From John Silas and Cyriacus Nnaji, Lagos
AIG Giwa Osagie, a Sound Engineer, has urged government to come to the assistance of Sound Engineers. He also called on the banks to come into the sector to understand the business of sound engineering in order to engage in worthy business deals with the sound engineers.
Osagie made the calls at a Sound Engineers’ hangout which took place at Fola Jinado Playground, Gbagada, Lagos on Monday, March 25, 2024. He appealed to the government to come to the assistance of the sound engineers. “The government should come and help us; we are suffering due to lack of proper equipment to match international standard. If I tell you sincerely, we cannot do a proper international show, we have the gear, we have the technical, but we have more technical than the gear, but we need the gear and we need to go round the country, the people that are here are those in my group and it is just in Lagos State.”
Speaking on the cost of equipment used by sound engineers and what can be done to bring them down, he said, “We cannot control the price, we can only control the quality; there are tons of equipment worldwide, my choice might not be somebody else’s choice, but the thing is we just need to get the right thing and the right thing to be done. Now we need the banks to back us, somebody in the bank needs to come into the industry, and see how the industry works; they shouldn’t be asking us for collateral. For instance, I want to buy a mixer N10million which is collateral on its own, so why are you asking me to bring a house, when you have an invoice that is worth your money? Because all these equipment, they have second hand value, and for life, they hire them, if I have something they hire for life, that is used by an engineer, that is not going to spoil, automatically I will earn money from that for life. I still have some equipment I bought since 1990, and people still use it. All these things are things we need to talk about. The banks need to understand us.”
On the reason he brought the sound engineers together, Osagie who has worked with big names like King Sunny Ade, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Shina Peters, Sunny Nneji, among others, was to bring them together to know one another. “I decided to have this so that the sound engineers can come out, meet each other, know each other and see how we can do well in the industry, because most of the time we seat at the back of the stage.”
On how he came about the idea of bringing together the avalanche of sound engineers from different backgrounds, he said “First of all, all of them are in my Whatsapp group, they have wanted to meet me. Some of them just know my name, some just like what I do, so they want to see me, they want to meet me, and finally I created a group and we all meet, then I said let’s have a hangout.”
He spoke further on the number of sound engineers that participated in the hangout and the criterion for bringing them together, “We have a lot of them, we have Irukka, that is Wharfdale, Mapex Drums, Vibetools, Cousins, among others, I just told them, come, I am not telling you to do anything, just come, come and meet sound engineers, because you are the ones selling us gear, we need the gear, so let the buyer meet the seller so that they can talk. It is not the middle man thing, most of them don’t know them directly, some of them have their phone numbers, and they talk on phone, but it is easier when you know the person, he knows what you are talking about and it is faster, and you are more comfortable, next time when you are doing business, you do it free and fair.”
On his plan for sustainability of the hangout, the Sound Engineering guru said, “It is not a one off thing, we will be gathering, this one is the first one, we will start putting checks and balances together, who is an Engineer, what steps do you need to make an engineer? You see all these equipment, I am going to tell them, you must know all these equipment, because they are your tools, as an electrician you must know your cables, as a mechanic you must know the parts you use to work. It is part of why I am bringing all of them together, we must have a group, these are sound engineers, this is what they do, and this is what they cannot do, so that is it, by the time clients are talking to us, they would know that the people they are talking to know what they are doing.”
