Introduction

Biography

Abraham was the son of Chief Jo­seph So­ta­yo Olu­de of Ike­re­ku-Iki­ja, Abe­o­ku­ta.

He re­ceived his pri­ma­ry edu­ca­tion at the Ike­re­ku An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School, Abe­o­ku­ta, and lat­er at Ag­beni Me­tho­dist School in Iba­dan. In 1921, he en­rolled at Wes­ley Col­lege, Iba­dan, where he dis­tin­guished him­self as a bril­liant scho­lar and a keen sports­man.

He ob­tained the then Jun­ior Cam­bridge Cer­ti­fi­cate and suc­cessful­ly com­plet­ed the Sub-Pas­tor’s course in 1925. He stayed at the same Col­lege un­til 1934, when he passed out as a full fledged Min­is­ter of Re­li­gion.

He was or­dained a Me­tho­dist min­is­ter in 1938. He served at va­ri­ous lo­ca­tions in north­ern and south­ern Ni­ger­ia, and as chair­man of the West­ern Ni­ger­ia Dis­trict of the Ni­ger­ian Me­tho­dist Church.

He was pro­li­fic writ­er and com­pos­er, writ­ing sev­er­al songs and folk­lore tunes in Yo­ru­ba. He was con­vinced that the Great Com­mis­sion was best achieved through mu­sic in the na­tive lan­guage and av­ail­able mu­sic­al in­stru­ments of talk­ing drums, flutes, etc, as ac­com­pa­ni­ments.

He in­cor­po­rat­ed a num­ber of lo­cal Gos­pel songs and me­lo­dies in his Ma­yo­kun, Iye ati Iyin. These be­came the ve­hi­cle used in pro­pa­gat­ing the Word of God and his min­is­try at large.

Among his ci­rcle of ad­mirers and friends were mu­sic­ol­o­gist Dr. Fe­la So­wan­de, who great­ly helped Olude get na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al re­cog­ni­tion. Oth­ers in­cluded or­gan­ists like Sir Mi­chael O. Ajo­se, Messrs. Olao­lu­wa Omi­dey­i, T. A. Ban­kole and G. Pope Do­pe­mu—the young or­gan­ist of the Ma­yo­kun Mu­sic­al Par­ty with which Olu­de car­ried out his scrip­tur­al and mu­sic­al cru­sades across Ni­ger­ia.

Olude was made a Mem­ber of the Or­der of Ni­ger in 1965 and re­ceived an hon­or­ary Doc­tor­ate of Mu­sic from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ife in 1967.

Works

• So fun Je­su
• Ipin Ayo l’oni
• Ase L’o­ru­ko Olu­wa