Afrikan Boy - "One Day I Went To Lidl"

I certainly do not endorse shoplifting in Lidl, ASDA or elsewhere, but I think I am quite feeling this track (and broke-ass homemade video) by Afrikan Boy.



Afrikan Boy is the youf who featured on the song "Hussel" off of M.I.A.'s Kala; I think the kid's got a future.

It's refreshing to hear a UK-based Nigerian rapper repping in something of an authentic Naija voice--Yeah, yeah... I should probably know better than anyone that the phrase "authentic Naija voice" is pretty nebulous, and a slope we don't want to go slipping down. But I guess what I'm saying is that unlike a lot of Nigerian rappers in Jand (and even many back home in Nigeria) Afrikan Boy does not seem to draw too heavily upon the vocal approach of American hip-hop or even Jamaican dancehall and ragga. Likewise, he doesn't "ovah-Naijarize" the thing too much like a few MCs in the Diaspora who crank up their Nigerian accents to the point of parody.

His flow is rudimentary and occasionally awkward, and sometimes his rhyme sense misses the mark by miles, but I hear the seed of something original there. The cadence and repetitive end-rhymes create an inbuilt call-and-response that brings to mind Nigerian nursery rhymes and children's songs like

O-yi-bo (PE-pe)
If-you-eat (PE-pe!)
You-go-see (PE-pe!)

or

Bas-sey, Bas-sey (YES-YES!)
You are dan-cing (YES-YES!)
When I told you (YES-YES!)
To learn your spel-lings (YES-YES)
But you are dan-cing (YES-YES!)
I can-not stand it (YES-YES!)
I bet-ter fol-low (YES-YES!)
(YES-YES!)

And then there's his style of humor, the subject matter and references he makes, even in his tossed-off metaphors ("out there we are grinding like pepper")... I hear him laying down building blocks with which to build an authentic, original Naija rap style that doesn't ape international trends.

(Mind you, I am by no means suggesting that Afrikan Boy is the only Nigerian rapper doing this, but for whatever reason I find myself especially appreciative of his efforts.)

Here's his Myspace.

"Made in Nigeria" Part 4 up on Boogieheads Radio

Of course, y'all already knew that because you already subscribed to the podcast, right?

Boogie and funk sounds from the 1980s this time. I mentioned before that I previously did a post commenting and giving some background on the songs obafunkie jR played on the last 80s special, but I never posted it. I'll try to do that later this week (I've barely posted anything at all in the past two weeks, huh? Yeah... been kinda busy, unfortunately). I'll probably do the same for this episode, I guess. Eventually.

Anyway, go check out the show at Boogieheads dot com.

9/11/2007

I'm not going to vote today, but if I did... I guess it would be for Ye.

And now I'm mad at myself for even acknowledging this bullshit.

*sigh* I never get tired of watching A Soldier's Story

One of my favorite movies and one of my favorite plays. (The movie version has a better ending than A Soldier's Play, though.)

The whole ensemble in this 1984 flick is so on point (especially the young Denzel Washington and the woefully underrated Howard E. Rollins, Jr.) but Adolph Caesar's performance as Sgt. Waters is just on a whole 'nother level altogether.



What a masterfully nuanced portrait of a tortured, complicated man, dripping with menace and pathos!

Damn shame he passed away so early.

A l'il 70s MPB for ya

I meant to write a proper post today but I didn't really get the time. Still, I didn't want this day to go by without me posting something. How about some Brazilian pop from the 1970s?



Yeah, I know; incredibly crappy picture. I don't have a scanner and I couldn't find any good pics for this compilation online.

The picture doesn't matter, though... It's all about the music here, and this is a pretty decent (if somewhat MOR) overview of the decade, with samba, forro, Phillyesque soul (listen for a guest spot by Brasil Soul Brother No 1 Tim Maia on Fabio's "Até Parece Que Foi Sonho"), funk, rock, and even a track from Os Mutantes' beardy prog-rock phase after they kicked the chick out of the band for not being beardy enough! Iê Xango! You even got MILTON on there!

So yeah... Enjoy an' shit.

> DIVSHARE <

> MEGAUPLOAD <

New "Made In Nigeria" special on Boogieheads Radio!

obafunkie jR is a London-based DJ/record collector specializing in funk, "modern soul" and most especially (as the name would suggest) boogie music. Over the past several months I've greatly enjoyed checking out his online radio show/podcast (especially since I've been getting back in touch with my own boogie roots after many years of basically repudiating my sordid Eighties history).

Do I hear you ask, "But Uchenna, what nature of fish or fowl is this 'boogie music' of which you speak?"

No? I don't? Well, a couple of people have asked me this question lately, so I'll just go ahead and answer it here anyway.

"Boogie" is one of the names casually applied to the post-disco R&B that emerged in the late 1970s as the disco craze--already alienating black audiences with its deracinated take on funk, musical facelessness and campy excess--was succumbing to the massive backlash that would force it back into the underground. In boogie, the disco's frantic robot gallop was slowed down to more relaxed and organic bounce, usually anchored by sumptuous basslines (often with a dash of slap 'n' pop) and bristling chicken scratch guitar. Basically, think of something like, say, "Boogie Oogie Oogie"



and you're on the right track.

This style, which held sway until around the mid-80s when the machines took over completely, was occasionally also called "street music" or "roller-skating music"--as roller rinks started replacing discotheques as the primary centers for social engagement and dancing in black neighborhoods. In the UK, it was sometimes called "two-step" because (I assume) with its upbeat and downbeat groove, with two accented "on" beats beats per measure, it stood in marked contrast to disco's relentless "four on the floor." This is the sound that was hot when I first really started listening to the radio and actively digging music. In Nigeria, we mostly still called it "disco," though.

