The dead sings: Why Sound Sultan’s posthumous album ‘Reality CHQ’ is historic
By Genevieve Aningo
On Monday, the family of late Olanrewaju Fasasi aka Sound Sultan held a music listening party to release the deceased’s’ Reality CHQ’ album.
Baba Dee, brother to the late singer, disclosed this in an Instagram post. Baba Dee detailed that Sound Sultan was producing the ‘Reality CHQ’ album before his death on 11th July 2021.
Thus, as a brother, he pledged to make sure Sound Sultan’s Album came to fruition.
He wrote: “We are having the one-year remembrance of Sound Sultan, the great iconic Nigerian singer and we are having his official listening party for the album, Reality CHQ.
“This was the album Sound Sultan was working on before he answered the call of the Almighty. This is a very special project.
“I promised myself this project will come out and people will get to hear the voice of Sound Sultan and it’s coming out on the 11th of July”.
The music listening Party was launched in two different cities, countries and continents. This was in London, United Kingdom and Lagos, Nigeria. The posthumous album with six tracks ought to be the demise’s 9th studio album before his death at the age of 44 due to lymphoma in the United Kingdom.
This leaves a thought on how traditions have changed in modern society. We have recently been ushered into the era of posthumous birthdays that has been gaining grounds than the mundane memorial celebrations.
This posthumous celebration is a swift into a different ball to show that cultural practices could be just a matter of time. In the primitive years, when a person dies, everything about that person halts.
Later, the memorial tradition was welcomed to honour the day a person dies. Other times, it could be a foundation set to preserve the legacy of a deceased one, especially a philanthropic act.
However, in the new dawn, societies now celebrate a deceased’s supposed birthday. Hence more significance is placed on the individual’s birth date than death date. Perhaps this posthumous album by the Fasasi family could bring a new trend to more posthumous versions.
No longer would we mark posthumous birthdays alone but other posthumous achievements such as weddings, business, graduation, child birth etc.
The onus lies on families to be united in order to know what a loved one was working on before death since death has no pre-notification. Now, not only do the living saddle families with responsibilities but also the dead to keep a part of their life alive.