Live Your Dream- A Tribute to Georgy Gold

Georgy Gold during a performance in Lagos circa 1984

 If you are a woman in traditional Nigerian society, as soon as the doctor proclaims "It's a girl! your script is written and you are required to follow the rules and traditions. No one cares that you may have a dream of your own, and perhaps want to write your own script and live out your dream. From the day you start talking, everything is geared toward grooming you to be a wife and a mother! 

Nothing else matters because the culture has decreed who you should be. It was worse in my Mother's generation, which was Georgina's A.K.A. Georgy Gold. During their generation girls were often married off early to help the family financially and the boys were encouraged to go to school. 

But Georgina had dreams and early marriage and starting a family did not stop her. She wanted to sing, she wanted to be on stage, and travel the world on tours.  She wanted the right to a full expression of self. An impossible task at the time for a married Igbo woman from a conservative background. 

She did accomplish some of her dreams with the blessings of her beloved husband. She was allowed to do more schooling in London alone. Something unheard of at the time. Igbo men are known to be traditional, conservative, and egocentric. In traditional Igbo society, a woman was only allowed to be seen, but not heard.

I remember sitting with her one lazy evening in 1991/1992 and a United Nations meeting came on television. She asked me how the speaker's speech was translated into different languages for the participants. She was curious, she wanted to be there. She was enthralled by the women at the meeting. She admired them, She wanted to be them. I could see it in her eyes. She believed a woman should not be limited, and women deserved as many opportunities as men did. She wanted to be more than a wife and a mother. And was not particularly happy with the script her society wrote for women. 

Georgina managed to start a singing career and even shared the stage with the elegant stallion- Onyeka Onwenu, Bright Chimezie, and others I don't quite remember now. She had shows in Lagos, Port Harcourt, and other cities When there were not many female Nigerian singers and the world had not recognized Nigerian music as it has today.

I often wonder how her life would have been scripted differently if she was born in another era, a time when more women are allowed full self-expression. Sadly she passed on December 31, 2020, from Covid-19.

Dear Aunty Georgina, wherever you are, Keep singing and living your dreams. I understand you better now.