Speaking of Nigeria, obafunkie jR is also extremely knowledgable about the funk and boogie music that came out of that lively nation in the 1970s and 80s, and he just returned from from Lagos after a summer spent excavating precious nuggets of vintage vinyl. His latest show is part 3 of his ongoing "Made in Nigeria" series. (The last installment, dedicated to the "Soundz of the 80s" actually inspired a blog entry I wrote a few months ago but never posted... I think I'll put it up tomorrow.)

Check out the latest show at Boogieheads dot com and by all means, subscribe to his podcast, he plays some killer stuff.

(To check out the previous "Made in Nigeria" shows, click on "Guest dj Shows")

Sir Victor Uwaifo - Greatest Hits Vol. 1

Just decided to drop something right quick before the weekend since I haven't had time to post anything the past couple of days. Since Victor Uwaifo's name has come up quick a bit lately, I figured I'd throw up some more of his stuff and this is the only thing I have on hand right now in a ready digital format.

I bought this CD a few years ago from a street vendor in Aba, but I never actually listened to it until this morning. Having done that, I'd say that "Greatest Hits" might be a slight overstatement. Don't get me wrong: it's got some great tunes (as well as some miserable dreck from the 80s) but all in all, it's a pretty conservative compilation and not at all representative of his most accomplished and experimental work.

But then again, who's to say that "accomplished and experimental work" necessarily equals "greatest hits"? Still, I think he has a lot more popular--and better--work than what's what's collected here.

Shit... What am I doing? I'm supposed to be making you want to listen to it, aren't I?

Alright... It's a good collection, really. I ain't mad at it at all. I just wish it had more stuff on it. Well, I'll try to see if there's a Vol. 2.



DiV

MEGA

Hmmm... I'm listening to the CD again as I type this and I just realized that there's some weird skipping sound at about 5:20 on track 1, "Guitar Boy." If anybody else hears it and is bothered by it, let me know and I'll re-post that track separately. (Fortunately, it's one of his most popular songs so I've got it on a bunch of different compilations.)

Update: Here's "Guitar Boy"... I aspologize for the DivShare, but I had already uploaded this like a month ago; I think that was before Div started acting screwy, too. Anyway, I tested the link and it DLed in like 3 seconds, so we should be good.

The things one finds on YouTube...

Well, this is kinda interesting. To me, anyway. Kinda.

Considering that I've previously expressed dismay over the lousy preservation treatment that's been accorded a lot of old Nigerian movies and TV shows, it kinda makes me happy to see stuff like this.

I don't know where they got this from... For all I know, it could have been ripped from the iNollywood site, in which case it's probably ancient history to the folks who use their service. I don't use their service, so it's new to me:



Basi and Company debuted in 1985, the brainchild of author and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa, then hot off the success of his self-published Civil War novel Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English and collection of poems Songs in a Time of War. Basi was much lighter fare, though; a sitcom centered around a loveable trickster named Basi (or Mr. B) who comes to Lagos with dreams of becoming a millionaire but ends up living in a one-room flat surrounded by a colorful characters like his dimwitted sidekick Alali, Dandy the bartender and the golddigging Segi, all of whom he drags into his weekly moneymaking schemes while trying to stay one step ahead of his flamboyant landlady, "Madam the Madam."

Basi and Company was more than just a hit show--although it certainly was that; it was almost definitely the most popular television program to ever hit the Nigerian airwaves at that point and even gained followings in other African countries--it was an all-over marketing phenomenon. You had Basi T-shirts, Basi books, Basi hats, and the national popularity of buzz phrases like "If you want to be a millionaire, think like a millionaire!" "It's just a matter of CASH!" "I'm hungry, Mr. B!" and "Come in if you're handsome and rich!"

Looking back on it now, I'd say a large part of the show's success could be attributed to Saro-Wiwa's skillful use of certain mind-control techniques long employed by British and American TV comedies, namely the laugh track (this was the first Nigerian show to feature one) and characterization by way of punchy catchphrases that are repeated at least once per episode, though often much, much more (a.k.a. The Ever-Popular "Are You 'Avin' a Larf?" Effect).

That much aside, it was pretty well put-together (at first, anyway). I won't claim to have been a major fan of the show (I could probably count the number of full episodes I watched on one hand and still have enough fingers left over to stroke my goatee and thumb my nose--I mostly gave up on watching NTA network shows when my own favorites Second Chance and The Bala Miller Show were unceremoniously yanked off the air in '85) but the few times I checked it out, it seemed pretty entertaining, and its broad lambaste of the mid-1980s Nigerian get-rich-quick mentality really resonated with the audience.

Based on the ads at the beginning, I'm going to guess that this episode is from 1988--not a particularly enriching point in Basi and Company's run, really. You see, the part of Mr. B was originated by Albert Egbe, who I always thought was much too old for the role (he must have been in his late 30s if not early 40s) but was an incredibly engaging and likeable performer who brought the character wonderfully to life. In 1987, Egbe exited the show over money disputes with Saro-Wiwa; considering that Egbe's likeness was so intractably associated with the character, it looked like there was no way for Basi and Company to continue without him. But somehow, Saro-Wiwa reeled in young up-and-comer Zulu Adigwe to fill Basi's cap and T-shirt and soldiered on. This was universally accepted as the show's shark-jumping moment.

(I remember my father telling me that they actually explained Mr. B's radically changed appearance with some bizarre Doctor Who-esque plotline about Basi going to the moon and undergoing a physical metamorphosis! My dad can be a big kidder sometimes, so I was never really sure whether or not he made up that story. But considering the fact that Saro-Wiwa often novelized his teleplays and he later published a children's book called Mr. B on the Moon, I guess it's probably true.)

At this point, it was like Saro-Wiwa wasn't even trying very hard anymore. Production values nosedived as he delegated more and more. The scripts felt phoned-in. It was as if Saro-Wiwa himself was bored with the show, or maybe he was just too distracted to give it his full attention, seeing as he had accepted an appointment from President Babangida to shepherd the proposed 1990 transition to civilian rule (which didn't happen, of course).


