AfroQueen of the LapSteel Guitar?

Lap Steel

Lap Steel

Lap Steel

Lap Steel

Lap Steel

Lap Steel

Lap Steel

Lap Steel Guitar

Lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar which is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position on the performer’s lap or otherwise supported. The performer changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings as opposed to a traditional guitar where the performer’s fingertips press the strings against frets. The bar placed against the strings is called a “steel” or “tone bar”. – Wiki

My name is Tosinger. I am a Nigerian singer/songwriter based in Atlanta, Georgia.

I believe I will be the first Nigerian female artist to learn, write songs and perform with the Lap Steel Guitar otherwise known as the Hawaiian Guitar.  Please let me know of any contentions in the comment section. I am writing this post just to register it on the blogosphere,  internet and digital world.

I did not pick up this instrument to be a first of anything. I already could play some other instruments on the basic level including the talking drum, acoustic guitar and keyboard by ear. I picked it because I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. I have always love the sound of it in Nigerian Juju music as made popular by King Sunny Ade. Read more about it here as to how and who started playing it in Lagos, Nigeria. I felt one with it and at  home with it. It is said to be more challenging but I find it more comfortable for me, even more so than the acoustic. Before my legendary beloved musical Papa Majek Fashek passed, he made me promise him that I will pick up the guitar and focus on it as my main instrument. I will fulfill this promise in his memory.

Lap steel is widely used in American folk, country, western and blues music. Here is a list of only five female country music players, all white, that I could find on the web that play the lap steel.  I googled “female lap steel guitarists” and didn’t see a single black woman.  Googled some more and this article showed a more diverse list, albeit very inspiring pioneers, still no Black/African (See link -> https://sheshreds.com/issue-13-history-steel-guitar/#comment-48321) even no mention of those from the sacred steel music tradition.  I do not see them on the mainstream scene. There are many other types of guitars and numerous wonderful female players but not of the lap steel, which may be considered obsolete but not on my watch.

I pay homage to Sister Rosetta Tharpe  the Godmother of RocknRoll  considered the first  black female guitarist and Peggy Jones aka Lady Bo  the Queen Mother of Guitar, one of the first (perhaps the first) female rock guitarists in a highly visible rock band, Bo Diddley’s band (Wiki)

Big ups to Fatoumata Diawara on the electric and Helen Ibe also representing Africa nicely on her guitar with the younger afrobeats millenial generation.

I documented my growing journey via Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter with albeit amateur mobile videos, days 1-30. I am 43 as at 2020 when I focused on the lap steel.  I challenged to touch it for 30 days consecutively, even after 30 days, a day will  not go by (until the day that I leave this earth) that I will not touch the lap steel except for absolutely unavoidable reasons.

I hope to bless the world with new songs written on it and play and perform and warm hearts with it as long as I do music. So help me God.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk 🙂 . Check out my home on the web at http://www.tosinger.com for more about me and my music.

Love, Peace and Beautiful Music,

Tosinger

MY FIRST LAP STEEL GUITAR

MY FIRST BABY, MY FIRST LAP STEEL GUITAR. I CHOSE THE COLOR RED  BECAUSE I WANTED TO FEEL EMPOWERED AS I LEARN IT.

Update

So I continue to dig deeper, haven’t found an African/Nigerian yet, but I found this African American sister, Nikki Brown, and I daresay there might be  more in the church that play the type of lap steel called “Sacred Steel” of the Sacred Steel tradition of COGIC.

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TOSINGER releases ‘Flowers’ video.

Afrikajump

Nigerian AfroJazz/FolkSoul singer and songwriter TOSINGER has released the video for her beautiful song- Flowers. Yeah!

By Lola Scott

Death is a theme that we mostly tend to avoid in life’s journey, even with the knowledge that it is a final certainty for everything that lives, so it is refreshing to hear one more beautiful song that reminds us to appreciate and enjoy these moments we have breath.

Flowers especially encourages us to appreciate those people that matter to us while we have them and vice versa. To quote the artist;

“ “Don’t give me flowers when I’m
dead, where is the love while I live”.People tend to celebrate friends and families,
celebrities, when they are dead and gone, where is the love while they were
alive?“

Tosinger, who is credited for creative works like ‘FINALLY’ released in 2012 and ‘Afrospire’ in 2013 independently released her original full studio…

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#Wakanda aka #Alkebulan

via #Wakanda aka #Alkebulan

TOSINGER: The ‘Organically Singing’ AfroSoul and AfroFolk Queen of Dreams — afrocipha

My music is inspirational. Genre wise, my style is African, roots, ethnic, folksy and soulful with a contemporary edge. I incorporate my native Yoruba language in my songs. I am from Ogun State Nigeria, West Africa, currently based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. … Tosinger Oluwatosin [in her native Yoruba language Tosin means God is worthy to […]

via TOSINGER: The ‘Organically Singing’ AfroSoul and AfroFolk Queen of Dreams — afrocipha

BREXIT: The Future Ahead of Britain

The World, Works and Thoughts of Bolu Michael-Biyi....

