Psychiatrist Blends Music, Poetry to Change Society

Though Ikwunga Wonodi, M.D., has no plans to quit his day job as a psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher anytime soon, he is a rousing success at his “night job.”

As the originator of Afrobeat poetry, he blends spoken-word poetry with the music and rhythms of his native land, Nigeria, and performs for audiences throughout the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore region. He has also performed in London and New York.

Afrobeat music is a fusion of African folk music and juju, or Nigerian-style pop music, African-style “call and response,” and other types of music such as jazz and funk. Guitars, keyboards, and horns are likely to be accented with djembes and shekeres, which are African drums.

“Afrobeat is music for positive social change,” Wonodi told Psychiatric News in a recent interview.

Wonodi's poetry, which accompanies the music, provides an impetus for change. His lyrics address societal problems and political strife, focusing, for example, on the mentally ill man living on the streets and power-hungry African leaders who amass large quantities of weapons to stay in power while those under their rule die of starvation.

Writing Poetry for the People

Wonodi grew up in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria, the son of a tribal chief and poet.

As a tribal chief, Okogbule Wonodi served as an interface between the people of the Ibo tribe and the ruling government. He also presided over marriages, oversaw the buying and selling of land, and settled disputes within a designated area of Port-Harcourt.

Ikwunga Wonodi's father, who attended the University of Nigeria and the University of Iowa's creative writing program, collected a vast library of African poetry that was “free of colonial influence,” according to Wonodi, which he read voraciously as a boy.

When he set out to write his own poetry, he wanted it to be accessible to his fellow Nigerians.

“My father taught me to simplify my poetry so people could understand it and to shorten the verses so people could finish it,” he said.

Wonodi filled his poems with “pidgin” or broken English.

“It was an indigenous recital that was more accessible to common people who didn't have the education that many poets had,” he said.

As a medical student at the University of Port-Harcourt in the early 1980s, Wonodi formed a band called “What?” and began to blend his poetry with music.

Many of the songs contained sociocultural messages that were well received at live performances at Nigerian colleges and universities, according to Wonodi.

After medical school, Wonodi completed a year of service in Lagos, Nigeria, with the National Youth Service Corps. During that year, he established a mobile clinic that provided medical services and basic supplies to foster homes throughout the city.

“In general, the children lived in very poor sanitary conditions,” he recalled. “Many had scabies and lice.”

The clinic was one of a few programs later nominated for Nigeria's National Youth Service Award.

During his time in Lagos, Wonodi began reciting his poetry at the Afrika Shrine, a nightclub in Lagos established by Fela Kuti, originator of Afrobeat music.

There, Wonodi befriended Dele Sosimi, keyboardist and musical director for Kuti's band, Egypt 80, and then for Kuti's son's band, Positive Force.

It was only a matter of time before Wonodi and Sosimi began to integrate Wonodi's poems with the Afrobeat music.

Poet Becomes Psychiatrist

During medical school, Wonodi decided to pursue a career in psychiatry and matched with the University of Maryland/Sheppard Pratt psychiatry residency program, where he joined the five-year research track.

During his second year of residency, he became an APA/Center for Mental Health Services Minority Fellow and, as such, analyzed pilot data from patients at a clinic in Ibadam, Nigeria, to examine the effects of genetic markers on the metabolism of certain psychotropic drugs.

“Ethnopsychopharmacology has always been a great interest of mine,” Wonodi remarked.

Annelle Primm, M.D., director of APA's Department of Minority and National Affairs, mentored Wonodi during the year-long fellowship.

Primm described Wonodi to Psychiatric News as an“ outstanding clinician and researcher.”

“The beauty of being a mentor to Dr. Wonodi is that the information exchange is bidirectional,” she continued. “While I may have helped him in some ways, he has helped me as well.”

In addition to relying on his expertise in ethnopsychopharmacology on certain occasions, Primm said, she called upon Wonodi early in 2005 to help launch APA's “Office of Minority and National Affairs (OMNA) on Tour” at the winter conference of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

There, Wonodi “unleashed the inner dancer and drummer of the psychiatrists who attended the reception,” Primm said. “It was delightful.”

OMNA on Tour is designed to educate communities around the nation about the significance of ethnic and racial disparities in mental health with the goal of eliminating them (Psychiatric News, March 4).

In 2003 Wonodi joined the faculty at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, which is affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. There, he is an investigator on the Familial Schizophrenia Study, which is trying to identify genes associated with biological traits in people with schizophrenia and, to a lesser degree, their relatives who do not have the disorder. He is also involved in studies on psychotropic-induced side effects.

Music Benefits Victims

Though work and family keep him busy—Wonodi and his wife, also a physician, have four children—he set aside time to record the Afrobeat poetry that he'd written and performed over the years.

In June 2004 he flew to London to record “Calabash-Afrobeat Poems by Ikwunga Volume 1” with Sosimi and his band.

Wonodi described the compact disc, which he funded and released late last year, as “a labor of love.”

One of the tracks, “Di Bombs,” a song about the misplaced priorities of certain African leaders, is featured on a compilation disc titled “Afrobeat Sudan Aid Project,” which has raised more than $115,000 to provide relief to thousands of refugees of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

Proceeds from “Calabash” will fund in part The African Alliance for the Mentally Ill (TAAMI), a nonprofit organization Wonodi is launching to raise awareness of mental health problems among African people living in the United States and Nigeria. Wonodi pointed out that “there is no proper allocation of funds to treat people with mental illness” in Nigeria and in many other parts of Africa.

Workforce shortages compound the problem. “There are fewer than 100 psychiatrists to serve a population of over 120 million Nigerians,” he said.

There is also great stigma associated with mental health problems in Africa. In Nigeria, for example, mentally ill people are sometimes thought to be possessed by evil spirits, Wonodi noted, and treatment usually involves some type of spiritual ritual.

As in other places in the world, people with mental illness often have a difficult time becoming part of society and finding a spouse, which“ throws the whole family into crisis,” he said.

“My first goal with TAAMI is to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illnesses. That is the most difficult thing—to change how people think.”

“Calabash-Afrobeat Poems by Ikwunga Volume 1” can be sampled and purchased online at<www.cdbaby.com/cd/ikwunga>.▪