The show limped along for a few more years, during which time Saro-Wiwa continued to expand the Basi and Company brand via a successful series of children's books, published teleplays and other spinoffs. Zulu Adigwe even released a record as Mr. B, based on the character's catchphrase (He can be seen singing the song at the beginning of this clip).

Basi and Company finally went off the air in 1990, as Ken Saro-Wiwa began to concentrate more and more on the causes for which he is best-remembered today: Campaigning against the Nigerian government's and Royal Dutch Shell's abuse and exploitation of the environment and people in the oil-producing Delta region of the country. In 1994, when Sani Abacha's government (with the tacit encouragement of Shell) detained him and eight other activists on a trumped-up murder charge, Saro-Wiwa became a cause celebre for human rights advocates the world over. After a rigged trial, Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues were hanged on November 10, 1995. In the years since, he's taken on the stature of a kind of contemporary Martin Luther King-type figure on account of his activism, so it's nice to see some of his other work out there.

Another interesting note: The opening credits list the Production Manager as "Nkem Owoh." I will assume this is the same Nkem Owoh who in recent years has achieved immense fame as a comedic actor, particular in the mega-grossing Osuofia in London films and the accompanying "I Go Chop Your Dollar" clip that generated a good deal of controversy when it appeared online a few years ago.

It was just a satirical in-character novelty song narrated from the POV of a 419er, but some of these onyibo people were piiiiiiiiiiiiiiissed... They even showed the video on 20/20 and Dateline NBC and they were practically exploding with outrage: It was bad enough that scores of innocent, honest Americans were being scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year when all they had tried to do was help a fellow human being out the pure goodness of their hearts and aid the besieged son of a deceased African dictator in laundering millions of embezzled dollars! And now these unwashed cockroaches skittering around in some podunk Third World shithole like Nigeria had the nerve to make a music video mocking them and bragging "white man, I will eat your dollars"??!!??



I think the line that really burned dem belly had to have been "419 is just a game... You are the LOSER... I am the WINNER!" (Probably "I BE THE MASTER!" too.) Chris Hanson was positively brimming with the kind of moral indignation that he's never mustered up when standing in a suburban kitchen chatting with CanIRapeUAnally312, who's insisting that even though he's just driven four hours to meet with a 13-year-old boy with condoms, KY Warming Formula and a ball gag in his glove compartment, his only intention was to caution the kid of the dangers of hooking up online!

But like I was saying: It's cool to see these old shows people preserved in some form even though my main priority right now is rescuing vintage musical performances. I'd love to see the musical numbers from Victor Uwaifo's variety shows make an appearance. I know he's got to have every single one saved... I mean, Victor Uwaifo has a friggin' museum where he's preserved his first guitar that he made from an oil can and some string when he was knee-high to a cricket and framed clippings of about every story that's ever been written about him. Considering the fact that he owned his own TV production facility back then, he's got to have all the tapes. Someone should convince him to put them joints out on DVD or something.

(Come to think of it, Saro-Wiwa was an independent producer who owned all his masters, too... And these clips look like they were taken from the masters. How did they get here? *shrug*)



Anyways, if you want to watch the rest of "The Transistor Radio," here's

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The Portuguese had a word for it. (Part 2)

Before I moved to the US to continue with university college in the early 90s, my grandmother actually said to me, all serious-like, "Now you must go back to your country, where you can be happy." I said nothing and nodded sagely, but in my mind I was kinda like, "Damn, is it that serious?" I mean, don't trip: I completely considered Nigeria to be "my country," but it was pretty clear to me and most people around me that I just never seemed to completely fit in there. The idea that America was "my country" ultimately was based less on the fact that I happened to have been born there than on the perception that America was a country full of oddballs and eccentrics, so I'd probably feel right at home there.

Of course, it didn't work out that way. When I got to America, I found that regardless of whatever my birth certificate may have claimed, I was definitely a foreigner, and most people never let me forget that. Like I said before, you never really know or appreciate your country until you leave it; it seemed like I became more Nigerian with each day I lived in the US. (Actually, more than that, I found myself becoming more African, which was a bit of a new experience altogether.)

Still, my existence felt somewhat clouded by alienation: I was an outsider in the mainstream society, and while there was a pretty sizable Nigerian community in Boston, I really didn't feel welcome among that crowd either. I'm pretty sure most of them thought I was gay. At this point, the only two groups I felt fully embraced by were Latinos and Haitians. (Do I repeat myself? Yes, technically, Haitians are Latinos, but you know what I mean.)

So I'm not particularly surprised one night, about a year and a half after my arrival, when I'm on the bus going home from work and some middle-aged Haitian guy steps up and casually strikes up a conversation with me in Kreyol like we're Port-au-Prince pallies or something. He prattles on a mile a minute for about a half a minute, before I cut him off mid-mile with a helpless shake of the head and a polite "M'pa pale kreyol."

Undeterred, he switches to English: "You fwom Afwica."

Pause: I kinda hate it when people start conversations like that because it's usually a prelude to all kinds of annoying assumptions. "Yeah," I sigh.

"I know dat! I know dat!" he exclaims. "You know how I know?"

He's obviously quite pleased with his successful deduction and wants to celebrate by verbally illuminating his logical process like Sherlock Holmes explaining the trail of clues to his dimwitted audience stand-in Watson. Why deny him the pleasure? I figure. "How?" I ask.

Basking in satisfaction, he leans in to whisper in my ear. "You wea'ing shoes." he says.

Huh?

Now, based on prevailing stereotypes, I guess I'd've understood if he assumed I were African if I wasn't wearing shoes, but how does wearing shoes...?

"You wea'ing shoes," he repeats, sensing my confusion. "Not sneakers. And you wea'ing pantalon, not jeans. So I know you either Haitian or Afwican."

