We Shall Win!

The mid-western region of Nigeria--an area once known as Bendel State, but now subdivided into Delta and Edo States--has produced a great many outstanding musicians. However, few of them get the opportunity to rise to national prominence largely because the region is composed primarily of minority ethnic groups.

Yes, you have your Sir Victor Uwaifo, Sonny Okosuns, Kris Okotie, Felix Lebarty, Evi-Edna Ogholi-Ogosi and others, but for each one of these, there are scores of talented artists whose fame never extended much beyond their immediate locality, so I'm always happy when I discover some of them.


Until recently, Pogo Ltd was unknown to me... though a few of the members were not: the Benin-based band was made up of guitarist Emma "Cherry" Ogosi, bassist Robo Arigo, keyboardist Emman Osagie Iguagbonmwen, drummer Mike "Gasper" Okuofu (though they all traded instruments) and lead singer Pat "Finn" Okonjo, former frontman of The Hykkers.

(click to bigificate)

They seem to have been fairly popular down there, but the only album from them I have encountered is the reggae set We Shall Win, which I shall--by way of an educated guess--date to 1979.

Interestingly, I found that I was actually familiar with at least one song on the record, the title track:

Pogo Ltd - "We Shall Win"

It was a ubiquitous anthem during the era of the struggle against apartheid, but I actually thought it was an ages-old church song or a public-domain standard or something... But then again, it has somewhat specific references to then-current events involving Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and South African President John Vorster. So yeah... This must have been a pretty big hit for them.

It would seem that Pogo Ltd broke up soon after We Shall Win: In 1981, Emma Ogosi embarked upon a successful solo career as a country singer, and then later as producer/husband of mid-80s reggae star Evi-Edna Ogholi. Robo Arigo also launched a less sensational (but still very interesting) career as a solo artist and producer. Pat Finn Okonjo went and got himself a 9-to-5, working at the Nigerian Television Authority's Benin office.

When (the awesome) Jake Sollo returned to Nigeria after his long London sojourn, he looked up his old Hykkers buddy Finn, with a mind to putting the old band back together. I don't think that project ever came to fruition in the midst of Sollo's busy schedule, but Pat and Jake did collaborate on the album In The Beginning in (again, educated guess) 1982.


Among the tracks is a reprise of Pogo Ltd's big hit:

Pat Finn - "We Shall Win"

(By the way, I have been wondering whether Pat Finn Okonjo is related to renowned economist Prof. Chukwuka Okonjo, who also happens to be the father of Nigeria's former crusading Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and grandfather of novelist Uzodinma Iweala. Anybody know?)

Jake Sollo is Awesome! Part 2: Ken Eme/1st Flight, Veno and the Prophet "V"

Just so that there is no confusion, let us make this point perfectly clear right from the get-go: Jake Sollo was the hottest, the most prolific, the very best music producer in Nigeria during the first half of the 1980s... and perhaps ever. He is awesome!

A little background: Sollo (nee Nkem Okonkwo) started his career in the 1960s with The Hykkers, a "beat" group formed at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

The Hykkers - "Stone the Flower"

The Hykkers remained a popular draw across the country throughout the Nigeria-Biafra war but disbanded shortly thereafter. Sollo subsequently joined the Aba-based Funkees, who soon became instant superstars due to the East-Central State Broadcasting Service's heavy rotation of a rough demo called "Akula Owu Onyeara" (check out the more polished--but still raw and funky--officially released version on Soundway's Nigeria Special). The Funkees phenomenon spread across the country, into Cameroon and eventually to England where they were championed by legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel.

By 1976, with creative and personal tensions slowly disintegrating The Funkees, Sollo was offered the golden opportunity to play with the creme de la creme of Afro-rock groups, Osibisa.

Sollo's distinctive rhythm guitar graced hits like "The Coffee Song," but his tenure with Osibisa was short-lived: On July 19, 1977, as the band prepared for a historic performance at London's Royal Festival Hall (captured on the double LP Black Magic Night), Sollo and two other recent Osibisa recruits--keyboardist Kiki Gyan and conga man Kofi Ayivor--failed to report for duty. Gyan--feeling shortchanged by group leader Teddy Osei--had convinced his fellow newbies to join him in a work stoppage to force the management to grant them a raise.

The gambit backfired; at the eleventh hour, a furious Osei called the band's former keyboard player Robert Bailey, percussionist Darko "Potato" Adams, and BLO bassist Mike Odumosu to play the concert, and fired the three mutineers. Author Charles Aniagolu writes about the aftermath of the incident in Osibisa: Living In The State Of Happy Vibes And Criss Cross Rhythms:

Like Wendell, Spartacus and Loughty before them, the three dissidents soon realised [sic] they'd made an awful mistake. They became regretful and penitent, appealing to Teddy to overlook their pertinacity and let them back into Osibisa.

Teddy refused. "We felt that clearly they had jumped into the fire with their eyes open and had no one else to blame but themselves for their misfortune". They later relented and reabsorbed Kofi Ayivor, but not the other two. Within a couple of years, a very frustrated Jake Solo [sic] was dead, killed in a car crash in Nigeria. After a series of fits and starts, Kiki Gyan moved back to Ghana and became a junkie--hooked on heroin.

Even recognizing that Aniagolu is an ardent Teddy Osei sympathizer who spares no efforts in his book to portray all who defy Osei as losers, I wonder if his decision to gloss over Sollo's subsequent career and describe him as "very frustrated" was motivated by any special insight into the man's life. Because from where I'm standing, Jake did just fine after Osibisa. He got steady work as a session man and producer in the London scene and his dance card stayed full upon his return to Nigeria in 1981, especially after the enormous success of Felix Lebarty's Lover Boy.

As the London Era drew to a close with the budgets (and visas) to record in the UK becoming increasingly scarce, Sollo set up shop in Enugu, recording at Tabansi Studios and Rogers All Stars Studio (located in the nearby commercial hubs of Onitsha and Awka respectively) and started cranking out records at a furious clip.

During this period, Sollo was the most in-demand producer in Nigeria. His specialty was bouncy, high-gloss boogie, though he occasionally produced artists in other genres as well. Regardless of which style he was working in, though, a Jake Sollo production was instantly recognizable: the fat, angular basslines... the chirping and chattering guitars... but the chief sonic signature of Jake Sollo records was probably the squiggly and squelchy sound of the Prophet "V".

