Most times when the world celebrates and talks about the legacies and exploits of ‘great men’ like the reggae legends, we often fail to mention the women in their lives who stood as pillars of support, cheerleaders and caregivers as they conquer their world as big stars.
The popular saying “behind every great man stands a woman” may sound like a cliché, but its relevance is not in doubt. The death of reggae music legend Majekodunmi Fasheke popularly known as Majek Fashek is another good time to look at the women in the lives of Nigeria’s two reggae legends Majek and his former music group (Jastix) colleague, Oseloke Onwubuya aka Ras Kimono. Sometimes to understand the lives of some legends in any field, there is a need to look at the women who stood with them and the role they played in their lives that impacted their careers.
Rita Fashek:
Rita Fasheke was Majek Fashek’s first and only wife, they were married for more than 30 years before drug and alcohol addiction put asunder in their beautiful love story that started in ancient Benin City.
Their love story dates back to the early 1980s before Majek rose to fame. They met at a holiday job camp in Benin, Edo State and from there they built a union that lasted for over three decades.
“We were both hired as interns and something in both of us stirred as we worked together as summer interns. Soon after we met, we fell in love in great ancient Bini kingdom,” Rita said as she narrates her love story in an interview with The Punch in 2015. They got married before Majek released ‘Prisoner of Conscience’, the album that shot him to global limelight in 1988 and their marriage produced three boys.
To understand how their love blossomed, his song ‘Without You’ from the album ‘I & I Experience’ is a perfect reference point. Majek and Rita’s love story inspired the song before their union hit the rock.
In an interview where Rita shared fond memories of the music legend, she described him as a very caring father and husband. “Before the illness, Majek’s heart is a pot of platinum. He is a very kind and loving person. He was a great husband and lover. He cared very much for the children and I. We felt his essence of fatherhood and husband whenever he was sober,” she relished.
“Majek did everything for me. He took care of me and treated me like a superstar. Whenever he went on a music tour of Europe, Majek would buy us boxes of clothes and everything else. But his alcoholism and drugs addiction denied us his love, care and humanity.”
Their love and marriage later came under threat due to Majek’s addiction, and Rita did much more than just being his wife to save him from the monster called drug addiction. According to her, after 15 years of battling for his redemption, taking him from one rehab centre to another in Nigeria and New York in the United States, she gave up on him when she became convinced that he was irredeemable.
Lamenting how she lost her husband to addiction, Rita said “I don’t know what went wrong with Majek. I may never know. He is deep into substance abuse. I discovered this after the birth of our second son, Seun (now 29 years old)”.
What is not in doubt is that Rita made a strong mark on Majek’s life and also struggled hard to save him. Despite their divorce five years before his death, her influence remains indelible.
“I never thought I would divorce Majek, I thought we would live together forever; but as we grew into different rhythms of life’s challenges, I discovered that forever was not enough time to spend with him,” she said after their divorce in 2015. Majek didn’t remarry before his death.
After their separation, Rita returned to Nigeria from New York where she is based with her children to rally support for Majek in July 2015 and took him off the streets to a rehab centre in Abuja.
Sybil Kimono:
Like Majek Fashek, his former music groupmate, Ras Kimono also moved his family to the United States at the height of his career. He lived in the U.S with his wife Sybil Kimono and their three children before he decided to return to Nigeria.
Sybil and Ras Kimono met at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) where the singer used to go for rehearsals and they sealed their love by tying the knot in 1990. She was a dancer and played more than the role of a wife, he was also Ras Kimono’s manager for many years before their divorce around 2013.
In an interview in 2012, he declined a question asking about his family, “Actually, I do not talk about my family because I want to give them their privacy. They can talk about themselves wherever they go,” he said.
Although Kimono had five children (all girls) from three women before his death in 2018, he spent a greater part of his life with Sybil and they had three daughters together. As his manager, Sybil played crucial roles that greatly influenced Kimono’s career and contributed to his status as a legend in the Nigeria music scene. He did not like to admit he is a reggae legend during his lifetime.
Like many celebrity marriages, their union also came under obstacles that put an end to their love story. The couple relocated to the U.S. in the early 2004 but to the surprise of many, Kimono returned to Nigeria in 2010 without Sybil and there were reports that the couple separated while they were together in the U.S. The details of their divorce are scanty, but after his return to Nigeria without his family, the singer remarried and had another child with his new manager Efemena Okedi (his new manager), in 2013. Efemena died in 2018, just three months after Kimono’s death.