"How do you know I'm not just a professional?" Of course, I'm not a professional; I work in a record store. But I am a bit bothered by his stereotyping and also concerned about the degree to which my mode of dress allows me to be so easily profiled. Yes, I don't usually wear sneakers, but I don't think it has anything to do with where I'm from--I just happen to find a lot of the sneaker styles of the 90s to be immensely ugly. As for the trousers, well, I just didn't have any clean jeans to wear that day. I notice that he is similarly attired, in slacks and casual shoes, with a button-up shirt.

"Also," he continues, ignoring my question. "If you was fwom Amewica, your pants would be down here."

He gestures to a latitude just south of his buttcheeks and laughs. I laugh, too.

"You a musician?" he asks, nodding towards the big, battered hardshell guitar case sitting next to me. I just started taking lessons and I had one before work that evening.

"No, I'm just learning."

"You playing Afwican music?" he ventures excitedly.

"Nah, mostly soul like... Curtis Mayfield? And reggae." Pause. Grimace. "But my teacher keeps making learn Eagles songs."

"'Hotel California'?"

"More like 'Lyin' Eyes' and 'Take It Easy.'"

"I am a musician," he declares. "I used to be a musician. I play bass." He pronounces it like the fish. "I used to play Afwican music."

"Oh really? What kind of African music?"

"Mewengue and salsa," he proclaims proudly.

"That's not African music," I offer delicately, trying to keep the "duh" out of my voice.

"Yes, it is!" he insists. "Spanish music is Afwican music!"

Okay, thinks I. This conversation got ludicrous real quick, didn't it?

"You don't know?" he laughs, not bothering keep the "duh" out of his voice. "Spanish music come fwom Afwica. It's all the same widdim, you know? The widdim."

I thought about this exchange a few weeks later when I started hearing dance band highlife in my sleep. For several nights, voluptuous basslines scored my dreams, peppered with skeletal, off-kilter percussion patterns. One night, I woke up and was surprised to find that I still heard the music: the deep, loping bassline and lopsided percussion was actually seeping through the thin walls of my apartment. Still half asleep, I opened the door and stepped out to ascertain the source of the music--the rhythm emerged, fully dressed up with horns, flutes and guitars and it became clear that what I was hearing wasn't highlife at all, just the Puerto Ricans next door blasting salsa in the middle of the night.

Spanish music is African music, the Haitian dude had said. What did that really mean? Well, obviously I knew that the transatlantic slave trade had extended to the Caribbean and South America and as a result there was some African lineage present in the people and, by extension, the music of those regions, but I never thought too deeply about how (and why) it manifested itself. Suddenly, I was wondering why the basslines in salsa sounded like highlife and why the basic organizing rhythm pattern in much Afro-Latin music, the clave, was just about identical to a Calabar rhythm called tinkoriko and most all, why I was so damned disappointed that the sound I'd heard was not highlife?

I was homesick, I had to admit. I missed Calabar. And while I'd never considered myself a fan of it before, I missed that damn highlife music. Like it or not, it was a part of my consciousness, triggering comforting memories of rainy Calabar mornings, listening to those easygoing clave rhythms and tart, coppery horns while getting ready for school. Or hanging out on the fringes of "grownup" parties with friends, trying to get loaded on free drinks and talk to girls while the heavy-of-foot old folks shuffled to languorous rhythms, singing along to the choruses with a mix of pleasure and sadness for the good old days that seemed to get gooder the older they got. I wanted a little bit of that feeling, but I didn't have any highlife music on hand. And it was quite rare to find highlife CDs in American stores back then. The closest I could get to that feeling was through Latin music: Fania Records, new-wave salsa, old-school Cuban son... I just immersed myself in it.

(Some people found this odd, though; during one of my National Guard weekends, my squad sergeant--an African-American gentleman in his late 30s with whom I had bonded over regular discussions of early-80s R&B and "boogie" music--found some Arsenio Rodriguez and Ruben Blades tapes in my bag and sat me down for a lecture.

"Look, son," he said. "I know you wanna fuck some of these fine-ass Puerto Rican girls out here, and if I was young and single, I'd probably wanna do the same. But you gotta be yourself, man. You ain't gotta start listening to this 'La Cucaracha' shit to make these Latin girls like you. Just be yourself. You ain't gotta go to them. Let them come to you." )

So I listened to a lot of Afro-Cuban music. And I read books like Robert Farris Thompson's Flash of the Spirit and Black Music of Two Worlds and The Latin Tinge (both by John Storm Roberts). I learned about how the traditional music of African slaves survived south of the US and developed into various forms of Latin American music, then was imported back home in the 1930s to inspire the creation of modern African music. Learning about the legacy of African art in the New World imbued me with a renewed understanding of African culture back home.

Not long thereafter, while re-stocking the shelves in the World Music department, I came across a CD called Money No Be Sand. My attention arrested by the pidgin title, I took a closer look: 1960s Afro-lypso, Pidgin Highlife, Afro-Soul, Afro-Rock is what the sub-title read. And it boasted liner notes by John Storm Roberts! Intrigued, I took the CD home with me.

Now, remember that the World Music establishment at this time was fairly ignorant about highlife. Most of them didn't even know what it was. If you ever heard mention of highlife, it was usually in reference to Fela, because it was generally known that his music was "a fusion of James Brown's funk, Miles Davis's jazz and traditional Nigerian highlife music (whatever that is)." I remember the trade mags struggling to find the vocabulary to even describe this compilation. Most of them settled on "nutty" and "weird and wonderful," and perhaps predictably, they gravitated towards its more familiar aspects ie the awkward but endearing attempts at Western styles: Jimi Solanke & The Junkers' Yoruba garage rock on "E Je Ka Jo," The Ramblers Dance Band's spirited take on The Tennors' reggae classic "Ride Yu Donkey," Charlotte Dada's cool and haunting Latin-inflected interpretation of The Beatles' "Don't Let Me Down."

