And the Big Dawg Died: Dan Foster — The American Ex-Marine who Stole Hearts on Nigerian Radio
Our Dan Foster, My Radio, and Me.
I’ll show you to the dining,” I said, motioning the way.
We walked together in silence towards the dining area of the Golden Tulip Hotel. Was it not yesterday I saw the grand piano in the lounge — a young man on the keys while a lady belted out Whitney’s Saving All My Love? Today it was in the dining, same man with the keys, only this time without his lady. I could make out the tune — I. K. Dairo’s Mó Sórírè.
We sat on different tables, adjacent to each other. It was absurd because we had no table mates and could have shared one but it suited us just fine. Me, on my table facing no one, him on his table facing no one, side by side, a narrow walkway in between.
And that defined my relationship with Dan; close enough to talk, close enough to hear, close enough to feel, with a walkway in between. Only that the walkway until then had been lengths of radio waves in modulated frequencies.
I will never forget the one song that started my radio relationship. Oh, I had used the radio before that time, listened once in a while, inserted my uncle’s Milli Vanilli cassettes, rolled tapes back and forth with a biro in the reels, double-pressed play and record buttons over Alex Zitto’s “Baby Walakolombo” and layering it with balderdash covers but that night was different.
Was it the cool evening breeze sauntering in and lifting the blinds? Perhaps it was because there was no “light”, no generators, just sunset camaraderie flitting from compound to compound with playful voices of children and low hums of adults.
I really cannot tell what it was, but it was there, as the battery-powered radio sat on the table. I was about to turn into the passageway when I heard, “You are, my fire, the one desire, believe when I say, I want it that way”. The smooth voice of Backstreet Boys whirled me around. I picked the radio and a relationship that spanned decades began.
“How long have you worked with him?” Dan Foster asked.
I must have been on my third morsel of pounded yam and egusi. I don’t remember what he was having. “Who?” I responded.
“Your boss,” he said, head slightly turned towards me and cutlery poised mid-air.
“Oh, about 5 years,” I answered.
“Hmmm,” he grunted and continued eating.
“Why?” I asked.
“I like the way both of you work — the way you work together.”
I smiled.
“He respects your opinions, you know…listens to you.”
That was true. “How perceptive of him,” I thought. Yet this was Dan Foster after all, right?
Dan had been signed up to MC an occasion for the brand I managed. It was our flagship event of the year and this came with attendant tension. We had lodged critical vendors at the event venue to enable us have a night time dry-run before the early morning programme — the unveiling of new brand colours and products to an exclusive set of stakeholders; key customers, industry experts, senior management and board directors. There was a lot to the jigsaw; the climax of the event was a synchronization of music, lights, video, stage, audience, and Dan Foster’s voice.
In the flurry of directives, a flare of tempers and high-strung nerves from rehearsing for the umpteenth time — we were taking no chances — Dan was listening for cadence, perceiving synergy and thus could accurately interpret the underlying energy in the room.
Was this how he stole our hearts over the radio? This ability to feel our pulses, amalgamate moods, articulate them in a way that everyone felt acknowledged, and then give us music that resonated with creepily apt empathy. It could only be a gift.
“How old are you?” Dan asked.
I told him. He nodded, as though in confirmation.
Usually, I get a shake of the head, as in disbelief, not a nod, so I was curious and asked, “Why? I don’t look it…,” I ventured before he could.
“You don’t look it,” he responded, “but you sound it.”
I smiled. “You made me love a song, you know.” We had both moved to desserts now.
I sang, “Love had played its games on me so long, started to believe I’d never find anyone,” I stopped singing.
This time, he smiled. “Larry Graham.”
“Larry Graham,” I echoed, “you ALWAYS played it on Coolfm,” nostalgia finally catching up with me.
“Favourite karaoke song of mine. Love it,” he quipped.
We were getting in the zone.
I am not sure how I stumbled on Coolfm but I know why I stayed. The people were easy to love. They were family and we could feel it. It was new to us, this comradeship, this on-air goofiness, and relatability.
The morning would begin with Dan Foster’s loud “Ariariya! Somebody stop me”, on the Good Morning Nigeria Show at 6 am, a mimic of Eddie Murphy’s Welcome to America “Good morning my neighbours!”. Tolu Aiyela would come in with the Midday Oasis by 11 am. Incidentally, Tolu Oniru’s voice bears a striking resemblance to Aiyela’s and I remember thinking, “Oh my God, Tolu is back!” the first time I heard Oniru, but alas, it was not Aiyela.
At 5 pm, the music encyclopaedic Olisa Adibua would arrive and take us till about 10 pm where Iyk the Genius would typically come in with his entrée — the heartbreaking He’s My Son by Mark Schultz. Later at night, it was Ebele announcing “Lagos, after dark…”, other times it was Darey Art-Alade letting me know that for every song, there was a history. When Glo Mobile launched in 2003, the Telco signed maestro King Sunny Ade for an advert where he covered his hit song “365 is my number dial”, swapping 365 for 0805. Like the millennial today who thinks Davido owns the lyrics to Usher’s Caught Up, I thought it was a first until Darey insightfully queued the original just after the commercial break.
