OBUKOOHWO Dezalee was born on Lagos but grew up in his home state of Delta where he studied Geography at the Delta State University, Abraka.
Known today as Obus Zalee, the youngman discovered his gift in the entertainment industry very early and in collaboration with two others, formed a gospel band known as DC Envoys performing songs in Urhobo and pidgin English, besides being members of the Word of Life Bible Church's Milk and Honey Choir.
In a recent interview with the writer of the Welu Welu song, confirmed that comedy is synonymous with Warri, saying; "I'm a comedian; I'm the bishop of music and comedy. I'm a singer, I'm a fashion personality." He is into the training of youngsters in the industry and has actually perfected plans to host annual talent hunt for the entertainment industry.
Why did you abandon Geography for entertainment?
I actually did not leave it. Geography is my course, but my passion is music. So when I discovered that I love music and I studied Geography, I decided to apply geographical music. I call it regional music. For example, when you go up north, the kind of songs we sing here intrigues them.
When we sing a northern song down south here, it intrigues them. You don't really carry them along; they wonder where you come from. A Yoruba boy came to Warri and was singing Urhobo songs, "we come dey look am dey laugh." We were surprised, it was amusing. People will want to know more about where you come from. But for us who grew up understanding that geographical music has a way of influencing things for people. We started looking at the good side of it.
So is this geography in music or music in geography?
There's music in geography and there's geography in music. What I did was to make sure I didn't waste the years I studied geography. So, I now brought the education of music into geography and took the best out of it. Now that I'm in Yoruba land, if I want to sing, I will sing in my dialect and in Pidgin English. When I sing in Urhobo, they won't understand, but when I sing in pidgin, they'll understand because I'm communicating in pidgin English but with my dialectic rhythm. I've transported the geography of Delta South to Lagos. That's why the song Welu Welu was well understood.
I understand you were into a band, DC Envoys. Can you talk about it?
It started 27 years ago. DC Envoys was a great group. We read the Bible in Pidgin English. We'll read the English Bible and translate it in pidgin. Like they said Jacob was sleeping and the angel was going around and suddenly they started wrestling. I would translate it into Warri language, Jacob dey lay one day, he dey sleep, small time nai gbege just start, he just dey rack. Immediately dem wake am, na only him just dey fight the person. You know say na only trouble maker dey fight person when dem wake am up. So we try to now bring the context of the bible from English to our traditional language. If you can read the white man's language, understand their scripts and translate it in your own local dialect, it becomes more effectual. We started DC Envoys in Word of Life Bible Church under Papa Ayo Oritsejafor. We were discovered by Pastor Leo. For two years, we were rehearsing acapella. We were one of the most versatile groups in the 90s and we grew and started singing round the country. They called us the most traveled group without an album. Songs like Wellu Wellu, Jump and Pass came from us. People like Ifeanyi and Sammie Okposo copyrighted us. We grew with the fulfillment of being a group that comes from a supposedly dark region and brought light to the place, because people now embrace our cultural music. It was just like magic. Many of our fathers in music started dancing and behaving like us. It was really contagious.
by Jillur Rahman
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