It was the more straight-ahead highlife numbers that seized my imagination, though: I think part of the reason I never fully got highlife before was because I just didn't understand the context it was coming from. Maybe because of the festering wounds of the Civil War and the crash of the initial optimism that followed independence, our parents never talked in too much detail about the Sixties. Sure, we read books that were written during that era, but I really don't think people from my generation came close to understanding the excitement of being the first generation of Africans to live fully in a world of modernity and glamour, in which they were free to shape their own destinies. Most of my age-mates thought of highlife as dusty old "traditional" music; what we didn't understand was that highlife was anything but. As the German African art scholar Ulli Beier put it in 1966:

"'Highlife' is a reaction against the austerity of traditional African life. It is a way of life that believes in pleasure, music, drinking, free love, and ostentatious spending of money. The Onitsha writers speak about this new generation: schoolboys, teachers, drivers, clerks--people who have not yet gone very far in being 'westernized', but who already find themselves in sharp opposition to traditional ways of life."

Listening to the songs on Money No Be Sand, I finally got that, and I could see for the first time how this music reflected the aspirations, the sensuality, the passion of a young generation navigating a brave new world and looking forward to the future with nothing but hope.

One thing I still couldn't put a finger on, though, was why that inherent wistfulness. That undercurrent of sadness I always heard in the music. That frayed feeling to its harmony. But once again, Latin America helped me develop the conceptual vocabulary by which to think and talk about African music.

Back when I used to watch Fantástico, I was always mesmerized by the bittersweet flavor that seemed to characterize much Brazilian music. The melodies were so pretty and lilting, but they also had a strange... incompleteness to them. Like something that was perpetually missing, creating an instability that was never fully resolved: a lingering sense of longing or sadness even when the music was upbeat (such as in this discofied Gal Costa number I used to love):



Years later, I would learn that there was a name for this wistful tension between sorrow and joy: saudade, a uniquely Lusophone concept that was famously untranslatable into English. My Cape Verdean roommate tried, though; he told me it was "homesickness... but not really." A Brazilian coworker described it as "like sadness where you're happy to be sad." Probably the most succinct definition I've come across is the one by writer A.F.G. Bell from his book, In Portugal:

The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.

Is there a word for that in any African language? There should be, because I hear it in many different musics all along the West African coast and even as far down as in Congo. Is it the legacy of the Portuguese explorers and traders who, by virtue of being the first Europeans to set foot in these areas, set Africa on course to modernity (a journey that has seemed like a boon and a curse, often at the same time)? Or is it more likely some deeper, older impulse in the African psyche that recognizes pleasure and pain as two sides of the same coin, that renders songs of joy in gloomy minor keys and dirges as celebratory frolicks?

Aaaaahhh... Questions, questions. What do I know? Just listen to this music, people.



> DOWNLOAD DIVSHARE! (i hope*) <

> MEGAUPLOAD <

> ZSHARE <


*I know DivShare's been "acting like bra and pant" lately, but I tested this link and it downloaded at a decent rate; it came through in less than a minute.

Moving on...

And then the next morning you really feel sore.

Over the past week, I've been pretty bummed out (to say the very least) about the whole hard drive thing. I mean, I had braced myself for the worst the moment I heard the drive emitting that ominous clicking sound the weekend before last, and by last Saturday, when the body was officially committed to the ground, I thought I had already pretty much gotten all my mourning out of the way. But then when I woke up on Sunday morning, it really started to pain me. I lost all my gotdamned music, man!

Fortunately, I had backed up a lot of my data... But then, a whole lot more of it I had not. And sure enough, most of the stuff I didn't back up was the stuff that's probably hardest to find. For some reason, I tended to back up albums more than individual tracks, so the rare, random mp3s I found in odd places, the custom mixes, the exclusive tracks... Gone, baby, gone.

And then there's the hundreds of personal photos, like a thousand reference photos for TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN and other projects, notes, drafts, randomly recorded ideas, sketches, bookmarks, journal entries, pricey applications obtained via fortuitous or dubious means that now have to be re-acquired...

On the more immediate level, a lot of the music and pics I wanted to put up here in posts I had lined up for the near future is also gone. But what are ya gonna do? *sigh* Really, I have nobody to blame but myself... So I might as well just man up, take the L, and move on.

There. Manned up. Moving on. Moaning about it no more.

One thing, though: Please forgive if I occasionally have to bum some music from y'all... Including stuff you might have originally gotten from me. For instance, those of you with whom I traded music at that other place where we were sharing Brazilian, Congolese, Latin and Highlife music a few months ago? If you have that Giants of Danceband Highlife compilation I put up back then, hooketh thy boy up.

Moving on.

Sir Victor Uwaifo & His TitiBitis of Africa - Jackpot

Yes, I finally got my computer back today (Woo-hoo!). Yes, all my data really is gone (D'OH!).

Such is life. I no fit die.

Anyway, here's a nice album that Jon and I were discussing in the comments of the "Portuguese" post. I was able to find it somewhere while trying to re-plant the seeds of my digital music collection. I apologize in advance for the DivShare... I know it's been acting up of late but it's kinda the best I can do for now. Just to make things a little easier, I throw in supplementary Megaupload link, 'ey?





> DOWNLOAD IT FROM DIVSHARE! (I HOPE!) <

or

> DOWNLOAD IT FROM MEGAUPLOAD! <

> OR ZSHARE EVEN! <

EDIT: Just realized that the tracks are mislabeled on the album sleeve and also in this file... The one that says "Ewere Noyoyo" is actually "Sakpaide Special," and vice versa. I don't want to have to re-upload these (though I probably will end up doing so later anyway because that's how obsessive I am) so please, correct that error when you download, please!

Status: Involuntary hiatus

Well, I didn't expect to still be computerless at this point in the week, but alas, I am and probably will remain so for the next few days. Nevertheless, I will try to get the second part of "The Portuguese Had a Word For It" up by tomorrow (had hoped to do it today but I couldn't squeeze in the time at work).

What really sucks is that I wanted to add some music and photos to the post but all that stuff is stuck on my hard drive (I mean, I hope it's still stuck on my hard drive! hahahaha whimper)... Thankfully I managed to upload some stuff before the crash and I have enough posts in the vault to last a few days.