Music on the radio was as entertaining as it was cerebral. You related with the artistes beyond the lyrics because you knew the back story to the music and tiny nuggets like the connection between Catcher in the Rye and John Lennon. Oh yes, it was crazy too. Till today, my subconscious brings up Afroman’s Because I got High in Olisa’s voice. We got high on that song — not literally.
There were Crazy Lakeside and Tosyn with a “y”, the late Tosyn Bucknor on Fanta Fun Hour every Saturday morning, the prank call show- Cool Candid Phone, Cool best 20 and Rickdees weekly top 40. For those of us unfamiliar with the Island at the time, we lived Victoria Island through the radio adverts like you would through books; Mega Plaza — Idowu Martins, Park ’n’ Shop — Adeola Odeku, Chocolat Royale — Etim Inyang Crescent. Like the blind man whose other senses are heightened with the loss of one, seeing nothing and hearing only, our imaginations were vivid yet uncomplicated. We were happy and whole.
There was no Instagram. Life was slow and we loved it. We were the lucky ones. The last crop of those who experienced what it was to truly live in the moment before the internet with the promise of something better, raped us of the best.
“How did I do?” Dan asked.
“You did great,” I said.
“You sure?” He was serious.
“Come on, you are Dan Foster,” I answered.
I had told him the same thing when we were about to start. The nerves were there. I once heard Richard Mofe-Damijo talk about performance nerves. He said they were always present even with the best, and that was a good thing, because the moment you stopped having those nerves, you lose the excitement.
Here I was with the best, perhaps on the radio but still a best, and yes, the nerves were there.
“Listen,” I had said. “You see all these men in suits, these ladies in heels? They are here for you. They love you already and are just waiting to lap it all up, whatever it is you give them.”
“Really?” He asked.
“Really,” I answered. “I’ll show you the people that matter,” I continued, “when you are talking, concentrate on them. They like respect — these executives. Maintain eye contact, make them feel good, and you would have nailed it.”
I felt his gratitude, but he said it anyway, “Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” I responded. “Now, let’s go over the names of the dignitaries again.”
Perhaps one of the things that endeared radio listeners to Dan Foster was his vulnerability. He would acknowledge his goofs on air and we forgave him instantly like grandparents indulged grandchildren. Who was this cheery, lively American who had taken up this burdensome yet significant responsibility to make our Lagos mornings awesome? Still, he did it, 6 am, every day, lifting our spirits, cracking our ribs, opening our hearts, calming us with beautiful speech and reflective music as we moved about in this our beloved chaotic city.
Lagos was drawn to him and we all assumed responsibility for integrating him into the Nigerian culture. Listeners would call to teach him how to pronounce certain Yoruba words. The rest of us would laugh amusedly with a tinge of fondness as he interjected his sentences with “Ahn Ahn” or “Kbèlé o”, for “Pèlé o”. It was a delight to see this foreigner coming into ours and we watched as he slowly evolved and immersed himself in all that’s Nigerian.
Dan was soulful, spiritual, and spontaneous. Not a few of us substituted his Sunday Morning Joy on the radio for actual church services.
Cool radio in Nigeria started in Lagos and Dan Foster was integral to that evolution. We wore our Lagos radio culture as a badge, not failing to rub it in the faces of those from other parts of the country. We would arrogantly ask, “Do you guys have Rickdees? Of course, you can’t have Rickdees” or “Do you know Dan Foster? No, just in Lagos.” We were a hip cult, unwilling to share. Little did we know that an explosion was coming.
We excitedly hugged and posed for pictures. The event was a huge success.
I was exhausted and walking away when Dan said, “Hey, let’s take one. Both of us.”
“Sure, we should,” I replied, and we posed for some shots with me thinking, “Wow, this is THE Dan Foster from my almost 2-decade past. This must have been how Funmi Iyanda felt as she gushed over Tolu Aiyela when she was a guest on New Dawn years back.”
I made to disengage from the embrace but Dan would not let go. I looked up at him quizzically, “What?”
“Keep in touch,” He said.
“Sure, I will,” I replied.
I never did.
Except for the one time years later, I had to run a radio campaign. I had requested to speak directly to all contracted OAPs so they got the brief right. I knew him still. He didn’t know me at all.
“Who’s gonn’ pay?” He asked.
“The agency,” I replied.
He paused.
I understood the pause. Even Dan was not absolved from the challenges that came with working in an unstructured creative environment and underserved media sector. Money was important, big dawg or not. Fierce competition, social media, an abundance of phoné, and a generation of Egyptians that do not know Joseph, Dan had become one of many — or had he?
“We’ll pay the agency. The agency will pay you,” I confirmed.
“Okay. If you say so,” He replied.
Things have changed irrevocably. We listen to the radio only when in traffic — and that’s if you are behind the wheels. When we tune in, we are confused as we hop from dial to dial in search of what we cannot define because we’ve lost the model of what it should be. We are too busy swiping to lay down, close our eyes, and listen long. Hell, who is falling in love over the radio these days?! Sleepless in Seattle is long gone.
So we might never regain the beauty of being mesmerized by slow talk and good music. But we are eternally grateful for being part of an era that comes once in a lifetime. Here’s to Dan Foster for giving us that much in his lifetime. Goodbye, big dawg and thank you …for good times.
