the guitar. It's almost-- there's certainly some oboe solos, and you hear it a little bit in some film scores, especially from the '80s.

You know, and like early 90s, I hear oboe a lot. But it's interesting how well it worked. The one album that you're featured on is with the guitarist Joseph Aaron Preece. Yeah. And that's sort of the album that people can listen to. It's called Sunrise in Africa, and it came out two years ago.

It's outstanding. He's an outstanding player. Did he play that? Cause he usually plays from what I understand, something called a Brahms guitar, which is the Paul go breath for the listeners. They might know Paul go breath as he, you know, puts it in and he plays it. Is it,

it's like it's like on a box right yeah yeah it's like on the box like this yeah it's it's like on the box and actually uh joseph uh is a very wonderful person and when when i got to meet joseph i think 2020

he was my friend on Facebook. He actually gets to play some of my music in his concert in 2020. And at the point I was able to write a lot of music and we got together via Zoom like this and I thought,

Joseph, don't you think we can make a kind of album of my music, both compositions and arrangement of my music? So he said, yes, let's give this a try. It's going to be an amazing one if you can do that. So we started making plans on how to do that.

playing some of this music, getting time to make this kind of FaceTime, checking the arrangement, and a lot of things happened during that time. And we gave it a go, and he recorded this music, "Sunrise in Africa." It's an album of all of my music for the solo guitar, the arrangement, and also my compositions. So that was what brought about this album, "Sunrise in Africa."

It really does sort of summarize, you know, because other than this album, a lot of it has to do with Facebook posts. A lot of your music is organized into all the artists who performed, but it's all sort of, there's one site that people should go to. It's called africancomposers.com, right? Do you know about this website? Yeah, I know. Right. And it has links to all your Facebook, but you made the decision to immediately use Facebook.

as a vehicle to release your compositions and also like you said to meet people because you know you're very far away from a lot of these guitarists in talking about that how did you are there a lot of institutions in west africa that someone can go and study classical guitar

now uh i think like how do you get into it over there is there anything we need to talk about this no let me start with this uh

It is not that common. It's very rare for you to see classical guitarists that are from Africa. I mean, Black Africans, you know? - Not South Africa, yeah. - Yeah. For example, let's talk about West African region in Ghana, in Cordova, Nigeria,

Burkina Faso and many West African countries here. It's very rare for you to see classical guitarists and who play in concert and who are very popular. Not only that, it's very rare to see compositions from African composers, that are black composers from this geographical location.

It is a very challenging thing for many of us. Not only that, we've been imagining that one day it is going to be possible because you get to different music institutions here. Let me take for instance Nigeria now. There are only few places you can get to study the classical guitar.

in Nigeria. And for you to study classical guitar here in Nigeria, it is non-major, not major. Not a major. You can't major in it. You can't major on it. So it's very, very hard for you to see people who take it as a profession. And I've been able to

meet so many guitarists who play Nigerian style of music, the Sokos, the Makosa, and it's very rare to see guitarists who can read and write sheet music, sheet notations. So it's something very hard. And at the point,

I myself, I started as a self-taught guitarist, self-taught classical guitarist, where I get to learn how to read and write for the guitar online. And at a point, because of our

diligent i was to eat and the passion i had had for it back then in 2011 i was able to meet a lot of guitarists online who saw some of my my uh performance and what what i've been able to do i understand they would like to teach me and from there i was able to

learn from titans of guitarists like uh michelle stephan gongkocha who was able to come to nigeria for master class in 2017 and not only that i met some of my teachers composition teachers and some of my classical guitar teachers who are good performers so that was how i was able to learn how to play the classical guitar and after this i i was able to teach

different people how to play the classical guitar in Nigeria and I have students. And at a point in 2017, we decided to form

a kind of society for the classical guitar in Nigeria, which as of now is the first classical guitar society in Nigeria and in West Africa. Because maybe from my research and from people I was able to meet in different parts of West Africa,

they don't have a society for the classical guitar. And it's very rare for you to see people who play classical guitar in concert. So we decided to start this in Nigeria. We kickstarted in 2017, although it was in 2022 that we got registered and were recognized by the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a society, but we started in 2017. So, and that is what we've been doing right now.