In the meantime, though, I'd recommend that you check out something much cooler: John Beadle's new African music blog, Likembe.

I can remember a time not too long ago--I'm talking about maybe the mid-to-late 1990s--when there were hardly any authoritative resources or even reasonably trustworthy reference materials on African popular music. And what little there was usually was oriented mostly towards music of the "grioty" variety that was pretty big amongst the world music set back then. I can understand why, mind you... That stuff does present a rather attractive image of African music: Heroically tasteful, sufficiently exotic and un-westernized, part of a tradition stretching back several centuries, exuding an aura of dignity and regal austerity.

Next to such noble notions, my knowledge of loudly, proudly tawdry Nigerian pop music from the 1960s, 70s and 80s seemed pretty inconsequential, if not even slightly embarrassing. Frankly, I didn't even really think of it as "knowledge" per se... It was more like nostalgic trivia: hazy childhood memories of songs that very few people seemed to remember and certainly nobody I knew remotely cared about. So yeah, I didn't talk about it that much.

All that changed when I discovered the African Music Homepage.

The African pop discographies that Mr. Beadle and Prof. Endo assembled completely floored me, and at the same time validated me in a weird way. Before then, I don't recall ever having seen African popular music--and Nigerian pop in particular--documented with such painstaking attention to detail. It was a revelation to see these seemingly insignificant records that even people back home viewed as gaudy trash catalogued with the rigor and esteem one observes only amongst moldy figs and the curators Northern Soul.

All of a sudden, I felt that I was in my own way a keeper of a tradition, and that I should do what I could to preserve this legacy before it disappeared completely.

I reckoned that maybe I should write a book. Then I reckoned that maybe John should write a book, as he knows much, much more than I do.

While no plans for such a volume have been announced as yet, I'm really excited to see that he's doing the next best thing in the form of a blog. He's already been quite an encouraging presence in the African music blogosphere, chipping in at Benn Loxo and Matsuli Music, not to mention helping out round hereabouts when I've been too lazy busy to digitize records to share with you, my dear friends. So I'm pretty excited to see what he does over in his own storefront.

So run on over to Likembe and get yourself schooled. I know that's what I'm about to do (before my allotted hour on this library computer runs out!).





*John Collins' West African Pop Roots and Music Makers of West Africa are notable exceptions (hey, does anybody know what's up with his new Highlife Time, by the way? I need to get a copy of that!) and Ronnie Graham's The Da Capo Guide to Contemporary African Music was a very noble effort, as well.

The Portuguese had a word for it. (Part 1)

Don't know if y'all know this, but today is Vinyl Record Day, celebrating the 130th anniversary of the Phonograph (even though technically, Edison's invention originally played wax cylinders and then shellac plates before the vinyl record came into vogue in the 1940s... but you get the idea). As a result, a lot of music blogs are running shamelessly fetishistic tributes to vinyl today and I originally intended to do the same, but alas, it looks like my hard drive seems to have imploded yesterday, taking with it my collection of vinyl cover art and label scans (not to mention like 30 gigs of music and countless photos), so while I struggle to hold back the tears over here, I'll just throw up this rambling-ass entry I wrote a few weeks ago but never posted.

(Edit: I just realized that this posted up as a Saturday, August 11 entry, so I guess I should confirm that Vinyl Record Day was actually on Sunday, August 12. I guess because I posted very early on Sunday morning, Blogger's clock interpreted it as still being Saturday. *shrug*)

**********************************

I've mentioned before that Latin American music has often served as a conduit and template for my understanding of African music, and to be honest, it's always bothered me a little bit. I mean, what does that say about me? Is my mind really so colonized by The West that I can't even think about and take pride in my own cultural heritage without relating it in some way to forms that are "exotic" and even "neo-African," but still fundamentally western?

I don't think I'm really alone in this, though... After all, didn't Fela say that he never really appreciate African culture until he saw Black Americans wearing dashikis on 125th Street in Harlem? And who was the wise man who said that in order to truly understand one's country, one must leave it? I really do believe that: you need to take a few steps away in order to see the forest and not just the trees. Plus, it can exceedingly difficult to actually concentrate and get a decent perspective on African culture while actually in modern Africa; one interesting thing about living in so-called "Third World" countries is the way you're so often deluged by avalanches of cultural detritus dumped from every other corner of the globe. For instance, I'm sure that many Nigerians d'un certain age will remember when one of the most popular shows on television was a very strange German game show called Telematch:



Yes, it was just as inane as it looks from the intro, kinda like a live-action Laff-a-Lympics (which was, by the way, another pretty popular program, along with other forgettable, low-rent Hanna-Barbera fare like Clue Club).

Probably my favorite of all these bizarre imports, though, was an over-the-top variety show from Brazil called Fantástico - O Show Da Vida:



Watching Fantástico was a bit like falling through a looking-glass into a wonderland where it was always carnaval, exploding with riotous color, light and movement, somewhat frightening imagery, broad humor and probably a little more stark sexuality than most would be comfortable with in a family program. Above all that, though, the show sticks out in my mind for igniting my lifelong passion for Brazilian music via the performances by MPB icons like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Maria Bethania:



or former Mutante Rita Lee (who kinda scared me back in the day):



(Fantástico is actually still on TV in Brazil; I caught it a couple of times last year during the brief period that I had TV Globo in my cable package, but it was a crushing disappointment. Everything I had loved about it was gone: the freewheeling whimsy, the glorious rococo, the camp stylings, the freaky production numbers. What was left was vacuous showbiz junket interviews and "news" stories about UFOs and the face of the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing in a bowl of oatmeal. Turns out that sometime in the early 1990s, the format had been changed from variety show to Hard Copy-like newsmagazine. It was like having bamboo shoots shoved up under my childhood. You really can't go home again, I guess.)

