(An Appreciation by Lindsay Barrett)
‘I learnt an incredible amount of technical innovations and professional practices from listening to and observing him. He was a brilliant teacher because he taught by example rather than by instruction. He has remained engaged throughout his entire life and I am happy to welcome him to the club of active octogenarians’
IN the early 1960s the cultural ferment of the artistic community of American society was a global phenomenon. In literature, visual arts, music, and dance, it unleashed a barrage of innovation and experimentation that influenced cultural practices universally. The critical understanding of these activities became an imperative and crucial aspect of the international understanding of socio-political experience. It soon became obvious that many commentators were challenged to interpret American creative activities from a position of global relevance rather than national chauvinism. It was in that period that I first encountered the creative critical essays of someone called Tam Fiofori on the pages of Downbeat one of the most highly respected American musical journals, Fiofori wrote about the new music of America with such authority and insight that I assumed that he must have grown up within the community and did not associate him with Nigeria at that time.
I at first assumed that he was probably from Scandinavia because I read some reports by him about a concert by the most esoteric of African American musical geniuses Sun Ra in that part of Europe. I later came across some extraordinary poetry by Fiofori in the Evergreen Review one of the most adventurous literary journals of the time. His poetry which deployed remarkable African symbolism intrigued me and it was as a result of this encounter that I discovered that he was actually a profoundly nationalistic African individual whose origins coloured his deeply held and highly visionary opinions and values.
I had read much of his work before I ever travelled to Nigeria where I came to live in 1966, but it was not until the early 1970s that I met his sister the broadcaster Gloria Fiofori who was a senior producer at the national studios of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in Ikoyi. That meeting proved to be a revelation for me as I then realised that Tam Fiofori’s innovative cultural expression was a part of Nigeria’s unique historical reality. The fact that he was from the Rivers State community of Okrika and also spent a substantial part of his youth in Benin City were elements of his life experience that interested me.
I traveled to Europe in late 1971 and in 1972 I was privileged to meet him in London. When I met him it was like meeting a long lost brother, especially since by then I had lived for more than four years in Nigeria and had begun to take a personal interest in the affairs of the Niger Delta communities. When I first met Tam he told me that he had read some of my work in the Chicago-based magazine Negro Digest and that he had also read my first book of essays The State of Black Desire. It gave me great pleasure then to be able to respond by telling him that I had enjoyed and been enlightened by his own work.
When I returned to live in Nigeria in 1973 I discovered that Tam Fiofori had also returned home. He had brought some friends with him and was busy making films. It was then that I discovered that one of his major preoccupations was photography and that he was a truly revolutionary artist in that field. I learnt an incredible amount of technical innovations and professional practices from listening to and observing him. He was a brilliant teacher because he taught by example rather than by instruction. He has remained engaged throughout his entire life and I am happy to welcome him to the club of active octogenarians.
*Barret, veteran journalist and writer, wrote from Abuja