THE GENESIS OF ‘THE BREXIT’

The call for Britain to exit the European Union (EU) can be traced to the global economic meltdown which saw the economies of the world crumble. The global recession took a toll on every nation of the world but Britain compared to many other nations recovered in a fairly good time. Following the recession came increased terrorism and Islamisation of the world with Islamic terrorist groups holding sway in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, they were beginning to gradually infiltrate Europe. The crisis that rocked the Middle East led many to migrate massively into Europe not just for safety but for greener pastures, the slow economic recovery of some European countries led Europeans too to migrate to better economies within the region. With migration of people into a country comes the transference of ideologies, systems, lifestyle, religion, traditions and culture etc. Matters…

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Yes! There are Dodo Lovers everywhere

Source: Yes! There are Dodo Lovers everywhere

Introducing French-Cameroonian Wazal Brand 2015 Collection

African Elegance Meets Paris Chic!

Ayissi creator of the Wazal Collection.

AYISSI NGA Joseph-Marie aka JJ DU STYLE is a fashion designer who creates very chic street wear. The French/Cameroonian designer whose father was a tailor, has decided to follow the footsteps of pioneer Cameroonian fashion designers such as Imane Ayissi and Martial Topolo by creating his own clothing line called ‘WAZAL’ which was launched in 2005.

In 2006, he launched his first designs which are worn by celebrities like  SINGUILA, Alpeco, WAYNE BECKFORD, ROMARIC Koffi and Lalcko. His brand “WAZAL” is a blend of “WAZA”, the name of a natural park in the extreme north of Cameroon and the letter “L” which stands for Lion, the Cameroonian symbol of power.

ABOUT WAZAL COUTURE:

WAZAL COUTURE fashion line that expresses innovations, new styles and creativity. Mixing various colors and prints, he adds and blends other materials/fabrics such as pure cotton, denim jean, wax, leather, fur, synthetic to create a blended ambiance. He got his professional training from VANESSA RUIZ fashion school in Paris and he later on specialized in creating tuxedo jackets. The first collection was in 2013 – “Tete fly.”

In 2013, he was part of the guests of the Ambassador of Cameroon to Paris for the exhibition of the feast of the Cameroonian youth and the Fashion Night Lounge at the Elysee Palace in Paris, where he presented his three concepts: WazalRock, fly Tété and Africafutur.

These concepts are based on values that symbolized his career: Daring, Respect and Creation. Wazal’s cuts and designs are impressive, modern and trendy.

His 2015 collection of tuxedo jackets  inspired by a Cameroonian slang, “tété” means wealthy (bourgeois) chic.

For more on the Wazal brand and to buy his collections visit: http://www.wazalshop.com/

Beautifully Dreaming… Positively Doing..

Tosinger

150 Years after Juneteenth and Anti-Blackness is Still a Global Phenomenon

Mind of Malaka

Today is Juneteenth, the day some of us in the Black community celebrate – or at least recognize – the ending of slavery and the beginning of emancipation. What hopes and dreams those newly freed Negroes must have harbored in their hearts on the day the news was read to them (two years after emancipation was officially declared) on that day. To be finally free! It must have been breathtaking, frightening, exhilarating.

What we know now, and what those poor souls couldn’t have imagined then, is that that freedom wouldn’t extend to them full citizenship or human rights or even the benefit of whole personhood. An African born in America was to be counted as 3/5^th of a person, would have specific laws ratified to govern their existence and mobility; would be socially and economically marginalized and then have their poverty criminalized; would be brutalized for sport; and then…

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Flood and Fire, Blood and Bone

Mind of Malaka

“Mercy, where are you?”

“I’m in a lorry with Aba. The rains are very heavy. We aren’t moving.”

Obodai grunted on the other end of the phone. Mercy could tell her husband was trying to be strong, but his voice quivered a bit when he said, “Just get home as soon as you can. I’ll meet you there.”

It had been 2 hours since the rain had started. A slight drizzle which then transformed into a persistent, steady deluge had brought the entire downtown area of Accra to a halt. The traffic jam had started from Circle. Mercy shifted in her seat and looked behind her. The never ending line of cars looked like a bloated octopus, growing a new limb with another car, truck and trotro materializing from the outside of the city, each filled with desperate people trying to get home. The only thing moving in this fetid…

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Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti: The Mother of Afrobeat and Spokesperson for Women in Africa’s Movement for Independence

afrocipha

© James G. Spady and Akinyemi Bajulaiye 2015

Nobel Prize Winner, Wole Soyinka of Nigeria, makes the role of women like Funmilayo clear when he states, “I have always insisted that American or European feminism has little to teach most other societies —- here is proof [For Women and The Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti] in this portrait of a remarkable woman in remarkable times, brought vividly to life in a work that explores the often neglected crevices of history.”

Fela Remembers Being Introduced To His Excellency Kwame Nkrumah By His Mother

There are many who see Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti as not only the mother of Fela Ransome-Kuti and the Afrobeat Musical Movement but also as the mother of the modern African women’s resistance movements in the 20th century. Scholarship on the crucial roles played by women in their independence movements and in anti-colonial movements in Africa is still underexplored. What do we know about the relationship of a Nigerian leader like Mme. Ransome-Kuti…

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