It's not like we spent all day rotting our brains in front of the boob tube, though... Back then, most TV stations didn't even start their daily broadcast until four in the evening. The constant distraction of crappy homegrown digital movies was as yet undreamed of and only a few folks had VCRs anyway, so to amuse ourselves, we kids spent a lot of time reading.

Crazy shit, I know... But this really happened.

Now I'm not gonna bullshit you and make like we were working our way through The Great Books in our free time; mostly it was pulpy trash like James Hadley Chase (hardboiled American crime stories as written by an ex-Royal Air Force pilot who had never even been to America) or Enid Blyton's polite and painfully English young adventurer yarns (Hullo! Well-scrubbed middle-class children foil dastardly smugglers and make it home in time for tea and sandwiches? Good old Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the dog! Hurrah!) or, for starter readers, the lightweight juvenilia of the African Reader's series.

The African Reader's Library was conceived by African Universities Press in the early 1960s to serve as, I guess, a junior broda to the groundbreaking Heinemann African Writers Series. Several of its popular titles, like Onuora Nzekwu and Michael Crowder's Eze Goes To School, or The Village School and One Week, One Trouble (both by Anezi Okoro) were typically Horatio Alger tales or picaresque stories built around the exploits of young boys (always young boys) on their rocky quest for education.

By the time I was reading them in the early 80s, these novels were around 20 years old, but I never really noticed. After all, most seven-year-olds don't really think to read the publication info on the copyright page, and aside from the occasional curious monetary references (pounds and shillings rather than naira and kobo), there wasn't much in the actual texts that made them come off as particularly dated.

I still remember the first time I encountered a scene in one of those stories that was so anachronistic and jarring to my sensibilities as to make me acutely aware that the book in my hands was a relic of distant (and bizarre) times past: It was in Nkem Nwankwo's Tales Out Of School (or maybe it was the sequel, More Tales Out Of School, I forget). In this scene, a classroom full of secondary school students in Form One or Form Two--that is, eleven and twelve-year-olds--are fooling around in class, celebrating their defiance of some evil authoritarian prefect or teacher by drumming on their desks, playing invisible horns and singing highlife songs. This scene was so shocking that I actually put the book down in bewilderment.

Highlife? I wondered. Why on earth are these kids playing "old man music"?

Yes, I really did call it that. Before I learned the proper name "highlife," I--along with my sisters and many of our peers--generally referred to it as "old man music" and associated it with two broad, sometimes overlapping images:

1) the sour, leather-skinned old coot on your street who would never return your ball when it landed in his yard, choosing instead to remind you (just in case you had forgotten his last wild-eyed rant) that he had Fought Side-by-Side With The White Man™ in the Burma Theater so that scoundrels of no caliber such as yourself could be free to make “ah bloody hell of ah noise!” He would then affect clipped British diction as he fumed about “louts and scallywags” before returning indoors (confiscated ball under his arm) to his Chief Inyang Nta Henshaw records.

2) seedy drinking parlours populated by rheumy, hairy-eared leches, rank gin fumes seeping from their pores as they feasted upon dog meat and clumsily tried to seduce bubbleheaded, barely pubescent schoolgirls. (I once asked my cousin why highlife music was so called; he explained to me with all seriousness that the appellation was meant to be ironic. I believed him since so many of the people I identified with highlife were... Well, kinda lowlifes, really.)

Now, allow me to clarify a bit here: When I say that highlife was “old man music,” my issue was not (just) that the people who listened to it were old or that it wasn’t the latest flavor of the minute blazing its way up the hit parade. After all, most of the music I was digging at the time was stuff like classic Motown, Elvis, The Beatles, The Fifth Dimension--fifteen to twenty-year-old platters extracted from my parents’ record stack (when you haven’t even been on this earth up to a decade yourself, everything is new to you).

Also, I actually did like some highlife myself. I loved the aggressively flashy and forward "Ekassa" style of Sir Victor Uwaifo, for instance, and occasionally savored the mellow ambience engendered at family celebrations in the village by the gentle, muted wah-wah groove of Osadebe and the like. For some reason, though, I never really thought of that stuff as being "highlife" at the time. I can't remember exactly what I categorized it as, but I know that when I thought "highlife"--especially living in Calabar--I was thinking about the old-school "dance band" music with its quaint horn charts and spartan "palmwine" guitar style (so named for its association with drunkenness).

I couldn't conceptualize this sound as the theme music for hot-blooded Nigerian youth any more than I could imagine that a moldy old geezer like the Ol' Solja up the street had ever been bright-eyed and lusty, or fallen in love or had hopes and dreams beyond getting his jollies off by seizing errant footballs from hapless youngsters. Something about the music sounded inherently old and evocative of a faded glamour and vitality. There was a certain note of sadness and loss in it, and a languor to even the uptempo numbers that made it the perfect soundtrack for those whose best days were definitively behind them. Which is probably why I associated it so closely with Calabar.

"Calabar" was what Portuguese sailors called the Efik fishing settlement they encountered on the Bight of Bonny in the 15th century (They accientally also gave the name "Calabar" to a nearby Ijaw settlement, so the Efik area became "Old Calabar" and the Ijaw "New Calabar") and developed into probably the number one port for the trade in slaves. It's estimated that for up to 30% of all Africans shipped off to the New World in chains, Calabar Beach was the last thing they saw before being tossed into the dank hold.

(A good number of those enslaved Africans ended up in Cuba, by the way. There, slaves from Calabar became known as Carabali, and were greatly feared for their fierceness in combat and their clandestine, ultra-masculine Ekpe cult, which served as the foundation for the super-secret Cuban Abakuá society, the fount of seminal Afro-Cuban musical forms such as rumba and guaguanco.)

(See? I'm doing it again!)

