Dan Maraya Jos: Commentary on Hausa life and society

Dan Maraya Jos (born Adamu Wayya is one of the most influential griots, who have made their mark in Hausa folk music. He played a unique instrument known as kontigi.  Though, his pseudonym Dan Maraya Jos is what many people will recollect, his real name was Adamu Wayyas which in Hausa language means “The Little Orphan of Jos”. He was born in 1946 in Jos Plateau State,. According to accounts, his father died shortly after his birth and his mother died while he was still an infant, hence the name by which everyone knows him. Music is hereditary in his family as his father was a court musician for the Emir of Bukur, who took Dan Maraya under his care when his parents died. Dan Maraya showed an early promise  in music and came under the influence of local professional griots who were best known as the embodiment of the ancient wisdom of the people, and who were respected even by emirs and courtiers on account of their deep knowledge of the tradition of the people. During a trip to Maiduguri while he was still a pre-teen, he was impressed by musicians there and made a kuntigi a stringed instrument with which he has accompanied himself ever since.

 
The kuntigi is a small, single-stringed lute. The body is usually a large, oval-shaped sardine can cover with goatskin. Dan Maraya and other kuntigi players are solo performers who accompany themselves with a rapid ostinato on the kuntigi. During instrumental interludes they repeat a fixed pattern for the song they are playing, but while singing, they will often change the notes of the pattern to parallel the melody they are singing.

 
The essential of his musical repertoire is panegyric or praise –singing by which he extolled the virtues and greatness of emirs and other royals, aside from influential men in the society.. The only outstanding leitmotif in his musical repertoire is his sincerity in choosing his own heroes to offer praise, unlike many griots that lavished their talent on singing the praises of the rich and famous, Dan Maraya Jos would rather settle for those he personally defined as exemplary whether rich or poor, thus he was able to raise the griotic art to high elevation. His first and perhaps still his most famous song is “Wak’ar Karen Mota” [“Song of the Driver’s Mate”] in praise of the young men who get passengers in and out of minivan buses and do the dirty work of changing tires, pushing broken down vans, and the like. During the Nigerian Civil War, he composed numerous songs in praise of soldiers of the federal army and incorporated vivid accounts of scenes from the war in his songs.

 
As a social commentator and critic, he lampooned excesses of power and abuse of privileges in many of his songs. This side of him has often led some critics to compare his method to that of the Senegalese griots who abhorred excesses in any form. In these songs of commentary can be found those on marriage. Dan Maraya incorporates lines from the tradition of Hausa poetry in many of his leading songs. He also questioned orthodoxies in the society such as the practice of forced marriage, early marriage and such other practices that are at odds with modern life. He was especially hard-hitting on practice of families arranging marriages for their daughters rather than letting them decide on their own mates. “Gulma-Wuya” [“The Busybody”] describes a neighborhood gossip who works in collusion with a boka (a practitioner in casting spells, removing evil spirits, etc.) to disrupt marriages by sowing dissension between women and their husbands. The latter song is amusing in that Dan Maraya performs it as a drama, imitating the voices of the different characters as they speak, a technique that he has used in other songs as well.

 
He fell ill before the 2015 general elections. His last public performance was at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fund-raising dinner.
He has significantly contributed to national unity, peace and stability by preaching togetherness and common brotherhood of all Nigerians in the many beautiful lyrics he sang through the ages,.
Without doubt,  his name would be  written in gold in the annals of Nigeria’s history as a talented musician, poet and a philosopher. His music was full of wisdom which will not only outlive him but will continue to be reference point for generations to come
Paying tributes to the departed soloist, Akin Adejuwon, the artistic director, National Troupe of Nigeria, said “His death signals the exit of a great icon of African traditional music, a creative innovator in the Hausa musical genre and a great performer par excellence. He was a rare African soloist and instrumentalist who created a niche for himself in the Nigerian nationalist environment of the mid twentieth century. He was able to sustain same over the decades through his originality and creative genius. This is such a great loss to Nigerian traditional music and Africa as a whole, particularly against the background that the instability in his domain (Plateau State) in the past few years perhaps minimised the impact he would have made further upon the lives of upcoming Nigerian artistes, more so musicians.”
Benson Idonije, a veteran broadcaster and newspaper columnist, described him as one of the leaders of Nigeria’s indigenous music, “he was indeed a great musician whose place in the music firmament in Nigeria will be difficult to fill.”
Also, Dr. Austine Ananze Akpuda, a poet and senior lecturer in English Literature at the Abia State University, Uturu, described ‘Dan Maraya Jos’ death as a huge loss to Nigeria and the entire entertainment industry worldwide.
“As an artist who created a major brand for himself, he will be greatly missed not only by his biological family but also a network of other communities whose lives have been touched by his performances.
‘Among these include fellow artistes and the clan of teachers and scholars of oral performance whose job will be to keep memories of Dan Maraya Jos’s art permanently etched in the vibrant art academy. Indeed, a major cultural icon has departed but his legacies will remain with us.”
Though the famous musician had no biological child of his own, he was said to have raised a good numbers of youths from childhood to adulthood.
His Bauchi Road residence was yesterday besieged by an upsurge of sympathizers as they rushed to pay tributes and sympathise with relations.
One of his closest friends in Jos, Alhaji Musa Satti, described him as a great griot whose contributions to Hausa music and lyrics would never be forgotten.
His musical contemporaries include Hausa music artists such as Muhamman Shata, Audo Yaron Goje, Bala Miller and Ibrahim Na Habu.