The name Echo will continue to linger and ring bell in the ears of the Ijaws and Nigerians at large.
The man Chief Echo Oyerigha Toikumo was born in 1945 by late Ayemiaya and his late mother Peretoru Kamumu Toikumo. He attended U.N.A Primary School, now F.A.C.M between 1955 to 1960. His primary school education was truncated as a result of his father’s death. Echo was Just 12 years when this happened, but his quest for knowledge compelled him to acquire his grade two certificate program in Benin.
Like father like son, he started his music career at the age of 20. As a talented and innately gifted and determined man, he withered formidable odds to emerge by independently setting up his own music group in 1973, known as “Echo And The International Brothers of Arogbo which later became “Echo And The Arogbo Fisher Brother’s Band. Not deterred by travails of life, he singlehandedly struggled to buy a local guitar, through selling medicine and cutting of lugs.
Chief Echo never played or learned musical instruments or music from any band, yet, because of of his artistic creativity, he taught all his band members how to play musical instruments.
As a philosophical traditional musician, he had an inspiration from Late Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson, a music guru and father of highlife music. He said in his confessional statement that “Immediately after the death of Rex Lawson in 1971, I saw him in my dream selling gold chains. I was given one to be bought, but had no money. Instead, I made a trade-by-barter and got one on my neck. But I couldn’t find it when I woke from sleep. It pained me because I thought it was in reality”.
The music of Chief Echo Toikumo is significant and unique. It resurrects and revitalizes most of our dead and decayed traditions bequeathed by our forebears for posterity. He is a preacher of peace, justice and equity. Chief Echo contributed immensely to the str
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