Legendary King Sunny Ade Reveals How Fans Were Deceived For Years Over Famous Feud With Ebenezer Obey & Pact With ”Area Boys”

Eniola Ajayi

The legend dubbed ‘’The King African Beat’’ Sunny Ade ( real names Sunday Adeniyi Adegeye )has finally opened up on the famous feud with a colleague in the entertainment industry Ebenezer Obey (stage names Obey Commander).

Before Obey turned an Evangelist, he was a rave juju musician.

Obey and KSA shared the spotlight with their popularity feasting on an alleged deep seethed feud that pitched fans against one another for years.

KSA has now revealed the secret behind the famous feud in an interview with Peter Dada of Punch.

People perceived you and Chief Ebenezer Obey as rivals who always attacked each other with songs. Why were you always fighting?

It was the fans that believed we were always fighting. Obey and I had been friends since we began our bands and we are still friends till date. He started his band a year before me. Also, we pretended to be fighting in order for our fans to enjoy our music. Then, we used to play at night clubs, and where he was playing wasn’t far from where I played. I recall that the fans would go and disrupt his band, and later come to disturb us too. One day, I went to his (Obey) house to meet him behind closed doors.

I asked him how we could manage the situation, and he also asked for my suggestion. We both agreed to change the date of our performances at the club. He chose Thursdays while I maintained Wednesdays. Later, we also pretended to our seniors that we had a misunderstanding, so I invited Pa IK Dairo, Haruna Ishola, Adeolu Akinsanya and two others, to help settle the rift. For a long time, to avoid clashes of our fans, if I had a show, I would ask if Ebenezer Obey was going to be there. If they said yes, I wouldn’t go; and that was the same thing he did too. Our elders then told us there should be no more fight between us, and we should make records to appease our fans. So, when I sang, he replied too.

As the two of us were holding the meeting in his house, we just heard a bang on the door and somebody (Olabisi Ajala) was shouting that so the two of us were friends, yet we were pretending otherwise. We didn’t open the door but we had already agreed on how we would be doing things from then on. I have to thank God for his (Obey) life because he later got a call from God and became a cleric. The bottom line is that we have always been friends. We later advised young musicians that they don’t need to fight or destroy one another’s shows because of unnecessary rivalry.

How do you manage urchins so that they don’t disrupt your shows?

I have only experienced people disrupting my show once. Whenever the ‘area boys’ come to my show, I don’t rebuke them. I call them my stakeholders because when we finish the show, I give them their own share of the money. I don’t have problems with them.