While the Prophet-5 synthesizer had been introduced in the 1977 and quickly become a hot piece of hardware among art-minded rockers like Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Gary Numan and New Order, by the early 1980s there were still less than 2000 of them shipped and I believe Sollo had the only one in Nigeria.* The revolutionary polyphonic sound of the Prophet allowed it to be a more convincing replacement for horn arrangements. Sometimes Sollo utilized the synth sparingly, as an accent... and other times, he virtually slathered his tracks in it.



A fine example of Sollo's heavy Prophet style would be the work he did on the album Winner and Loser by Ken Eme (1st Flight). I wish I knew more about him/them; as it is, I'm barely certain about whether he was a solo artist or part of a group!

I first encountered this record in 1983 (or maybe early 84) when the music videos were played on NTA 9 Calabar. As I mentioned before, the immediate appeal of the video was the fact that they looked really cool. Unlike a lot of groups of the time, they seemed to have a coordinated style and gimmick (they wore boots and sweet flight jackets) and they had some awesome breakdancing (by this time, though, we still referred to this style of dancing as "Electric Shock!"--yes, with the exclamation point). The videos billed the artist as "1st Flight" (with a logo showing a low angle of an aeroplane taking off) and they seemed to be a trio... or at least a duo (it was a bit hard to distinguish the actual group members from the dancing extras sometimes). I recall hearing on the radio that the group's lead singer was named Ken Eme.



Now I have the album in front of me and it says both "1st Flight" and "Ken Eme" on the cover, and while he's pictured chilling with one of the other guys on the back, the other fellow remains unidentified. Apart from Sollo's semi-regular session men like bassist Modjo Isidore and pianist Sony Enang, the only person credited is Ken Eme and the LP label doesn't mention 1st Flight at all.

Oh well...

Anyway, here's one of my favorite cuts from the album--a funky neo-calypso banger called "Love is What You Need." (Listen to it over good speakers or headphones and dig all the cool stuff Jake's got going on with the guitars in there!)

Ken Eme/1st Flight - "Love Is What You Need"

I never heard of 1st Flight again after 1984, and they seem to have been erased from the popular consciousness, because apart from my boy Enyi, I cannot find anybody who remembers them. Even my older sister with whom I used to sing the title track, Donny & Marie style--I asked her if she remembered "Winner and Loser" and started singing it; she looked at me like I was crazy!



The style on display on "Love is What You Need" reminds me a lot of another Jake Prophet track: "Groove I Like" by Veno. This song (which has been a favorite among boogie lovers over the past year) is from the album Nigeria Go Survive, from 1985. The release of this album marked (for me, at least) a distinct detour in the direction of Nigerian popular music. Maybe because there wasn't as much Jake Sollo music around after it? Someone told me Jake died while working on this album, but I'm not sure that's correct. (The car crash that claimed Jake and Al Jackson Nnakwe was in late 1985). Anyway, this album was co-produced by Roy Obika of the Esbee Family, and much of it really doesn't sound like Jake's work. Is it possible that Obika completed Sollo's work after the accident?

Probably.

For now, enjoy the Jake Sollo awesomeness!

Veno - "Groove I Like"


*We-ell... Come to think of it, William Onyeabor must have had one too, right?

Nigeria, we hail thee...

48 years today... You've come a long way, baby!

Theadora Ifudu - "Her Name Is Nigeria

No More Water

It's raining like the dickens here and there's a flood watch on, so it's not without a tinge of irony that I post today's funky nugget, "No More Water in the Well," by Bongos Ikwue & the Groovies.

Unlike most of the forgotten Nigerian musicians who eventually find their way onto this page, Bongos Ikwue is an artist whose name and music still resonate with a large portion of the Nigerian populace. Known primarily as the folky and philosophical troubadour behind sentimental favorites such as "Still Searching," "Sitting on the Beach" and "Cock Crow at Dawn," Ikwue is acclaimed as one of the most sensitive songsmiths in Nigeria's pop canon; many forget, though, that he started out as a righteous rocker.

Ikwue's 1973 debut, the heavily psychedelic You Can't Hurry the Sunrise (produced by Ginger Baker and Jide Alawiye), was one of the first releases from Baker's ARC label, but Ikwue soon signed up with EMI where he recorded a string of classic LPs through the 1970s (including the rarely-seen self-titled set from which today's track is taken).

Ikwue's star dimmed somewhat in the 1980s due to poor handling by his new label Tabansi, and a bit of embarrassment surrounding the widespread rumor that his calypso ballad "Mariama" had been addressed to the First Lady Maryam Babangida, with whom he had allegedly enjoyed a passionate affair in their younger days.

Bongos has since retired to his native Benue State where he has established himself as a magnate in construction and manufacturing. He has long promised a return to the music scene, though. In fact, I think I recall him featuring on a record with some rapper a few months ago and announcing that his new album was completed and would be out later this year. I sure hope it doesn't suck!

Bongos Ikwue & the Groovies - "No More Water in the Well"

(Sari fa' di likkle skip dem)

Akwassa? Eureka!

Ahh... How I love it when the pieces fall together!

La'ila by Akwassa, DWAPS 54, 1975. This is a record I've had for some time, featuring a band I've never heard of, so I was just about to throw up this post as yet another terse "I don't know nothing about this artist but ain't it sho nuff funky"-type comment. However, as I waited for the tracks to upload, I took a few moments to peruse the back cover...



Akwassa--a mysterious duo made up of Felix Day (Hayman guitar & vocal) and Kevin Coburn (organ, piano, synthesizer & vocal). Never heard of either of them. These guys chose some... interesting stage names for themselves in those days, didn't they? "Kevin Coburn"? Sounds like the name of a late-1960s B-movie idol (or maybe a member of a C-list boy band from the 1990s). "Felix Day" isn't an altogether bad name, though... Has a ring to it... Felix Day... Felix Day....

Hmmm... That sounds a bit like Felix Odey, doesn't it? As in "Feladey," guitarist in the early-70s band Action 13, and later in Headzfunk and Bongos Ikwue's Groovies?

That would make sense, wouldn't it? Looking through the list of musicians who contributed to the album, apart from bassist Joe Castro the only name I recognize is Eddie Offeyi. I learned from our friend Seal67 (a close friend and occasional bandmate of Offeyi's) that Offeyi was the drummer in Headzfunk, so that's another connection right there.

By now, I'm pretty much convinced, but just to be completely sure, let's examine the available physical evidence, shall we? The only picture of Feladey I have on hand is the painting of him featured on the back cover of his 1985 album with the Jap Band, Japadodo (right). Let's compare that with the photo on the back of the La'ila LP:



I'd say there's a likeness!