We have a society for the classical guitar here now. Here we try to teach the classical guitar, promote African music using the classical guitar, making arrangement of different folk music from different tribes in Nigeria for the classical guitar. We do this so that we can preserve our folk music that are going into extinction. And aside this, we do this so--

We can also share our music with different people, different performers, guitar lovers in different parts of the world. So this is what our society is all about. And every two years, we organize a kind of multicultural concert where we play music from different parts of the world and

music from different tribes in Nigeria for the classical guitar. So this is what we've been doing in our society gradually, and we are hoping we get the support of other societies in the world who are already grounded, who have been in this kind of

this kind of program for years past. So if they can get to support us and know this society is a baby society, not like Gita Foundation of America. Yeah, no. So we are calling on societies like this that can help to

to progress what we've funded here in Nigeria, and we hope it will keep getting better. So that is just it. Now, from the question you asked, it is very rare to see classical guitarists from West Africa, most especially guitarists who play some competitions like that.

Yeah, so we are trying to do that with the knowledge we have now. And it's getting better. At least we have people who we've been able to teach from our academy. We have an academy for the classical guitar in Lagos, Nigeria now. So this academy is an academy that is funded by the society. So we teach people, most especially street kids, we teach them how to play classical guitar. Many of them

or on scholarship. So this is what we do. And we've been able to have people who can play and also compose. We have some of them now who are doing that. Yes. That's incredible. So they are composing. And not only that, you're talking about the folk songs because I kind of have it on my sort of list of things to speak about.

It's there. It's sort of divided in between your original compositions and then there's another block for the folk songs. It seems like your work sort of has two things that you're doing. One is the original compositions, one is the arrangement of folk songs. And I haven't heard the, you know, I know that I just haven't thought about it like that for a while. Thought about arrangement of folk songs as a way of preserving

uh melodies and and harmonies and rhythms that are going extinct and so what what when you are arranging those folk songs when i was going to sort of ask you what your process is like what what kind of so are you are these exclusively songs that you feel are like in danger of being forgotten forever

Yes. No. And the government is supporting that too. This must be a way also the government can get on board and go like, this is Nigerian culture. This is very important that we protect these. And this is a way to sort of really stamp to record them because a lot of these things probably haven't even been recorded. Right. I mean, it's what I'm assuming.

Yeah, I am hoping the government can help out in the long run. So that's it. This is what I do. Let me start from here. When I started teaching the classical guitar, there are some of my students who give me this kind of report that when they get home and they start practicing, their parents will be saying, what are you playing? I don't understand. I can't understand your reality.

So the parents don't even know. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. This is what I mean. Now, when, when my students get home and I give them, uh, the kind of study, etudes to play at home, uh, take for instance, uh, Matthew Kakashi etudes, and they start to the as in at home, some of their parents, we, we sit down with them and tell, tell me the meaning of what you are playing. I can't understand. This is beautiful music, but I can't understand. Can you play what I understand? So they

The point I told myself, I think the only thing I can do is to start arranging music from this, from traditional music from tribes that they can understand. And when these students get home and they play, the parents will listen and will be pleased.

So I started from there. I started arranging some Nigerian folk songs and nursery rhymes for my students to play either for solo, for assembles, like that. And when they get home, they give me positive feedback. And at a point,

I try to venture into arranging more of this folk music and I try to specialize by arranging folk music that I know are going into extension that in the next 20 to 30 years you might not listen to them again. There's a paper I wrote about preserving endangered Yoruba folk lullaby.

Okay, so the lullabies. Yeah, that was a big part. Specifically written for twin children. Okay, so there are folk lullaby like that for twin children that are going into extinction. So I thought to myself, let me make a decision. Let me go to different Yoruba states, different towns. Hold on a second. I'm sorry. Are you saying that this was... I didn't mean... Hold on a second. Sorry about that. But what I mean is...

Did you just say that these lullabies are written for twins? - Yeah, specifically for twins. - Oh my God. So these are unique, these are endangered bee, and what makes them really cool is that we don't have that over here. We don't have specific lullabies for twins. That is amazing. So you have to go back and forth?

Are those the ones written for the guitar duo? Yeah, yeah. I arranged it for guitar duo. I arranged some for solo guitar, some for examples like that. I haven't been to so many African countries, but talk about Nigeria.

specifically Nigeria. So there are different tribes that have written folklore by for 20 children. I can cite Yoruba people. I know Yoruba people are in Nigeria, they are in Cuba, they are in Brazil, they are in different parts of the world through transatlantic slave trade, you know. So now,

Uruguay is a kind of culture that is rich and they have different music for different occasion, different music. Okay. So there are music that are written for twin children, lullaby written for twin children. Wow. That's so cool. All right, go on. I arranged one. I arranged one

for solo guitar. I don't know if you can get that. It's on my website and it's such a fantastic one. This one that I arranged for solo guitar, at a point I carried out a research on it and I got to know that in urban area, in places like Lagos where you have over 20 million people, Yoruba people,

in Lagos, in Oban, I mean the metropolitan part of Nigeria. A lot of them don't know the full version of this music. They only know--

maybe one verse or two, half of the music. But when you go to the rural area like Shakil, like Oyo, like Igbora, there's a particular town in Nigeria, in Yoruba state that is called Igbora. That is where you have the highest twin bat in all of Africa, I think.

is twin part in all of africa so i go to this place i make my research about this music how i can get the full music and i i got to see to it like uh people in the metropolitan states here they don't know a lot about the music however people in the rural area they know a lot of them know about the music most especially those people that are

old that in the next 10 or 20 years they might have gone. So I try to document some of this music and in its former way, in its right harmony, in its right original melody, I try to document this down. Also the chant because most of this music also have chant.

