It was the turn of Nigerian opera singer, Ranti Ihomyan, to heed to a call of duty, when a couple of weeks ago she sang to heal a locked down Lagos, the words of the Christian hymnal epic, Amazing Grace.
Ranti, an Amazon in her own right, soared to high pitched notes as she sauntered through the words of Rev. John Newton, who, himself, in a show of contrition from his former role as a slave trader, composed the hymn soon after a shipwreck from a slave raiding expedition incidentally to Nigeria.
It was an apt rendition by the soprano, standing between the columns beneath a deserted Falomo bridge, reprising a role earlier played by blind Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli, who had in front of the Milan Cathedral, Italy, soothed a mourning world , which had become bereaved by the fatal clutches of an invisible, grim-reaping COVID19 novel coronavirus plague.
The Nigerian production was a collaboration between Arise News and Rantimusic.
Next week: An exclusive interview with Ranti Ihimoyan.
Below is Ranti’s sonorous rendition of Amazing Grace.