Alright, so considering that this album was released in 1975, as was Aktion's Groove the Funk (which was recorded right after the dissolution of Action 13), that would mean Akwassa was a short-lived project Feladey was involved with between Action 13 and Headzfunk.

(By the way, I think the use of the synthesizer on this album sounds pretty far out for 1975... I wonder who this Kevin Coburn character is; he couldn't have just dropped off the scene completely. Maybe he changed his nom de rock?)

Well... Perhaps Seal67 knows something about all this. Or maybe we can get in touch with Feladey himself; he's still active in the industry as an artist (mainly in the gospel idiom), producer, manager and general music advocate.

(Sorry for the little geek-out, y'all... Here's some music.)

Akwassa - "Be Yourself (And Don't Let Nobody Be You)"
Akwassa - "I Don't Want No-Body (To Tell Me What To Do)"

WA HO HA!!!

As I have stated a few times before, I have something of a love-hate relationship with Nigerian reggae. I mean, I've actually warmed up to it considerably over the past year or so (mostly for scholarly reasons) but as I have precious little space in my personal collection (and even preciouser little money to spend on vinyl in this wintry economic climate), when I'm shopping I usually veto the Naija natty riddims right off the bat.

Thankfully, they're usually easy to identify too, since 1980s album designers took to stenciling jagged lettering and red-gold-green hues on every goddamn sleeve. Or my other rule of thumb is: "When in doubt, just avoid any LP that depicting persons with dreadlocks."

Pity me; for my prejudice almost made me pass on Pazy.*

In fact, I did pass on the record twice before I finally picked it up on a whim... Well, actually, it was a bit more of an educated process than just a "whim"; after all, my aversion is chiefly to reggae from the mid-1980s onwards and the orange-and-black EMI label on this disc suggested that it was from the 1970s... 1982 tops. And while I didn't recognize any of the musicians listed on the back (Pazy Etina? Makos? Colins Osokpor? James Etina?), none of them were credited with "Linn drum programming" or "synbass"--Jack Stone was even given as playing the organ and not "keyboards"! So yeah, I figured that if nothing else, at least this reggae record would be rootsier than the tinny Casio skank that scored much of the Babangida and Abacha eras.

Sure enough, the album does start off with a couple of decidedly tasty reggae cuts--one minute into the inaugural track, the lovely Carlton & the Shoes-esque "Comfort Me JahoJah" (never mind how it's spelled on the back cover), I already knew this was to become one of my favorite records--but soon veers off into some heavy psychfunkrock of the brain-frying variety.

Pazy and the Black Hippies - "Comfort Me JahoJah"
Pazy and the Black Hippies - "Elizabeth"
Pazy and the Black Hippies - "Wa Ho Ha"


Apart from Fuzzy (who I have assumed is the Fuzzy Gbagbi credited on the Sunny White LP) I haven't seen these guys names anywhere else. Wonder if they have any other albums.

*Ditto Muddy Ibe

...Aaaaaaaaand yet more unknown soul.

Another artist I know absolutely nothing about. The album has a bunch of great musicians on it, though: the ebullient Mambo on drums, the ever-reliable Eddy Pollo on tenor guitar, the modest Eugene Ndema on rhythm, the aptly-named Soul on bass, the whiz kid Nkono Teles on keys and the underrated Eric Kol on background vocals... all pulled together by master producer Odion Iruoje.

Not too sure what "Burden Star" means, either; I thought it was "budding star." Oh well... Either way, it's a pretty cool track, I think.

Mikebbi - "Burden Star"



(Just in case it isn't completely obvious by now: Yes, I am kinda stalling to avoid having to write, y'know, actual posts and stuff.)

A little mo' unknown soul for Friday

Another mystery artist. I know nothing of this Sunny White or the Clinks. Nor am I familiar with any of the names in the list of musicians who played on the record (with the exception of saxophonist Fuzzy Gbagi Alto, who seems to have played on the similarly obscure Wa Ho Ha, by Pazy and the Black Hippies--more on that later).

Although I'm guessing this record is from some time between 1980 and 1983 (since the credits have it being recorded at Phonodisc Studios), the title track is on some throwback 1960 Stax tip.

Ahhhh... Let's call it what it is: it's a ripoff of "Soul Man," isn't it? (Rest in peace, Black Moses!)


Sunny White and the Clinks - "Rock On Your Feet"




(Couple of pressing flaws on this one, fams)

Who is Tony Barrett?

I feel like I should know who he is... The name does activate distant bells in my head... But I don't know; a handle like "Tony Barrett" could belong to any number of obscure soul, reggae or calypso singers.

(Yes, I realize the sleeve says "Tony Barreth," but the spelling on the label, Barrett, seems more likely to be correct and so I'm going to go with that.)

I do, however, know the band that backs Barrett on this 1977 soul workout--Samuel Abiloye Esse, Johnnie Woode Olimah, Ottay Hima Blackie and Bola Prince, better known as the SJOB (or S-Job) Movement.


Tony Barrett & the SJOB - "Mocking Lover Girl"





(I haven't completely worked out all the technical glitches, but small by small we're getting back into the game.)

Please Stand By

Yeah, I've been back in the States a few days now, but I'm probably gonna lie low for a bit while I try to get a new scanner and iron out a couple of other computer-related snafus. I should have that biz squared away by some time next week.

In the meantime, check out this video by my current favorite Nigerian MC, M.I.:



It's actually almost a year old, but it's new to me... I've had a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward Nigerian rap over the past decade and a half, and I guess I still do. But I'd say 2008 has been the year that hip-hop truly came of age in Nigeria, for better or worse. M.I. is part of the "better," I think; his whole style reminds me of stalwarts of the "Golden Age of Hip-Hop" that molded me--Brand Nubian, YZ, Ed OG, Chubb Rock, Masta Ace... and dare I even invoke the God Rakim Allah?

I'm going to be posting a bit more about Naija hip-hop in the near future.

(Part of) Today's Haul

I fear I shall never get the grime out from under my fingernails but I'm still pretty pleased with the day's take.

I haven't gone through them all, but so far I am most excited about finding a heretofore unknown William Onyeabor LP called Good Name, from 1981. My bad... Did I say 1981? It's actually from 1983. 1981 is the release year of Great Lover, the other rare Onyeabor LP I found. Take my word when I tell you Good Name is easily the most INSANE of all his records. Pure psychedelic synth madness!



