The Yoruba Singers | Guyana’s longest-serving band celebrates 47 years

THE YORUBA Singers has survived the test of time to leave a 47-years-and-counting legacy. The band is scheduled to hold its annual concert “For the Love of A Common People” on October 21, at the Congress Place auditorium for just $1000.

Reminiscing on the years, band leader Eze Rockcliffe with his deep voice, speaks of how the times have changed and culture has fallen, and with it the rise and fall of the Yoruba Singers
The group was formed in 1971, just at the turning point of Guyana’s cultural rise, with their pinnacle years stretching across the 1970s and early 1980s.

It was born out of two organisations, mainly the Young Socialist Movement (YSM) and Ascria, a cultural organisation replaced now by the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA).

“We were anxious to take part when it had all these concerts all across the country, so we decide that we’re going to form a group to take part; we called ourselves the Kitty Young Ascrians,” he said.

However, that name didn’t stick; after travelling and performing for some time, the Yoruba name was suggested to the band, named after the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria.
“Within six months we started to get popular within the organisational circle; we started to go and play all over the country and a man by the name of Brother Bertie Greene said, man y’all does travel all around this country you should name yourself ‘Yoruba,’ because the early Yoruba people used to travel a lot, so that’s how we acquired the name Yoruba Singers,” Rockcliffe shared. .

By 1972, the band finally went professional and began taking paid gigs, beginning at the then popular Wig and Gown Night Club, making $10 a night.
“We couldn’t share it because it was 13 of us, couldn’t give everybody a dollar, so we saved it to start buying equipment. When it reach $60, we buy a piece, when it reach $100 we buy another piece and so on and so forth,”

By 1973, the band finally started to make real money when it landed a gig playing at the Pegasus Hotel.

“We started getting $30 a night, twice a week and after about three months they raised it to $40. The Saturday nights gig we used to get about $50; one Saturday night though they invited us over to the Savannah Suite and they gave us $120. So we had $200 for that week; and I went and told my mother and she said: “Son, you must never done with this band, always continue to maintain this band.”

Rockliffe said he took those words by his mother to heart, and would never see the Yoruba Singers band fall to the wayside, even as other bands from the era dissolved with time.
Presently, Rockliffe remains the only member of the band, from the original 13 who comprised the group when it started. Nonetheless, there are other long-standing members who have been in the band for three decades.

As the Yoruba Singers’ popularity grew, they began to get more and more prominent offers.

They were chosen to represent Guyana at three consecutive hostings of CARIFESTA, in Jamaica in 1976, Cuba in 1979 and Barbados in 1981.

That year in Cuba, they were also asked to participate in Cuba’s Latin American Festival, the Varadaro Festival.

But Rockcliffe remembers the band’s high point as being when they performed in the United States of America at Madison Square Gardens, in New York in 1983 and 1984, both years at an event dubbed the Caribbean Mother’s Day Concert.
“We’re the first and only Guyanese band to perform at Madison Square Garden,” Rockcliffe still boasts with pride.

It was from their inaugural trip to the U.S. that the band was observed and asked to perform at the Madison Square Gardens.The band was a part of a group of Guyanese who had gone to the U.S. for just that reason, to get other jobs.

“In 1982, we got very popular because of our demand and so on, so we made our first trip. Because of our popularity at home and a lot of people never heard of the band because they left before we [were]formed, they were anxious, so some promoters got together along with myself and Winston Hermonstine, better known as Jazzy Jack. We got together and put a package together of 22 Guyanese performers. We called it the Guyanese troupe,” Rockcliffe explained.

But just as the band was soaring on its popularity, they had their wings cut, as Guyana’s cultural climb took a turn for the worst, just after 1985 following the death of cultural advocate and then President Linden Forbes Burnham.

“One musician put it very clearly, when Burnham died culture died with him,” Rockcliffe posited.

“Burnham always tried to exploit and explore cultural protocols at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs level. But when he died nobody seemed to want to pick up the mantle after that. There wasn’t a will, they say where there’s a will there’s a way, there was no will or willingness to continue to develop culture.”

Rockcliffe is ashamed of what passes for culture now in Guyana, compared to where it was and how far other countries that were once on par with us, are now way ahead of us.
“I went to Trinidad four years ago and when I saw the kind of culture development that is taking place, and took place in Trinidad, I shed tears, because I could remember as a youth we and Trinidad were almost on par. And if Trinidad was to stay still culturally, it would take us 25 years to catch up with them. Don’t even talk about Jamaica, they have done exceptionally well with their culture. Barbados just produced one of the biggest stars, Rihanna, and she has Guyanese roots, because they understand the power of culture, we don’t,” he related.

But he still believes that there is hope. Like many looking towards the coming oil wealth with gleaming eyes, a glimmer of hope flickers across his face as he speaks of the possibilities.

“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel; we need to do some copying from our Caribbean counterparts. Ask questions, what they’ve done, how they did it and we can do it also. Especially with the expected resources coming in, we can do that easily,” he said.

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