R.I.P Harry Mosco

Well, Harry... I guess you can fly now.

I'll miss you, brother.

Another Harry Mosco video

Still mega-busy, fam... Transmission will re-commence soon.

In the meantime, check out this vid and enjoy the light-skinned gal's consistent overacting/dancing.

A couple of 1980s videos for the weekend

I've been slacking on the blog lately partly because I've been busy working on Now Again Records' upcoming Nigerian fuzz funk compilation and partly because I've been having trouble with my FTP since I've been back. The latter is also the reason my sparse updates have relied upon YouTube links, and I hope to resolve the issue soon and start getting some mp3s back up here. In the meantime, though, here are some more videos.

While the blog was on hiatus during my sojourn in Nigeria, I received a number of emails from a particularly insistent reader who wanted to me post the music videos of the 1980s kiddie-pop star, Yvonne Maha. Now as I've mentioned a few times in the past, it is nigh impossible to find pre-1990 music videos in Nigeria because at most television stations, if the humongous U-matic and Quad tapes on which they were stored that were not dubbed over with new content, they were thrown out wholesale to make room for new hardware. So I made no promises to find these videos, but I pledged to do my best.

As it turns out, the best I could do was to unearth this clip of Yvonne Maha appearing on The Bala Miller Show in 1983. I'd like to think that this also will at least partially please my girl Kelechi who requested some Bala Miller. (Don't worry, Kay; I'll be putting up some more Miller stuff a little later.)



Also, here is a 1981 promo (that's what we called music videos way back in the day) for Harry "Mr. Funkees" Mosco's Sugar Cane Baby, during his London period. The color's a bit messed up but that's because whoever digitized it didn't adjust the hue. It's still fun to watch, especially for its evocation of that innocent era when the music video was such a new invention and most performers had no inkling of how to comport their bodies or their faces in them. I mean, look at Harry's awkward shuffling, the band's hammy pretend-playing and the unabashed scenery chewing by the light-skinneded singer gal! I swear, she did that in all the videos Harry shot for this album (I remember there being three or four of them), even the ballad!

Some funk off of Youtube

Yes, it's a placeholder... I haven't really had time to make any new entries, so for now just enjoy these 1980s Naija funk cuts pulled from the the always excellent DivaRadioFUNK channel on the 'Tube:





(Look out for a Dizzy K feature coming soon, by the way.)

If Only I Could Fly

BeninBoy requested this song, so here it is:

Harry Mosco - "If Only I Could Fly"


From the 1982 LP, Sugar Cane Baby.

Happy birthday!

My birthday was a few weeks ago, and Denis's was a few days after mine; to mark the occasion, I attempted to put together a mix that explored the birthday theme but I wasn't completely satisfied with the results so I didn't post it.

Today is Koko's birthday, so I figured I'd give it another shot... Unfortunately, I fell asleep early last night so I never got around to it.

If I had, though, I would have included these songs... I'm pretty sure Koko will appreciate none of these tunes, but perhaps you might!

Harry Mosco - "Happy Birthday"

Harry Mosco Agada was the leader of The Funkees, one of the foremost rock bands in post-civil war Nigeria. He and the band traveled to London in 1973, where they released two albums but broke up by 1977. Mosco spent the next ten years in London producing and recording albums with variety of Nigerian and British musicians. He returned to Nigeria in 1983, and after releasing the Heartbreak LP, he pretty much hung up his guitar and dedicated himself to running a label (now defunct, I think) and a still-popular recording studio, both bearing his name. If you ever attended a birthday party in Nigeria in the early 80s, I'm sure you'll remember this track!

George Ema - "I'm Growing Older"

George Ema was a Calabar area musician, moderately popular in the early 80s for hits such as "You Lied" and "A Chance," both from the 1980 album Sweeter Than Honey, from which this number is also taken. The LP was one of the early releases on Haruna Ishola's Phonodisk label and was produced by house producer Tony Essien, with the regular Phonodisk players: Lemmy Jackson and Willie Roy on keys, Eugene Ndema, Jean Ketchabra and Felix Lebarty on guitars, Willie Nfor on bass and Steve Black on drums and congas.

Prince Nico Mbarga & Rocafil Jazz - "Happy Birth Day"

Prince Nico Mbarga is of course best known for "Sweet Mother," regarded in some quarters as the most popular of popular African records. With his dual Nigerian-Cameroonian heritage, Mbarga was the perfect figure to popularize in Nigeria the kind of guitar-driven dance music that was burning up most of Francophone Africa. This tune comes from the 1978 LP Prince Nico Mbarga & Rocafil Jazz.

(I know I have posted this song before, but it was rather poor quality; this file is ripped from a brand new copy of the record.)

Eric Kol - "Hard To Say Goodbye"

Soul singer Eric Kol fronted The Immortals in the 1970s before embarking upon a solo career. 1980's My Lady is a Star is another Tony Essien Phonodisk production, with Lemmy Jackson, Steve Black, Basil Barap on bass, Effi Duke on guitar, and Oby Onyioha on backing vox.

(This song probably isn't a perfect fit thematically, but I felt like throwing it in anyway.)