And then there is this album by Ken Eme/First Flight:



I feel pretty sure that me and my friend Enyi are the only two human beings on earth who remember this record and I've been looking for it for... twenty-four years maybe?

First Flight never really made much impact outside of Calabar (or even within it), but we loved to watch their music videos on TV after school because they wore fly-looking space boots and had some really cool elctric boogie dancers (including a midget in Raphael Cameron pants).

There are a lot of records from my childhood that I remember being really hot and funky, but turn out to be disappointing when I listen to them today (I still love them for sentimental reasons, of course). I half expected this to be one of those records, but NOPE! it's full of that lean, glossy Jake Sollo boogie sound and I'm pretty sure heads are gonna dig the hell out of it, so stay tuned, true believers!

Ah well... It's started raining and that always messes with this server, so I better publish this while I can. More to come later...

(Sorry about the crappy pics, yo... NEPA is on half current so I couldn't get any good light on them.)

Now... Let's see if I can even remember how to do this...

Man, my blogging days feel almost like a distant memory of a past life... Hard to believe it's been just over two months!

Didn't mean for it to happen that way, though; it's not like I elected to take the summer off or anything... For two or three weeks in June I got a bit bogged down by the 9-to-5, a couple other extracurricular projects I was working on, and certain developments in my private life, and next thing I knew, With Comb & Razor had fallen off the map!

I was surprised and encouraged that so many of you cared enough to check up on me and let me know you miss seeing new entries on this page, though... (Sorry I haven't been able to reply everybody, by the way...) For real, I'm aware that the blogoverse is a ruthlessly competitive market with the collective attention span of a fruit fly so I think I half-expected to be forgotten by mid-July!

Oh yeah... On the subject of being forgotten, I just noticed today that the Village Voice has up a new piece on the wave of music blogs dedicated to digging up obscure grooves from Africa and beyond, and you think my humble efforts over here might've merited even a cursory mention?

I know it's probably not cool for me to imply that I actually care about this kind of thing, and it is extremely petty for me to even mention it at all (especially since I am genuinely happy to see my peoples Frank, John B. and Matt get some shine) and and I truly do this for the love and not the laurels, but dubya tee eff, man... what's a brother got to do to get a little love? I mean, the Naija blogosphere has continued to refuse to acknowledge me, but I kinda understand that since most of its denizens were barely even a tingling sensation in their daddy's groin by the time most of the music I generally post about was current, but if my blog can't rate even minimal face time with the trendy hipster contingent at least as token esoterica, why don't I just hang up my Blogger account now and get a new hobby (or better yet, one of those "life" things I hear folks going on about)? Like, is there even any point in my bothering to soldier on in this thankless racket?

...And a small voice from deep within whispers, "Yes... Yes, there is." E'en in the darkness of obscurity, Comb & Razor toils on, going the distance to bring you the best in cool and rare Nigerian music and pop culture oddities!

Speaking of which: Part of why I've been silent the past month or so is because I've been in Nigeria since early July and most of my time has been taken up by record digging. And malaria. But mainly record digging. It takes up a lot of time and energy, though. I tell ya, I was planning to chronicle some of my vinyl-hunting adventures, Voodoo Funk-style, but really... A lot of it is just not that interesting. Just a lot of driving around, and talking, and explaining over and over exactly what you are looking for (and sometimes why you are looking for it), and breathing in enough dust and mold to fell an army of Cossack horsemen.

It's been totally worth it, though... I can't wait to share some of my amazingly awesome finds with you all. Unfortunately, I only have my Numark portable turntable here and it's not USB-ready, so ripping vinyl is a bit of a toughie. I'll try running it through a pre-amp, but I fear that it will end up with that crappy sound I got when I tried that back in the day. Also, my scanner seems to have broken in transit and I haven't even confirmed that I can upload music to my site yet, so the new posts with new music might have to wait till I'm back stateside.

Thankfully, I prepared a contingency plan for circumstances such as these, and I have a bunch of old-but-never-posted entries sitting in the vault, ready to go: my interrogation of the legacy of Nigerian flautist Tee-Mac, reminiscences about 1980s funk musician Rick Asikpo, an interview with Theadora Ifudu, my long-delayed five (or six)-part exploration of why 1984 was "The Year Nigerian Music Started to Suck," and some other stuff. I might also put up a transcript of a University of Mainz-organized seminar on highlife music I attended recently, featuring highlife legends Ebo Taylor, Stan Plange, Peter King and Chris Ajilo.

Anyway, I'm off to look for more music... Hit me up with any requests y'all might have and I'll see what I can do, eh?

We're back in business, my people...

My poor blog has been left to seed, hasn't it?

I gotta start posting again, yo...

Next week.

Promise.


(Just wanted to let y'all know that I'm not dead)

This song been in my head all week: Joe Arroyo - "Rebellion (No le pegue a la negra)"

Of course, this song is in my head like 60% of the time, anyway.

Feels like an eternity since I've blogged with any regularity... It's been a lot of work, a bit of play... and some other stuff.

Hope to be back soon with more niceness.

Oliver de Coque (1947-2008)

Just heard the news.

More to come as I learn it.

R.I.P.

Thanks to John B. for furnishing us with this mp3 of Oliver's biggest hit, "Identity"

"Nebo" "Neighbour" "Highlife"

Sorry I was so slow on the uptake identifying this song when N.I.M.M.O. mentioned it in the comments... Of course I remember "Highlife" (I too used to think it was called "Nebo"); this song was everywhere back in '83!

"Highlife"

Also, I apologize for my silence over the past week or so; Internet's been on the fritz at the Comb & Razorcave, but we're all good now.

This Song Been In My Mind All Week

The Sylvers - "Wish That I Could Talk To You"

> S I G H <

Africa will never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never surrender!

American disco music has taken over Africa. During the days of Victor Olaiya, the Uhurus, the Ramblers dance-bands there was jazz music from America. Then there was pop music. It never gave us musicians a chance to move out. And you know with Africans, anything that comes out of England is a gas. Then during the time of Victor Uwaifo and Fela there was this soul music.

I always remember that one day Victor Uwaifo printed some handbills saying that no one should listen to soul music. But I think that soul music is like our aladura (praying) songs--it's a spiritual music. But they came down and took the business from us.

Now these days we have funk, but I'm not lying low and I won't let it take garri from my hands. So I have decided to create my own type of African disco music. Believe me sincerely, it is catching on like wildfire. This music we hope to export to America and England.

