Dupe Solana

Dupe Solana
Dupe Solana. Photo: Discog

Dupe Solana; Multi lingua Gospel crusader. Dupe took to church songs to fight depression following the murder in 1960 of her policeman father. She recorded her first elpee in 1966 and it was released in 1967. Jesu Mbo was a very successful debut, she has recorded eight elpees all on her independent record label.
 
Places of Growth

Dupe Solana grew up with the strict monitoring from her disciplinarian parents, under strict Apostolic Church doctrines. Once she had had to move with her father, a police inspector on transfer to Afikpo, Imo (now Abia State) at the age of 14 for the completion of her secondary education at Francis Ibiam Secondary School, a boarding house.
 
Childhood

Solana, committed to a chaste life from childhood modeled her first cousin, a believer, who got married at 31 and was a virgin. She did not practice sports because her sports teacher was always “looking at the wrong places” in her body.
 
Family

Dupe met her husband, Kola Solana who was a physiotherapist at a gospel music group. They got engaged in 1963 and married a year after. They have four kids, three boys and a girl.
 
Education

Dupe enrolled the school of nursing reluctantly. She decided to face music, which she earlier vowed to do after all effort to pursue a degree in nursing or a diploma in midwifery proved abortive due to lack of interest.

Contributor:
Tope Apoola
Profession: Writer