Popular actress, Shan George, preserves the rich cultural traditions of Ebiba people via music
By Nehru Odeh
Given her bi-racial parentage, it may be tempting to cast Shan George as being neither fowl nor fish. But the star actress knows exactly where her roots lie: right here in Africa. The evidence of this is the release of her debut album, Nkenkene, a collection of seven songs rendered in her native Bahumono language.
“I am a typical village girl. I cannot remove the village from me. It is part of me. And it is something that I live for,” Shan said.
The album has put Shan in the league of actress-turned singers such as Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde and Genevieve Nnaji.
But for Shan, whose mother hails from Ebiba in Cross River State, the album was inspired by a desire to preserve–through music–the near-extinct oral traditions of her people.
She describes her kind of music as Mboro. “Somehow it occurred to me that recording the songs will be the best way to preserve them,” she explained. NkemKene, the title of the album, means celebrate in Bahumono language. Shan, of course, is in celebratory mood because the album’s release coincides with the 10th anniversary of her acting career. “I have been in the entertainment industry for 10 years. So this is just like a celebration for me. I don’t want to celebrate it alone. This is what the album stands for,” Shan said.
The motivation for recording the songs, she started, was sparked by an event in 2006. While spending the Christmas holidays in her hometown, she gathered the kids together to tell them some folktales. But she discovered, to her chagrin, that each time it got to the part of the songs, the kids did not know any of the songs.
This brought a realisation that her people’s oral traditions are gradually being denuded by modernity. “When we were kids, there was no electricity in my place and we normally played under the moon and grandpa or grandma would come and tell us folktales. Most of the folktales had songs in them. But now those kids cannot sing those songs. That is painful. It is like modernity has come to spoil a lot of things,” she said.
But how does she hope to combine acting with music? “I am not looking at myself as a musician. Come to think of it, music and movie complement each other. They are not mutually exclusive. They are in the same field of entertainment. It’s not like I am acting and I want to go into banking. So I don’t see any problem coping with it,” Shan averred.
The album brought its own challenges. Principally, Shan was torn between releasing the songs on CD and giving it to her people or for commercial purpose.
Famous for playing prominent roles in films such as General’s Wife, Blood Diamond, Highway To The Grave, Made In Heaven and Who Killed My Husband, Shan is thrilled by the number of years she has spent as an actress. “It feels good, being there for this long. It takes a lot of perseverance, hardwork, favour and grace of God,” she enthused.
It was such a favour that saved her from being lynched eight years ago at Alade Market in Lagos. Then, a movie titled Rest In Peace, in which she starred as a killer, had just been released.
In the movie, Shan killed her friend in order to snatch her boyfriend. Shan only realised the import of the role she played in that movie when she was pelted with fresh tomatoes in the market. “That was a very embarrassing moment for me,” she told TheNEWS. Born of an English father and a Nigerian mother, who is a retired nurse, Shan had her primary and secondary education in Ebiba. She later studied Mass Communication at the University of Lagos.
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