--Sonny Okosuns, quoted in West African Pop Roots by John Collins

When Sonny Okosuns started his music career with The Postmen in 1966, the chief models for his look and sound were overseas rock & rollers like Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley. However, by the beginning of the 70s, as he fronted Paperback Limited, he found himself becoming increasingly dissatisfied with merely recycling Western pop and desired to play more African music.

The rock-loving, postwar youth audience was not really trying to hear a lot of that stuff, though. As Okosuns explained to Gary Stewart, the kids loved when he did the "copyright" tunes, but zoned out when he tried to introduce new, indigenous-inspired sounds: "I got all the youth, you know, who were so much interested in undergound [rock], but I lost them when they started listening to the kind of music I was playing. I wasn't playing the ... Jimi Hendrix kind of music or the Who or the Kinks kind of music.... That's what the youth wanted to hear.... I was in the crossroads. I was winning one way but losing in many ways."

It was with this dilemma in mind--how to appeal to audiences desiring the latest sounds from foreign without surrendering his African identity--that Sonny formed Ozziddi in 1974, pairing folkloric lyrics, rhythms and melodies with cutting edge rock arrangments to enormous success. Sonny's friend Fela Ransome-Kuti arrived at a similar resolution with his development of afrobeat--but where Fela stubbornly stuck and continued to purvey his patented style long after its soul, jazz and Latin elements fell out of favor, Okosuns never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never surrendered. He kept searching for new ways to keep his African music competitive with the current hot sound, be it rock, reggae, makossa or calypso.

By the time that I personally discovered Sonny, he was in his "Ozziddisco" period, so for me this sound remains the definitive Sonny Okosuns sound. Back then, I thought it was just some dope dance music, but listening to it now, I realize how cannily crafted it is. It can blend in easily with any of the disco stompers of the day, but it doesn't ape disco; the essentially "African" character remains intact.

"Tire Ni Oluwa"
"Tell Them"

Both of these tracks are from the 1979 album 3rd World, which I just now realized was entirely produced by Eddy Grant.

And speaking of which... I was able to get an mp3 of Eddy Grant's "Papa's Land" remix (courtesy of Naijajams--thanks, Bobo!) so I'll post it here, along with the original version.

"Papa's Land" (1977)
"Papa's Land" (1979)

In a mannish mood

It's not like Sonny was just all anti-apartheid all the time, holy war, Africa for Africans, liberation for the people, fight the power 24/7/365...

"Sherry Koko"
"Steady & Slow"


He sang other songs, too.

(Nota bene: Me posting the above candid shot of Sonny with Onyeka Onwenu is not in any way, shape, or form meant to insinuate that they slept together. I just couldn't find another suitable photo today, alright?)

Among friends

I should probably mention at this juncture that the above photo showing Sonny Okosuns having a larf with Christy Essien-Igbokwe, Jonny Woode (I think... or is that Lemmy Jackson?) and former Biafra leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, was--like Tuesday's and Wednesday's header photos--taken from Sonny's personal collection as featured on his now-defunct website, Sonnyokosuns dot org. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to right-click on 'em right before the site went down, and I only post them here only to pay respects to the man. If I offend anybody by doing this, please let me know and I will remove them.

The other day, a YouTube viewer named jahlivid left this comment on that Sonny Okosuns clip from Konkombe: The Nigerian Pop MusicScene I uploaded last year:

A true Nigerian Ambassador. In Zimbabwe and indeed Southern Africa, barring your great foobtballers, Sonny Okosun is widely known. I remember when he came to perform in Harare with Onyeka Onwenu, a true legend he was. His song Fire In Soweto, to this day, remains truly inspirational. A song that forged ahead a revolution and a quest for justice, dignity, freedom and self-rule in our region. To a true son of the soil, Dr Okosun I salute you.

That comment made me think: While Sonny was relatively low-key during the last fifteen years or so of his career, since he changed tracks to gospel with the Songs of Praise LP, there was a time when he was the musical ambassador of Nigeria. Bigger than Fela, King Sunny Ade, Olatunji or anybody else.

Sonny was the first Nigerian artist to fully embrace the possibilities of reggae in his sound, but rather than just aping Jamaican riddims, he broke down the reggae beat and re-constructed it in his own image, investing it with a deeply "African" sound that entranced even the dreads in the land of reggae's birth. Okosuns performed with Toots & the Maytals and Jimmy Cliff, and Peter Tosh was also an admirer and a friend. When Tosh visted Nigeria in 1982, he spent three weeks in Okosuns' Lagos home, where he wrote the songs that became his classic Mama Africa album.

Sonny also maintained that Bob Marley had written him a letter expressing his desire to record Sonny's song "Holy Wars." I'll admit that this story always sounded unlikely to me, since (apart from early efforts like "One Love," which was an adaptation of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready") Marley was not really known for covering other people's songs. However, he was not averse to borrowing others' riddims and singing his own lyrics over them, and it is possible that he might have wanted to do this with "Holy Wars," since during that period he had been very vocal about his desire to infuse his reggae with a deeper African sound--a desire that fueled the creation of the album Survival in 1979. That album featured the ode to "Zimbabwe," which Marley performed at the nation's independence celebration in 1980. Okosuns also took the stage at that event and performed "Holy Wars," among other songs.

Sonny was also friends with the great Eddy Grant, with whom he collaborated in 1979 on some lean, crossover-ready reworkings of earlier Ozziddi hits "Fire in Soweto" and "Papa's Land." My intention was actually to post those Eddy Grant-produced tracks here, along with "Holy Wars," but as luck would have it... er, I couldn't find them. They're somewhere in the crates.

So for now, just handle these tunes here:

"Rain"
"Amen"

and you can at least listen to the "Fire in Soweto" redux here:



Oh yes... Another Sonny Okosuns collaboration of note: In 1985 when Little Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band organized Artists United Against Apartheid to record the benefit single "Sun City," Sonny was the only African musician to participate. Watch for him at 4:28 and 5:18 in this video:



(Man... I am the only one who gets really queasy when watching 1980s charity track videos? I know I can't be!)

Elder Steve Rhodes (1926-2008)

sigh

Man.

I'm gonna have to skip the Okosuns post tonight. Tomorrow, we'll talk a bit about Nigeria's foremost music historian and performer of legend, the late Elder Steve Rhodes.

Rest in peace, baba.

This Song Been In My Mind All Week: Shola Allyson-Obaniyi - "Eji Owuro"

Well, more like 24 hours, really.

I just got hip to her yesterday and I have since been unable to stop thinking about this song:


I really like her voice and the melody... She sounds kinda like she's influenced by my girl Yinkas Davies. The tinny, rinky-dink production pretty much cheapens the whole deal, though.

