31/08/2025
In the heart of Tivland, where the Benue River curls like a silver serpent through fields of yam and sorghum, lived two men whose voices became the pulse of a people.
One was Tarker Golozo, a bard whose songs were not merely melodies but chronicles carved into the air. His voice was at once a drumbeat and a whisper, commanding attention and stirring reflection. He sang of chiefs and farmers, of joy and famine, of the sly wit of tricksters and the courage of warriors. When Golozo lifted his voice, the market fell silent, and even the wind seemed to lean closer. His lyrics carried laughter sharp enough to cut and wisdom deep enough to heal.
Beside him, like the steady shadow of a great flame, stood Agure Mki. If Golozo was thunder, Mki was the earth that received it. He was the echo that gave Golozo’s words wings, the anchor that balanced their flight. Together, they were not just performers — they were custodians of memory, guardians of Tiv soul.
Their bond was more than music; it was brotherhood forged in song. For decades they moved from homestead to homestead, their voices weaving a net of shared experience across Tivland. Children clapped to their rhythms, elders nodded to their satire, and the young learned to see themselves in the mirror of their art. Golozo would launch a verse like an arrow, sharp and fearless, and Mki would catch it in harmony, tempering its sting with warmth.
But time, the final drummer, has its own rhythm. In the year 2000, Tarker Golozo laid down his calabash, answering the ancestors’ call. His departure left a silence so heavy that only memory could fill it. Yet Agure Mki carried the torch, keeping Golozo’s voice alive through his own, until his body too grew weary. And now, he too has taken a bow and journeyed to the ancestral homestead, where he and Golozo sing again — not to markets or gatherings, but to the spirits of their people.
Today, when Tiv sons and daughters speak of them, they do not separate the two. They say “Golozo and Agure Mki” the way one might say sun and dawn — distinct yet inseparable, each incomplete without the other. They are remembered not only as singers but as living archives: men who turned Tiv life into poetry, who gave laughter and lament a voice, who showed that music is not merely entertainment but a vessel of identity.
And so, in every Tiv gathering where the drum is struck, one still feels the breath of Golozo in the rhythm, and the steady presence of Mki in the chorus. For though they have both answered the ancestors’ call, their voices remain eternal — proof that a people who sing together can never be forgotten.