Now, the British were not successful in making us, in Nigeria, lose our cultural identity and pride. But I was growing up when there was this movement by a chap called Mazi Mbonu Ojike who revolted against the British saying you must allow us to wear our traditional attires, costumes, to go to work. And he came up with this slogan, "Boycott the boycottables". So, this is what gave us that admiration for Nigerians who trained in America. Like (Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe) Zik’s nationalism, Ojike’s nationalism.

We were able to keep our cultural heritage and be proud of it to the extent that when we went abroad as young students in University, students they wear our Nigerian traditional clothes and the influence African's before me like Zik who had gone there and had taught at Lincoln. Nkrumah who had also gone there and taught. The musicians also, there was a great musician called Babatunde Olatunji who came from Nigeria. Now Olatunji `went to America, he studied and then he became a performing musician and he did fantastic albums like Drum Passion and he collaborated with Max Roach and the singer Abbey Lincoln and they did a fantastic record called "We Insist, Freedom Now". So, the Africans who went to America were very futuristic and confident and they have roots. And the Americans admired us for that.

Did they encourage you? How did you feel that the Americans encouraged you, that space that was neither British nor French?

You'd be amazed, those that encouraged me were not the usual quote unquote intellectuals. But rather I remember this lady, she had a restaurant in Detroit by the commune where we lived, when she found out I was an African she came and personally insisted "you must come and have a meal in my restaurant every day!" She was fascinated with this young African long away from home.

I wanted to go on the intellectual level because you go on about all these people who actually are the torch and the words that future generations are taking and you yourself was a part of this movement so how did you feel that the crowd provided for you in America was more fertile than you could get?

That's an interesting question because on the one hand there was this kind of patronising attitude on the part, strangely enough, of the black intelligentsia. I had no problem with the ... I use the word white intelligentsia. I became friends with Allen Ginsberg, the poets through a friend called (Gilbert) Sorrentino, he was very impressed with me early poetry. He recommended me to Evergreen Review. Evergreen Review was like the very avant-garde new culture and I'd have my poetry published in Evergreen Review 1966. The black American intellectuals were a bit patronising and once in a while I had to put them in their place because I remember there was an anthology that was being edited by Leroy Jones and Larry Neal and they thought I didn't quite qualify. And I felt insulted. You know it took them a while to realise that we Africans were hip and sometimes more hip than they were.

Did America allow you to reinvent yourself?

Very much so. It made me... and thanks to people like Sun Ra I must give a lot of credit to black music. I seeped myself into black music. Chicago, the Blues, New York, Jazz, somewhat so that by 1970 I became the first new music and electronic music editor of down beat Magazine which is like the Jazz bible of the world. So that, through music, and the opportunity to be myself, to be able to realise my dreams. Okay Sun Ra, I wanted to play here...America made things possible. America there were the 24 hour 7 day a week society and if you knew how to navigate in the Big Apple, that was it.

When did you become conscious of the word Sub-Saharan Africa and this divide between the North and the South of the continent.

The terminology Sub-Saharan Africa came late into our consciousness and I think it had a lot to do with trying to put Africa into compartments. I came into the realisation of the idea of Sub-Saharan Africa maybe in the late 1970s. When America made me in a sense, remove myself from the African political reality and deal with the Black American overall political you know ...so we think that context the term Sub-Saharan Africa did not crop up. But by the 1970s when we were now coming back with American ideas and bearing in mind through Nkrumah people like W.E.B. Du Bois were invited to Ghana, the idea of doing the African Encyclopedia. So, we now started becoming more and more conscious of Africa and terminology. That was when that term came up, Sub- Saharan Africa, and it had for me some uncomfortable connotations because it was like trying to tell us that those Sub-Saharan Africa are not as hip as those above – is it Maghreb countries? Is that the word? Or the Arab countries so to say. It was a definition of demarcation and separation.

And was that how you had understood Africa previously?

No. We understood Africa previously as one entity. We were one people but the Sub- Saharan definition was the beginning of trying to bring a divide and it was based on saying those above the Sahara were in a sense affiliated to the Mediterranean and Europe, whilst we were still in a sense backwards and not...you know. And I’m glad that people like Nkrumah were futuristic enough to know that that divide, when they came, that concept had to be destroyed. I mean on a personal level Nkrumah married an Egyptian woman and it took a while, even on the part of the Egyptians, the Libyans, to get away from that Arab concept and see themselves as African because look at what Morocco did recently. They are now trying to get back into the EU. So, it is a battle that I am happy that some people out there are trying to establish the bridge and those of us here...

What do you consider was your role in the bridge, musically? Was there a bridge? What was your role, if you want to define your role in music?

My role was to make music that should have been known, make it possible for it to be played worldwide. I just felt right from the beginning toward my duty that I had discovered this treasure of music. Music was me, music with purpose, music to elevate the mind you know?