Bio
Dan Maraya Jos, whose name means "The Little Orphan of Jos", was born in
1946 in B'ukur, near Jos in Plateau State, Nigeria. His Islamic name is Adamu,
but his father died shortly after his birth and his mother died while he was still
an infant, hence the name by which everyone knows him. Dan Maraya's father
was a court musician for the Emir of Bukur, who took Dan Maraya under his
care when his parents died. Dan Maraya showed an early interest in music and
came under the influence of local professional musicians. During a trip to
Maiduguri while he was still a pre-teen, he was impressed by musicians there
and made a kuntigi, with which he has accompanied himself ever since.
 The kuntigi is a small, single-stringed lute. The body is usually
a large, oval-shaped sardine can covered with goatskin. Dan
Maraya and other kuntigi players are solo performers who
accompany themselves with a rapid ostinato on the kuntigi.
During instrumental interludes they repeat a fixed pattern for
the song they are playing, but while singing, they will often change the notes
of the pattern to parallel the melody they are singing.
Like most professional musicians, the mainstay of Dan Maraya's repertoire is
praise singing, but Dan Maraya singles out his personal heros rather than the
rich and famous. His first, and perhaps still his most famous song is "Wak'ar
Karen Mota" ["Song of the Driver's Mate"] in praise of the young men who get
passengers in and out of minivan buses and do the dirty work of changing tires,
pushing broken down vans, and the like. During the Nigerian Civil War, he
composed numerous songs in praise of soldiers of the federal army and
incorporated vivid accounts of scenes from the war in his songs.
excerpt from http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/schuh/Metrics/dan_maraya.html |
