Veteran entertainer Daddy Showkey will celebrate 50 years on stage with a golden jubilee concert at Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos, on August 9, returning to the venue where his career began nearly five decades ago.
The 56-year-old, born John Odafe and known as the pioneer of Galala music, said he chose Eko Hotel deliberately, as he performed an acrobatic display at the hotel’s opening in 1977. His career, however, traces back to 1976 at Bar Beach and Panorama in Lagos, when he was just six years old.
Speaking during a visit to Vanguard’s Apapa headquarters on Thursday, Showkey said his mother, a retired teacher who raised him alone after his father’s death in 1978, will be the concert’s special guest of honour. It will be her first time watching him perform live.
“She always defended me when people questioned why I wasn’t in school. She would simply say, ‘He’s a special child.’ Today, many of those same people tell her she was right,” he said.
Showkey traced his path from performing acrobatics on Ajegunle’s streets and appearing on “The Village Headmaster” as a child, to founding the Barrel Paragon Dancers group before age 10. He credited veteran actor Jide Kosoko and the late Ogbonna Amadi, a former Vanguard editor, with shaping his career and public image.
The entertainer also revisited the story behind his 1996 hit “Dyna (If You See My Mama),” inspired by a woman he prayed for after years of childlessness. She conceived three months later while he was in Germany, and named her son after him. The family now lives in the United States.
On the lineup for the August 9 show, Showkey listed performers including 2Baba, African China, 9ice, Oritse Femi, King Saheed Osupa, Korede Bello, Iyanya and Pasuma, describing them as fellow entertainers rather than strict contemporaries.
He also spoke about surviving what he described as two assassination attempts around 2014 and 2015, first at his home and later at a filling station in Agidingbi, where his car was shot at. He said he could not identify who was responsible.
Showkey said much of his later-life mission has centred on changing public perception of Ajegunle, recalling being arrested and beaten by police in 1989 over a dog-theft accusation simply because his job application listed the neighbourhood as his address.
“Before me, many talented people from Ajegunle were afraid to admit where they were from. I promised God that if I made it, I would change that,” he said.
He credited Vanguard journalists, including Sunday Areh and the late Ogbonna Amadi, with supporting him early in his career, saying the newspaper’s coverage helped him survive as much as it helped him become known.
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