Can someone tell me more about this Shola Allyson-Obaniyi chick?

(Today's Sonny Okosun post is coming later... Kinda swamped today I am.)

My people, wake up

It was in the 1970s and 80s that Sonny Okosuns achieved his greatest success, forcefully projecting through his music a message of African unity, pride, resistance to oppression and sympathy for the struggles for independence raging across the continent. The repressive apartheid policy in Southern Africa was the central target of his attacks, so much so that in 1978, his Fire In Soweto LP was officially banned by the government of South Africa.

Over the years, various critics (myself included) have occasionally questioned whether his persistent railing against repressive governments in South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, etc. might have been something of an opportunistic publicity ploy. After all, Naija was not exactly the New Island of Utopia either, but Sonny never went out of his way to indict any of Nigeria's brutal military dictators or civilian kleptocrats on wax. If anything, he was pretty chummy with a lot of the leaders.

But regardless of all that, Okosuns' music did do a lot to raise awareness among the masses as to what was going on in Africa. Speaking for myself, being a kid at the time, I didn't know anything about the situation in South Africa. Hell, I didn't even know that there was a situation in South Africa until Sonny told me. First time I heard the word "apartheid" was in the song "Fire in Soweto." I didn't know where the hell Soweto was or why there might be fire there, didn't know that there was any sort of unpleasantness going down in Namibia--I found out about all that stuff because Sonny Okosuns' sang about it. I'm sure many people my age (and even older) might offer a similar testimony.

Okosuns' music was the rallying call for the groundswell of support for South Africa that swept across the continent, so much so that in 1978 his Fire in Soweto LP was banned in South Africa. His songs stayed on repeat as Nigeria, at great expense, took the leading role amongst African nations in advocating for the end of apartheid and the liberation of black South Africans.

Today, thirty years later, black South Africans are free... Free to kill immigrants from other African countries, with a special emphasis on Nigerians.

Ain't that a bitch?

"Tell My People"
"Fire in Soweto (original version)"

Please wake up.

You want to live in the moon?

I've got an elephantine backlog of entries to put up, so I hope I get the chance to post 'em all this week.

And of course, we will be paying ample tribute to the late Sonny Okosun(s), so stayed tuned for that. As I mentioned before, I had already prepared a tribute post of sorts, surveying his career through the 1970s and 80s, but it hinged on the whole "Help"/Perry Ernest issue.

I'll have to get back to that discussion at some later date as I don't feel like questioning the man's artistic legacy right now. Whether or not he really wrote "Help," he wrote many, many other great songs that continue to resonate in their hearts and souls of those who heard them.

Here is one of them:

Sonny Okosuns - "Revolution"

"Made in Nigeria" Part 6 is up on Boogieheads Radio!

Yes, I stay bigging up Boogieheads because it's one of my favorite podcasts and Obafunkie jR is a really cool dude to boot.

I just started listening to the latest show, which is chock full with that gritty, hard as shit 1970s funk and afrobeat for those of you who find the 80s boogie a bit too rich to digest. So far, so funky... I'm grooving to some of that early, deeply soulful Christiana Essien right now. I notice we got some Tee Mac coming up, and also Founders 15.

Check it out, y'all.

Sonny Okosuns (1947-2008)

According to Nigerian gossip blogger Niyi Tabiti, Sonny Okosuns died this morning (apparently at Howard University Hospital in Washington D.C.).

Damn, yo... I was just preparing my tribute post for tomorrow, too.

Rest in peace, Ozziddi soldier!

Party Beats

Well, this is a bit of an oddity.

Throughout the 1980s, the name "Nkono Teles" (or sometimes "Nkono Telex") was a regular feature in the credits of records by an array of Nigerian artists ranging from new wave funk and boogie acts like Dizzy K. Falola, Mandy Brown Ojugbana and Jombo, to reggae upstarts like Majek Fashek and Ras Kimono, to respected old hands like King Sunny Ade and Fela.

What is remembered by few is Party Beats, the Cameroonian keyboard wizard and producer's solo album from 1985 (or 86... I forget). And I do mean "solo"--while Teles pulled in several of the artists he had worked with (including Dizzy K., Veno Marioghae, Mike Okri and Mannix Okonokwo) to lay down backing vox, Teles took for himself the credit "Lead vocal, synthesizers, keyboards and computers, syncussion, guitars and all other instruments."

Teles was not much of a singer, but a lot of the tunes on the LP were actually not bad, with springy pop melodies and fresh freestyle/electro-boogie arrangements that made them a clarion call for b-boys. I particularly remember the track "Be My Lady" getting a lot of radio play.

Teles has always been a strong advocate for futurism and technological advancement in African music and he was clearly getting his "Rockit" on here. Yeah, some of it sounds a bit cheesy in retrospect, but yo... back then we listened to stuff like this and it was like, "The future is NOW!!!"



These days, Nkono is back home in Cameroon where he produces artists in his ultramodern studio in Douala.

Nkono Teles - "Party Beats"

"PRODUCED AND COMPUTED BY NKONO B. TELES FOR TENO MUSIC ENTERPRISES RECORDS"

Peacocks R Us

To the millions of music lovers in West Africa, the heart warming sounds of the PEACOCKS INTERNATIONAL span every big town and city.

You may believe it or not but it is no exaggeration. SAMBOLA which was first released in a single has sold nearly 50,000 pieces in Ghana and twice that figure in Nigeria.

Yet only very few of the millions of fans within 150,000 family units in Nigeria and Ghana really know who the Peacocks are. Some call them Ghanians [sic] and are ready to stake anything to argue their claims, but call them what you like, the boys are Nigerians.

That touch of the Ghanian [sic] sound in their music is a heritage of their leader Mr. Raphael Amaraebe whose musical career started in the Gold Coast.

"Call them what you will" they sez.

The title on the sleeve calls them "Peacock International," the sleeve notes has them as "Peacocks International," the label on the platter credits the record to "Raphael Amaraebe* & His Peacocks Guitar Band."

Their stripped-down Rex Lawson-meets-King Onyina-style guitar highlife, however, I will call "sublime":

Awu Adada Mi
Sambola Mama

Sorry about the noise level on these tracks, my peoples... I had to dig deep for this one. There's no year indicated on this record, but John B.'s discography tells me that it's from 1978. I must say that surprised me a bit, as I had assumed it was a little older than that--it's an EMI release, but rather than the familiar red & black EMI label, it sports the old-school black & white label with the His Master's Voice logo that I don't think I've seen on any EMI record from after 1974 or so. Oh well... Learn something every day!

