With the rise of Nationalism came the need to show the world that Nigerians themselves had a lot to offer the world in the areas of culture and education through music. John Akintola Ademuwagun a.k.a Roy Chicago, a teacher turned musician was born in the early thirties in Ikare, Ondo State. The young lad born with an instinct for music started playing music early in the local school band. He had his early education in Sapele in the then Bendel State now Edo State. After his education in 1946, Chicago taught in many schools in Sapele and a few other towns in the neighboring Ondo state. However, the little villages could not contain his excessive creative zeal and the young Akintola dropped his chalk and went into professional music. He fled to Lagos and joined Hubert Ogunde’s Concert party as a trumpeter then later left for Bobby Benson’s Jam Session Orchestra. Young Akintola followed the colonial fashion in those days like any other ambitious bloke, abandoning his real name to take on a more fanciful name ” Roy Chicago”. Soon the proprietor of the reputable Greensprings hotel, Ibadan lured Chicago away from Bobby Benson to establish the Greenspringers the

hotel’s in-house band. Chicago later quit the Springers to form his own band, ‘Roy Chicago and The Rhythm Dandies. Roy’s Rhythm Dandies paraded a star-studded group that included talented guitarists like Mike Enahoro and Alaba Pedro and the velvet-voiced Tunde Osofisan who featured as the lead vocalist. It was at this point that memorable tunes like “WaZoBia” composed by Akin Fafowora, “Onile gogoro” by Jimmy Solanke, “Kale san wa ju owuro lo” by S. Adeleye, “Eso ye so gbo” by Segun Bucknor, “AisoAba” by Late Adeolu Akisanya, “Esin O wewu” by Apollo Aramide, “Ogede Nbaje” by Tunde Osofisan, Maria, Keregbe Emu etc.