So not only the music, there are some encomium, there's a kind of theology chant written simultaneously with the music. So something like this. I thought to myself, if we don't do something to this kind of music in the next 20 to 30 years, we might not listen to them again because those people who know them,

they will have gone okay they will they will have gone so they will have died by by next 20 to 30 years so i go into different dura areas into different places like that different tribes to document to arrange record their music uh through the permission of their

their leaders, okay, the king and people traditional, kinsmen like that. So I go there to take this music and with their permission, I get to arrange it and I get to publish it out. So this is what I do and I arrange this on the classical guitar, not for only Nigerians, for people in other parts of the world to get to perform. So that is what I do.

Yeah, because this isn't just something and this is what I say about a lot of these, you know, sort of programs that are giving more people getting the guitar to more people. It's the most important work out there because it's not just, you know, we're not talking about benefiting. We are talking obviously about benefiting and enriching the lives of children. And that's always an important thing to do. But

we are in desperate need of good composers from other parts of the world. We just, you know, we have continually, and I've talked about it on the show, we, I am getting very bored of going to guitar concerts where it's Bach and Villalobos and like, and then, you know,

even even Brower or whatever like I love those guys. It's not that I don't like the compositions. I've just heard it 600 times and I just don't need to hear it anymore. I'm gonna I don't have I'm 47 halfway through life. I don't need I don't have time. I got a new baby. I don't need to listen to someone play Bach for 20 minutes probably ever again. But what I do need is I have to hear something that I haven't heard before and that's what you're providing.

And I hope that people will, I know people will gravitate towards it because we are in dire need of compositions. And not only just compositions that we haven't with, it's not rhythms we haven't heard before because the guitar is, like you said, because of the transatlantic slave trade and stuff like that, there's a lot of those rhythms and things that were absorbed into South African music, South American music. And South American music is really

between that and Spanish music is really sort of the pillars upon which we play the instrument, at least in this genre. But I think, so it's already there. It makes sense. Like the guitar as an instrument

in the region of West Africa makes a lot of sense because those rhythms are already part of the compositional DNA of what we're working with. And not only that, but you also, so that's just what you're doing with the folk music. And I know that there's a guitarist, one of the pieces that I saw that struck me was a performance by your friend, David Timothy.

Okay, yeah. And it was based on a poem. Yeah. And the poem is very stirring. It's a great work of art. And he sort of sets this poem to this music. Am I getting it right? It's called... Tears for the Departed. Tears for the Departed. Yeah. Tell me, first of all, it seems to be about a dying mother. Is that correct?

I actually want David to play this music because David's mom died, I think, in 2021. Yeah, it was 2021. I wrote this music. It was my composition and the composition came when my own sister died in 2010. Okay, my sister died in 2010 and I watched her lose her breath.

I was holding her hand during this period and it was a terrible moment for me. That was what brought out about the composition, Tears for the Departed. And the way my sister was crying, the pain and the way I was crying too, and the way I told my sister to just cheer up and I watch her lose her breath and I watch her die.

When I got home that time, I couldn't sleep. And when I have this kind of pain in my heart, mostly the only thing I do is I pick up my guitar and just play. Sometimes the music might not come. I just try to play the guitar and just play the string. So at a point, this inspiration came about Tears for the Departed. I got the team from the way I was crying and crying.

I picked up my phone, I recorded the theme and I left it. And at a point back in 2018, I arranged this music, I continued with the theme to bring about this composition. So it is something that has to do with a patient's demise, that has to do with death.

Okay, so and when I wrote this music and when this situation happens to David that his mother died, he said, I love this music and it speaks a lot to me. I would love to perform this music. I would love to kind of premiere it if it is possible. And I gave it to him, go ahead. So that was what brought about him performing that music, Tears for the Departed.

What about the rhythm in it? There's a rhythm in the bass. There's like a clave rhythm or something going on. Does that have any meaning as far as death is concerned or anything? Do you do things with rhythm that have meaning? Because everything seems to have a lot of meaning. You know what I mean? And I mean that in a good way. It's just...