The main reason I posted this, really, is for mnemonic purposes: I wanted to remind myself that the Peacocks' classic "Eddie Quansa" (b.k.a. the "Zebrudaya" theme song) appears on the new Nigeria 70: Lagos Jump compilation from the recently-back-in-business Strut Records, and I have been meaning to do a write-up on it... As well as on Analog Africa's African Scream Contest and the third installment in Soundway's Nigeria Special series, Nigeria Rock Special.

Time's been tight lately, but I'll try to get to that by this weekend.



*I should note that the Peacocks leader is also frequently credited as "Raphael Amarabem"

You Lie

By request:

George Ema - "You Lie"

West Indian Musicians I Once Thought Were Nigerian: Mark Holder

When I picked up this album in a Lagos market about eight years ago, I was motivated less by any curiosity about the music it contained than I was by my interest in vintage women's fashion and glamour photography.

Fortuitously, when I got the LP back home I found that its pleasures extended beyond just the resplendently arrayed beauties pictured on its cover; it was, in fact, a rather solid record in the Johnny Nash pop-soul-reggae mold. A couple of Brook Benton covers, a rendition of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," a Johnny Nash tune, and a few original compositions all cut in the kind of slightly fey, nostalgia-tinged "revival" style that would help birth lovers rock in the 1970s.

The title track in particular rang with a faint familiarity... I recalled hearing it in my childhood, either used as a radio jingle or the theme song for some TV talk show dealing with women's issues or something. "(God Bless) Nigerian Woman"... Yeah, it had been ages, but I remembered it.

I really didn't remember Mark Holder, though. Never heard his name come up in any discussion of Nigerian music, either. Who was he? His rich, evenly modulated baritone and punctilious pronunciation certainly did not sound Nigerian but, hey... maybe he was one of the many Sierra Leonean musicians on the Nigerian in the 70s (they were always better at the whole soul singing thang than their Nigerian counterparts back in those days).

And so did my delusion continue for a few years. I cringe to think about all the times that I mentioned Holder when discussing Nigerian pop music of the 70s... Because I eventually discovered that Mark Holder was actually a singer from Guyana, of all places.

The London-based Holder followed in the footsteps of his Guyanese compatriot Eddy Grant, whose band The Equals helped forge the template for Europop with their energetic (albeit slightly awkward) approximation of US soul strung up with pop accoutrements and garnished with a dash of reggae. Grant of course went on to a successful career as a solo artist and businesman, founding Coach House Studios, the first black-owned recording facility in Europe. Holder would later release music on Grant's Ice label, but he recorded for a number of small labels throughout the 1970s, starting with 1973's "I'm Doing Fine Now" b/w "Something of Value" on Magnet. (Funk heads probably care more about mid-70s bullets like "Music Turns Me On" and "Whatever's Fair," though.) So why did he out of nowhere decide to record a tribute to Nigerian women and why doesn't this album show up on any discographies of the man's work?

Here's my theory...

(Have I written before about the small role Nigeria played in the worldwide proliferation of reggae music? I know I've meant to, but I can't remember if I ever really got around to it...)

Nigerians (and Ghanaians) have been ardent consumers of West Indian music since the golden era of calypso in the late 1940s and 50s, and this fervent patronage continued through the 1960s when new genres such as bluebeat, ska and rock steady emerged. (One could argue that the career zenith of bluebeat's first and greatest star--Millie Small of "My Boy Lollipop" fame--was performing before sold-out crowds in Lagos mere days before the first military overthrow of the government in 1966. While there, Small also recorded a Bournvita jingle that played on Nigerian radio for many years.) By the early 1970s, reggae's first superstar, Jimmy Cliff, was surprised to discover that despite the international fame he had accrued in the wake of The Harder They Come, his largest and most passionate following was in Nigeria.

Around the same time, while attempting to exploit the new international reggae market opened up by The Harder They Come, upstart indie label Virgin Records inadvertently discovered the crucial importance of the then-robust naira. As Lloyd Bradley recounts in his (utterly superlative) history of Jamaican music, Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King:

In the second half of the decade, Richard Branson's Virgin Records became the other big player to travel to Jamaica. Initially Virgin was looking for some of the Marley Magic, having wooed and won Peter Tosh, whose classic Legalize It became one of the company's first reggae albums. Taking a slightly more adventurous (and unadulterated) tack than Island, hot on Tosh's heels Virgin signed Keith Hudson and U-Roy, and while their releases sold well in the black market they didn't set the mainstream on fire. Not in the UK anyway, but take said records to Africa and you'd have trouble pressing them fast enough. According to a report in the British music industry trade magazine Music Week, in 1975 alone Virgin sold £150,000 worth of reggae to Africa, a large amount of money in those days. Nigeria was the main consumer, to the degree that the company even started knocking out eight-track cartridges for the Nigerian market, a format that had long since died a death in the UK. To meet this voracious demand, Richard Branson, A&R man Jumbo Van Hennen and Johnny Rotten (the Sex Pistols were signed to Virgin) flew to Jamaica to sign more reggae. And did so with, quite literally, a suitcase full of American dollars to pay out as advances. It didn't take an awfully longtime for the word to get round Kingston's musical community that a bunch of white men down at the Sheraton Hotel were handing out free money to singers. It was only prompt and spirited police action that prevented the people in the soon-formed audition queue, many bearing guitars or hand drums, from getting out of hand. Astonishingly, two weeks and over $100,000 later, the Virgin contingent left Jamaica with a roster that included Prince Far-I, the Gladiators, the Mighty Diamonds, the Twinkle Brothers, Johnnie Clarke and Big Youth.

Virgin cofounder Simon Draper corroborates this account in Terry Southern's Virgin: A History of Virgin Records:

We started to get huge orders for Nigeria, so we looked into it a little bit and it became clear that something extraordinary was happening there, that reggae had suddenly become a massive new fad. So that's when Richard went off on his trip to Jamaica with suitcases stuffed full of money, to sign up as many reggae artists as possible. Then we started the Front Line label, as much as anything just to be able to put all this material out, so that it didn't flood Virgin. We had acres of it, and in the end we were chartering jumbo jets to take all of these records out to Nigeria.

