Highlife music legend and celebrated trumpeter Sir Victor Abimbola Olaiya, has passed on He died Wednesday afternoon at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH in Lagos, aged 89.
Olaiya, who celebrated his 89 birthday last December, was confirmed dead by Managing Director of Evergreen Music Company Ltd., Bimbo Esho. He had been admitted there for an undisclosed illness.
His songs include the award winning Omo Pupa, Baby Jowo, a remix he did with 2baba in 2013 and Omolanke. For a long time, he ran a weekly show at Stadium Hotel on Iyun Raod, besides the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos.
Born in 1930, in Ekiti in South west Nigeria, Olaiya took the music scene by storm in the 1950s and waxed stronger in 1960s alongside other notable high light trumpeters like Eddie Okonta, Cardinal Rex Lawson, Osita Osadebe and Etubom Rex Willims, Bobby Benson, Celestine Ukwu. He played with Benson for some time before he broke off to form his band and continued in that genre all his life.
He was so good at it that his band played alongside the great America trumpeter, Louis Amstrong during a visit to Nigeria in 1961. He was nicknamed Papingo Dalaya
