Two artists collaborate to fuse indigenous designs and songs to create NFTs which some see as a revolution.
Two young artists are collaborating on a fusion of artistic expression designed to promote the Igbo culture in design and song.
The artists are Chuma Anagbado, a visual and design artist, and Gerald Eze, a traditional music impresario and performer.
Eze, who teaches Music at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, has achieved mastery of 14 local musical instruments, chief of which is the Oja, the traditional flute for the Igbo.
With his mastery of the digital space, Anagbado will use his laptop to synchronize Eze’s flute song with his digital creations in the background, and curate the results in cyberspace as an NFT.
A newspaper reviewer says this could ignite a revolution.
“The intention, for these two Igbo creative artists, is to preserve the culture for posterity and they are willing to extend the frontiers of the culture and take it to another height with the use of digital arts while also exploring the NFT (Non-Fungible Token) Technology.
“This collaboration, according to them, essentially seeks to document and promote Igbo oral musical tradition, particularly through the Oja and Ogene, among other local and contemporary musical instruments in an exhibition to be held before the end of the year.”
Anagbado: “In essence both of us are reimagining our culture, which is the Igbo culture. We are creating this culture but we are putting it out as NFTs so as to take our culture and put it where it is supposed to be. We imagine what we have and then make it more relevant. So, I am creating the art and he is scoring the music and that becomes a video – an animated piece that is then put out as NFT.”
Eze: “We explore new opportunities and that is why we are looking at the NFT space. Our ancestors explored the Oja and Igba in the village square but I try to explore the Oja in Highlife, Hip-hop, and Afro beat and these have been very successful. If you check out my videos you will see how the Oja is interacting with the violin effortlessly like it has always been there but this took years of effort.”
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