Sydney Onayemi

Sydney Onayemi
Born Abayomi Sydney Onayemi
1937
Lagos, Nigeria

Sydney Onayemi (aka Big Brother Sydney), born 1937, is a Nigerian born Swedish DJ.[1]

His other name "Abayomi" means "he brings me joy and happiness" in the Yoruba language.[2] Onayemi came to Sweden in 1962 to study finance at the prestigious Stockholm School of Economics. After two years he had to drop out of school due to a lack of money.[3] In order to pay his bills he started working restaurants, mainly cleaning bathrooms at the Strands Maritime. Eventually he started deejaying soul, and later funk and disco, music that was fairly new to Sweden.[4] He also sang along to the tracks, added maracas and other live percussions.[5] In 1972 he opened his own discothèque Big Brother.

He opened his fourth discothèque Confetti in 1984, a gay discothèque, and has also worked as resident DJ at various other discothèques throughout the years. In between he also opened the discothèques "Knattedisco" and "1984".[6]

In 2010 he came out of retirement for a onetime event at the Loveboat 12 club, celebrating the Disco era.[7] Sydney Onayemi is at the moment 75 years old and probably the oldest still active DJ in Sweden, if not in Europe, "still going strong".

Influence

He is largely credited as introducing the two turntable style of deejaying from the United States and Jamaica to Scandinavia.[8] He has also been credited for introducing Swedish 1980s new wave and synthpop acts like Ratata, Mauro Scocco and Lustans Lakejer to funk music according to Lustans Lakejer vocalist Johan Kinde and nightclub entrepreneur Joakim Langer.[9][10]

In a 2012 radio documentary, Swedish National Radio named him the nation's first superstar Disc Jockey.[11]

Personal life

Today he is retired and lives in the exclusive Östermalm[12][13] neighbourhood of Stockholm.

References

  1. ↑ "We can pick up the Garbage ourselves". SvD OPINION (in Swedish). July 28, 2008. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Abayomi". mybabyname. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
  3. ↑ http://www.svd.se/opinion/ledarsidan/vi-kan-plocka-upp-skrapet-sjalva_1467467.svd
  4. ↑ http://wibjorn.webblogg.se/040205230920_sidney.html
  5. ↑ "Facts about discounted rates and Sydney Onayemi" (in Swedish). COPYRIOT. April 30, 2008. Retrieved July 26, 2008.
  6. ↑ http://www.frontface.se/2010_jubileum_03/Loveboat_Sydney_Big_Brother/Loveboat_Sydney_1_.htm
  7. ↑ http://www.alltomstockholm.se/start/article686512.aos
  8. ↑ http://copyriot.se/2008/04/30/bakgrund-kring-diskoavgiften-och-sydney-onayemi/
  9. ↑ http://www.alltomstockholm.se/start/article686512.aos
  10. ↑ http://www.svd.se/opinion/ledarsidan/1980-talet-startade-med-1984_1044229.svd
  11. ↑ http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=4067&artikel=4967239
  12. ↑ "Discjockey won the Landlord: Sydney Onayemi may live in his own apartment" Check |url= value (help) (pdf) (in Swedish). October 17, 2006. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
  13. ↑ http://mobil.svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=33538&a=672501&lid=puff_672501&lpos=bild

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, September 04, 2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.