Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has paid
tribute to veteran highlife musician Fatai Rolling Dollar who died on
Wednesday.
The guitarist and singer had "enthralled his
teeming followers" during a career of more than 64 years, Mr Jonathan
said.
Fatai was best known for his song, They Cannot
Match Us, which criticised younger generations.
The exact cause of Fatai's death, or his age, is
not known.
He died after more than 10 days in a coma, and
was aged either 85 or 87, Nigeria's This Day newspaper reports.
But he was still touring the US tour just a few
weeks ago.
In highlife's golden era in the 1950s and 1960s,
Fatai, whose real name was Fatai Olagunju, was a nationally celebrated
performer.
But he then disappeared from the music scene for
about 25 years and battled poverty in Lagos before making a comeback in the
past decade.
Musician Ade Bantu told the BBC that Fatai had
lost none of his talent and was still entertaining on stage.
"You are talking about a gentlemen in his
80s still performing and recording and playing very well - he was like a
metronome."
'Lazy'
Mr Jonathan believed the vacuum Fatai's death has
created in the Nigerian entertainment industry will be hard to fill, his
statement said.
In the 1950s, Fatai is said to have
revolutionized the agidigbo or thumb piano - which he then moved onto the
guitar.
The BBC's Will Ross in Lagos says the musician
was influenced by Ghana's highlife scene, as well as calypso from the
Caribbean.
His music was a great influence on other Nigerian
musicians, including Fela Kuti.
In an interview with AFP new agency more than a
year ago, Fatai bemoaned the hip-hop music that now dominates in Nigeria.
He said "a good musician should know how to
play any instrument", showing his irritation with artists he accused of
sometimes being "lazy" and simply seeking "easy money", AFP
reports.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22886478
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