The reason this is significant is because while Island broke reggae internationally with releases like Catch a Fire by The Wailers and Funky Kingston by Toots & the Maytals which featured reggae "sweetened" with rock-styled instrumentation and deliberately angled towards the longhair rock audience, Front Line was revolutionary in its delivery of the raw, gritty reggae plucked straight from the streets of Kingston and served hot, without milk or sugar. They signed the kind of obscure, deep roots artists that were unknown outside of Jamaica and that no other foreign label would ever touch with a ten-foot pole, and the reason they did that was because that's the way Nigeria wanted it.

So all you of out there enjoying your Culture records, your Doctor Alimantado and Tappa Zukie, your Ranking Trevor and your Mighty Diamonds and your "Uptown Top Ranking"...

The fact you ended up even hearing those records? You have Nigeria to thank for that. And you're welcome.

Virgin's Nigerian gravy train did not last long, though. Draper continues:

[Then suddenly,] all that seemed to stop. It was: a) maybe the market was being flooded; and, perhaps more to the point, b) there was a military coup, and they stopped all imports.

(Neither Draper nor Bradley cite exact years, but the coup in question would most likely be the 1975 one that brought to power Major-General Murtala Muhammed, as to part of Muhammed's program of economic reform was the restriction of imports.)

Of course, the Nigerian market was much too lucrative to give up altogether, so reggae records continued to come into the country, though not as imports--they were licensed through Nigerian labels (typically Taretone/Tabansi) and manufactured in Nigeria for the local market.

Many of the black-owned British indie labels such as Ice, BB, Diamond and Cosmic Sounds got in on this action, which was quite natural since they were already used to collaborating with London-based Nigerian artists such as Harry Mosco and Peter King anyway.

So this Mark Holder album is clearly an example of a particularly meticulous package tailored specifically for the Nigerian market. Apart from the title track, it's really a standard collection of singles that Holder had already released in varying configurations on at least three albums between 1973 and 1976. I'm guessing this album is from around 1977, considering the fact that FESTAC was held that year and concentrated much pan-African pride (and commerce) around Nigeria.

"(God Bless) Nigerian Woman"
"Let Me In Your World"
"She's Something of Value"

Mark Holder is still around and is a well-respected elder statesman in the Guyanese music scene. If you're interested in hearing more of Holder's early material, though, his Cameo LP (from 1976) is up for grabs HERE

Sweet Music

For the Anonymous commenter who requested it:

Dizzy K. - "Sweet Music"

For Leo

William Onyeabor - "When The Going Is Smooth & Good"

Sorry it's not really the best quality... Every copy of this record I own has play problems on this particular song, so there's some rough patches in the first 2 minutes but it's mostly smooth (& good) sailing for the remaining 10+ minutes.

Hope this makes your day, buddy!

New Boogieheads "Made in Nigeria" Part 5 up now!

It's been quite a while since our boy Obafunkie jR posted up a new show on Boogieheads Radio, and I for one have been left feenin' for his patented boogie and modern soul selections.

Well, Obafunkie is back with the latest installment of his "Made in Nigeria" series, end-to-end loaded with burning Nigerian boogie and disco tracks... many so rare that I can't even identify them!

(I know this glossy 1980s stuff isn't everybody's bag, but sit tight: in a fortnight, the sixth chapter will serve up lots of hard-edged, gritty funk and afrobeat from the 70s!)

Check it out at Boogieheads.com

There she is... Miss Nigeria!

...Well, not really.

While Lady Julie Coker is very often hailed as the original Miss Nigeria, in truth, not only was she not the first woman to hold that title (that would be Grace Atinuke Oyelude, in 1957), she was never Miss Nigeria at all!

Lady Coker was actually crowned Miss Western Nigeria in 1958, and while she was a Miss Nigeria contestant in the same year, she came in as first runner-up to Helen Anyamaehuna (below).

Although she did not win the contest (and a contest it was in those days, rather than a "pageant"--hundreds of young ladies sent their photographs in to the Daily Times and the winner was picked by a panel) she might as well have been Miss Nigeria anyway, as she embodied the spirit and values that the title professed to represent: In 1959, at the age of 19, she became one of the first broadcasters on Nigerian television.

(Much like the Miss Nigeria thing, her status as a television pioneer is famously misconstrued. While she is widely reputed to have been the first broadcaster on Nigerian television, she was actually again a runner-up in this category: Anike Agbaje-Williams was the first woman--and the first person, period--to appear on Nigerian TV. Julie Coker was Agbaje-Williams' trainee and shortly thereafter took over when her mentor went on maternity leave.)

Julie Coker remained a constant presence on TV until the late 1980s. Along the way, she also dabbled as an actress and radio personality, and for a while was married to fellow newscaster Richard Enahoro (who in a previous life had been a popular highlife musician, playing guitar in Roy Chicago's Rhythm Dandies); on air, the pair projected an easy air of cosmopolitan glamour as the country's first power couple. For many years, Julie Coker was the most famous and admired woman in Nigeria.

So, when the Nigerian music industry mushroomed in the 1970s, it made sense for her to parlay her celebrity into a recording career, especially as female performers were rare at the time.

Her first album, Ere Yon (Sweet Songs) was released in 1977. Stalwart producer Odion Iruoje helmed the sessions at EMI Studios in Lagos, with ace players such as guitarist James Eyefia, bassist Kenneth Okulolo (of Monomono fame) and Johnny Wood (of S-Job Movement and Sonny Okosuns' Ozziddi). The material, as was the vogue for female singers at the time, is composed of rootsy arrangements of folk songs drawn from Coker's Itsekiri background.

Acccording to the sleeve notes, the title track "refers to the legend of the water spirit that usually comes out during festivals in the riverine areas to listen to songs and music of the inhabitants," while the song "Elelemi" is described as "a folksong which young maidens chant as they play on moonlit nights dancing around in circles like a maypole dance."

"Ere Yon"

"Elelemi"

By 1981, the status of women in the music business was rapidly changing. Eighties ladies like Dora Ifudu, Oby Onyioha and Onyeka Onwenu were appearing on the scene, their flashy, unapologetically pop poses standing in stark contrast to Julie Coker's old-school conservatism. Coker's album Tomorrow shows her adapting to this new climate. Produced by James Eyefia, the album was recorded in the UK with a few of the usual London players (Jake Sollo, Pam Douglas, Carol Ingrams, et al) and featured Coker singing more in English over "a good blend of disco, crossover highlife and balad [sic]." "Sogio" is a remake of "Elelemi" and "Gossiper Scandal Monger" is singled out in the notes as a track that "makes for good disco dancing."

"Gossiper Scandal Monger"

"Sogio"