S

Sydney Onayemi

Died
May 1, 2016
Age
78 years

About Sydney Onayemi

Sydney Onayemi, 78, Nigerian-born Swedish DJ.

Explore other notable deaths in 2016 or deaths in May 2016.

The Deaths Archive presents

How well do you know Sydney Onayemi?

Explore their life. Test your knowledge. Beat the challenge.

10 questions · One legacy · How much do you really know?

Challenge your friends

Play together in real-time.

Advertisement

Full Biography

|

Abayomi Sydney Onayemi (3 November 1937 – 1 May 2016), also known as Big Brother Sydney, was a Nigerian-born Swedish disc jockey.

His other name "Abayomi" means "he brings me joy and happiness" in the Yoruba language. Onayemi came to Sweden in 1962 to study finance at the prestigious Stockholm School of Economics. After two years he had to drop out of school due to lack of money. In order to pay his bills he started working at restaurants, mainly cleaning bathrooms at the Strands Maritime. Eventually he started deejaying soul, and later funk and disco, music that was fairly new to Sweden. He also sang along to the tracks, added maracas and other live percussions. In 1972 he opened his own discothèque Big Brother.

He opened his fourth discothèque Confetti in 1984, a gay discothèque, and also worked as resident DJ at various other discothèques throughout the years. In between he also opened the discothèques "Knattedisco" and "1984".

In 2010 he came out of retirement for a onetime event at the Loveboat 12 club, celebrating the Disco era.

Influence

He has been credited in one publication for introducing the two turntable style of deejaying from the United States and Jamaica to Scandinavia. He has also been credited for introducing Swedish 1980s new wave and synthpop acts like Ratata, Mauro Scocco and Lustans Lakejer to funk music according to Lustans Lakejer vocalist Johan Kinde and nightclub entrepreneur Joakim Langer.

In a 2012 radio documentary, Swedish National Radio named him the nation's first superstar Disc Jockey.

Personal life

He retired and lived in the Östermalm neighbourhood of Stockholm.

Content from Wikipedia — licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Interactive

Test Your Knowledge – Trivia Challenge

How well do you know this person's life and legacy?

No account needed to play. Sign in to keep your score on the leaderboard.

Books & Media

Find books, audiobooks and films about Sydney Onayemi on Amazon.

Available at Amazon

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Sources

People who died on May 1

Spotted an error?

Help us keep the archive accurate. Report a correction with a source.

Report an error for Sydney Onayemi →

Advertisement

We use cookies for analytics (Google Analytics 4 and PostHog) and advertising (Google AdSense) to understand site usage and improve your experience. By clicking "Accept All", you consent to the use of these cookies. See our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy for details.