Out here, yeah, the meaning isn't attached to every aspect, but it seems like everything is sort of tied together. Is there anything in that rhythm? Because that rhythm, there is like this melodic sadness that is familiar to a Westerner. But thinking about, but then there's this rhythm in it. There's this sort of dance.

Yeah, there's a sort of dance in it. Now, what I am trying to bring out in that music is, although I am sad, but my sister is in a better place. Now, if you check, the first part of the music is so sad, and towards the ending of the music, it's a kind of happy sand, mixed feelings. And not only that, the

way I was able to write the music, the bass line of the music is something that is calling you to tear up

Yeah, it's calling you to cheer up, to just keep on moving. And that there's hope that we get to see again one day when I too leave the world. So it is something of, I might not get to see her in this world, but I'm going to see her again. Okay, so if we departed now, there is still going to be time for us to meet again. So this is my belief.

and it's what gives me the joy towards the ending, okay, of the music. And it's a kind of mixed feelings of happy and sad mood towards the ending. If you listen to that, I think towards the ending, you see it's kind of mixed feelings and with dance. Definitely when I get to meet, when we get to meet our loved ones, maybe that they've departed, even if they're not dead, when we get to meet them, we hug them, we dance, right? So that is what brought about that, and that is what I want to do, okay?

Who wrote the poem? Did you write the poem? I wrote the poem. No, you didn't. You did? Yeah. You know what? I never have done this. Is it okay if I read your poem?

- Okay, read, read. - Okay. - I don't have it here with me. - I have it, I have it. Is it okay? This is how good you are. This is how great of a, I think you're a great artist. - All of my music is accompanied by a poem or a program notes. - So every single music is programmed. - Every single music of mine is accompanied by a poem

or a program note. I don't just compose music without an event or something that happens to me. I find it difficult to just pick my guitar or pick an instrument and start composing. No, it has to come maybe from my dream or from a

a sad moment or a happy moment of my life. So I try to put that in music and want you to experience what I'm experiencing too, okay? Want you to feel what I feel. And music only is not enough for

What I like, the poem is also part of it. So if you can't understand the music that much, when you read the poem, you understand the music. You feel me. You understand what I'm going through. So that is what always bring about me writing poem for all of my music. If you don't find the poem, you are going to find an history, what brought about the music. Yeah, that's how I do it. - Wow, it's amazing. It's amazing. Okay, are you ready? - Yeah. - Okay.

And it's coned. That's the word, right? It was coned by death. Is that right? Yeah. It was coned by death to believe that as she lay in the soil in sorrow, she would rise again tomorrow. Daily as I sleep, I will always remember the mouth made beats of mama put me to sleep as she matched to and fro in the room, girdle strapped to her backs.

like an army of termites disturbed her territory. Indeed, she was a warrior. Her eyes and gestures bright with a ray of hope only I could capture. Though weeping has endured for the dusk, yet the joy of El will continually be my strength. The bright and morning star my anchor shall be

our hope from generations to generations, pulling our nation, Nigeria, from the pool of distress, clearing off the pool of despicable congresses, progressing with a matching order of unity to take up the mantle of victory in our motherland. That's absolutely beautiful, Tehwo.

I mean, it is as good as any poem written by any person at any time. And your music is also so special too. And it really is. I mean, I think people can read all this stuff's on Facebook. And then there's this beautiful piece of music. What's your relationship with David Timothy?

David is my friend and also my student, my guitar student. I taught him how to play the classical guitar. So...

we got to know each other in 2014. So ever since then, he has been playing different style, Nigerian style of guitar, but he doesn't know how to play the classical guitar. Neither can he read or write sheet music. So at a point, he came to me and said he would like to learn the classical guitar because it's somehow so full and

It's something that make people like me play like 30 or 40 people to get that one. So he wants to learn that. So that was how he became my student. Yeah. Yeah, so he was your student. He's very good too. So this is already the fruits of your labor. I mean, he's a great-- he's becoming quite a good guitarist. Obviously, there's so much that makes

West Africa music so special, but what are the main things that you infuse into your compositions that you think exist within Nigerian music that may not exist elsewhere?

