Inspired by Wagner, Nigerian Helen Parker-Jayne Isisbor’s quest to champion her often-derided west African vernacular has spawned the first pidgin opera
Mami Wata , Africa’s answer to the mermaids and sirens sprinkled throughout folklore the world over, rises from the waters and sways to the beat of hand drums. “Dey use dem bad medicine to scare, to bring you down,” she sings, her voice punctuated by stringed instruments, an electric guitar and a steel pan that gives the sound a haunting edge.
This is opera, but not as you know it: it is the world’s first opera in pidgin, the language spoken by some 50 million people in West Africa’s most populous nation of Nigeria, alongside variants in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and it debuted in London last week.
Related: Song Queen: a Pidgin Opera – audio excerpt 1
Related: Song Queen: a Pidgin Opera – audio excerpt 2
A lot of people said, why do you want to sing in pidgin. I thought, why not? It's the language Nigerians understand