I think it's mostly the rhythm. The rhythm of my music. And most especially, many of my arrangements of Nigerian folk music, the rhythm of the

clave, percussive rhythm of clave, things like that is somehow special and it's not that relatable with other parts of the world. So it's something that everybody will get to learn and will be interesting to people. And when I'm talking like this, I want you to understand something. I started as a composer trying to

get my work acceptable to the listening of my audience and most especially people in other parts of the world. And if I am going to do this, I thought to myself, I need to mix the kind of harmony, Western harmony together with West African harmony, something like this, in such a way that it will be acceptable. And at a point, I will want to introduce fully

African rhythm. So this is it. At this point now, this year, I'm thinking of writing purely kind of African music. However, if you check some of my music, it's a mix of Western music together with African music. That was how I started. There's this music of mine, Oja Niyoshuri. Oja Niyoshuri is a kind of mixture of, kind of,

Nigerian folk music together with European music. So I try to portray how Ushuaidi market is in Lagos, Nigeria. There's a market called Ushuaidi market in Lagos, Nigeria. I try to portray the hustling, the bustling, the buying and selling in this market in my music.

So that is what the music is all about. And when you get to listen to it, you see it encompasses all of these kinds of transactions going on. So yeah, that is how the music is. So the music has to tell a story.

It has to tell a story. It has to tell... Nigerian music has to tell a story. It has to be connected to something. It has to be connected with an event, with something happening. So that's it. That's how people want to listen to music here. Not just the rhythm, not just the... Not just opus one, number two. Yeah. So that is it. So I...

And you're doing that. You said the future now is not just reconciling. Because the rhythm sometimes, yeah, the Nigerian rhythms are already there. The clave is already there, right? Yeah. But you're talking about what you've been doing is you've been using mostly, and you can hear it, mostly Western harmonies.

the melodies sometimes have some nigerian stuff in it especially with the arrangements but you are using kind of purely western harmony but now you're talking about in the future now that

We are aware of you, or at least I am and some other people. - Yeah, now that you are aware and you have accepted my music, I can introduce to you. - Now we want the- - Now you want, yeah, exactly. So that's what I do. - Oh, I'm so excited to hear it. I'm so excited for that future. Thank you for all your contributions. I think it's amazing work. I mean, the guitar owes you a huge debt of gratitude.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you too. I really appreciate the gift of guitar and the gift of good people around me, most especially my guitar friends in different parts of the world. They have been supporting. When we started the society and we started the music school,

classical guitar academy. We called out to people in the world to support us and we got donations to buy guitar, to buy chair, to buy music stand and so many other guitar accessories that we use in teaching. Where can people, what website can people go to help you?

Now, if anyone wants to support my project, my ethnomusic research project or my guitar training project here in Nigeria, they can go to www.tayiwoafroguitarschool.com. So there's a donation link there that people can get to donate here.

All right. Well, we'll, you know, we'll try and send them over there and spread the word. It's very, very important work that you are doing over there. And you're doing it all over the place. I mean, with the compositions in the performer, do you perform ever? Do you play and perform your own work?

Yeah, I do perform my work, but mostly now I give my compositions and my arrangements to people in other parts of the world to perform. It's not that easy to get concert performance here in Nigeria for the classical guitar. You know, it is something that needs more acceptability.

and we are getting there gradually. However, I do get to perform like two or three times in a year, and I do perform inside my, in the same music school here. So this is how I get to perform when we organize music concerts here in the school. However, performing for the public is usually twice in a year or three times, so maximum three times in a year. So what I, to get my music to,

other part of the world, I decided that I get to premiere my music with people, my friends in different parts of the world. A lot of my music have been premiered in the USA, in Mexico, in Germany, in different places in the world. So they get to make people know about my music when they premiere my music. And that is how I get to make my music known.

But you make sure you send me one of those new pieces with the original. I am writing one music now that I would love to dedicate to you. It's called Lagos Casala. Lagos Casala.

- Yeah. - Oh, I like that. - That's do with Lagos problem, Casa La Miss problem, Lagos problem, Lagos problem. - The Lego problem? - Yeah, the Lego problem. So I can send you that. I think I will have to dedicate that to you when it's done so you can get to perform it. It will be a pleasure. - Oh, buddy, that would be incredible. I really appreciate everything you're doing and thank you for coming on the show today. - You're welcome. - Taiwo, it was such a joy.

All right, that does it for my time with Taiwo. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure that you, you know, let me just go ahead and spell his name out for you guys so that you know where to go, you know, to support his work. It's the Bergman Editions, but basically you can Google the name Taiwo Adegoke, which is T-A-I-W-O-A-D-E-G-O-K-E.

Te wo adegoke. I had a great time with him. Outstanding. This was a good one, wasn't it? Make sure you go to brettwilliamsmusic.com slash support to keep the show going. You can also pitch some of your projects and we can talk about them in the intro. Again, that's brettwilliamsmusic.com slash support or just reach out to me at brett at brettwilliamsmusic.com. Thanks so much and I'll see you guys next time.