Oh yes, one other interesting factoid about Calabar's macabre slaving past: From it we find possibly the oldest literary work by a Nigerian writing in English, The Diary of Antera Duke, being three years in the life of an Efik chief, 18th January 1785 to 31st January 1788. Only a fragment of it survives today, but it's an intriguing read indeed; Duke records in colorful broken English the day-to-day life of a local slave kingpin: Putting on his "whiteman trousers" to chill out and drink tea with the European slavers. Venturing out on expeditions to neighboring towns and villages to round up captives to sell to the whites. Storming a local bar and decapitating its patrons as a human sacrifice to his ancestors. (Legends such as this persisted as terrifying fables during my childhood; whenever an Obong--the ceremonial paramount ruler of Calabar--died, parents wouldn't let their kids leave the house until it had been announced that he'd been safely buried, as it was rumored that the Obong's minions still beheaded random people in order to properly inter the king.)

Even after the slave trade was abolished, Calabar remained a major trading port and the British kept it as the seat of government for for the Niger Coast Protectorate, making it, in essence, the first capital of Nigeria. With its modern roads, and other amenities such as the first post office in the country, the first primary school and one of the first and best secondary schools (the legendary Hope Waddell Training Institute), Calabar became known as "the Canaan City," the land of milk and honey. Even when the Brits shifted their administrative center to Lagos in 1906, Calabar retained a certain glamour as a cultural center, especially for its music. You see, Calabar was the home of the Niger Coast Constabulary Band, a police band that played loud, John Philip Sousa-style military marches on modern brass instruments. The influence of the Niger Coast Constabulary Band propagated a strong tradition of brass orchestras in Calabar, chief amongst them the legendary Calabar Brass Band, who would parade through the main streets of town playing their Africanized take on Salvation Army music with a gaggle of revelers trailing behind them.

When Calabar's economy started to decline in the 1930s, a lot of musicians left town to resettle in more happening cities, taking with them the distinctive Calabar brass sound that would infuse a very elegant and "modern" elan (and volume) to various local folk musics that up until then were built largely around low-impact instruments like guitars and mandolins, rattles, tambourines, empty bottles and tabletops. The Calabar Brass Band relocated to Lagos, where they continued their tradition of parading across the island and, under the alias "Lagos Mozart Orchestra," recorded sides such as "Ore Mi Kini Se?" ("What Did You Do, My Friend?"):

Lagos Mozart Orchestra - "Ore Mi Kini Se?"

The Calabar sound inspired many young players to pick up horns and was integral to the development of highlife. Calabar was a place that was frequently immortalized in song and just about every highlife dance band worth their salt had a "Calabar" number or two in their repertoire.

(Incidentally, here are two, both from Ghanaian bands: Jerry Hansen's Ramblers and King Bruce & the Black Beats:

Ramblers Dance Band - "Ekombi"

King Bruce & the Black Beats - "Abasi Do"

That was all over by the time I was growing up in Calabar, though.

Over the past decade, recently-departed Cross River State governor Donald Duke has done much to sexy up the Calabar's image, promoting it as one of the most progressive, pleasant and livable cities in the country. Still, my predominant image of it is one of a provincial town full of mold-covered, colonial-style architecture (Kinda like how I imagine Old Havana, I guess). My Calabar was a ghost town, a land that time had passed by, and nothing was more symbolic of that than its hoary old horn highlife which had seemingly fallen out of favor everywhere else in the country since after the war. Calabar was a place where young people complained how "dead" it was, and dreamed of getting the hell out of soon as they were old enough.

So once I was old enough, I got the hell out.

(Alright, y'all... I said it was rambling. And you know I hate long, long entries, so I'll just cut it off here and post the rest later.)

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007)

R.I.P.

This is shaping up to be a rough week for cinephiles, isn't it?

Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

Requiescat in pace.

Funny thing is that Bergman is one of those people who I always find myself thinking died years ago.

Qui sont ces Bobongo Stars?

First off: I don't know if I have words to express how shocked I was to check the DivShare stats and find out that less than 24 hours after I posted it, the PJ Gray Boogie Trip Mix had been downloaded more 400 times, making it the most DLed file I've ever put up here! Did it get cross-posted on other blogs/forums or do y'all just love disco that much? (If the latter is the case, there's more where that come from, I reckon.)

Today's another quickie drop. This is an album that John B sent me a few weeks ago (the man positively spoils me, I tell ya) but I never got around to posting it because I really don't know anything at all about the band and I wanted to dig up some background info so's I could say something more than just "Here's the music; hope you like it as much as I do! Bye!"

My research didn't lead to much, though.* All I can say for now is that they are called Bobongo Stars; they may or may not be connected in some way with Ray Lema; their drummer played with OK Jazz on the classic 1982 Franco/Sam Mangwana classic "Cooperation"; they are clearly one of the new wave of Congolese bands of the 1970s and 80s that broke the typical Congo rumba mold by evincing heavy soul, funk and rock influences.



Also, this album, Makasi, is quite the shit.



Well... Here's the music; hope you like it as much as I do! Bye!

> DOWNLOAD IT! <


*I didn't think to ask Ms Bazu if she or Guy knew anything about them, though. I should've done that.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on BBC's Hard Talk Extra

I saw this on African Shirts and I just felt the need to post it here, too.

Chimamanda's interview starts at about 2:00 minutes in.

Nigerian disco daze

Can it be I stayed away too long? Did you miss my posts while I was gone?

Been a bit busy lately, so I haven't been able to do any blogging... Fret not, family; I'll be back in full force next week.

In the meantime, I figured I'd drop a l'il somethin' to kick the weekend off right quick.

This here is "Boogie Trip," a funky (albeit too brief!) disco mix by PJ Gray of the Galactic Fractures radio show. Gray does a bang-up job, deftly pulling together a refreshingly diffuse selection, even including more than just a little dash of old skool Naija disco/boogie flavor.

Hence, sitting alongside killer cuts by The Caprells (a Jackson 5esque family band from Pittsburgh, best known amongst funk aficionados for their trippy version of "Walk On by") and Georgia's Together Band, you'll find the Esbee Family (who were probably my favorite Nigerian boogie band in the early 80s) and Doris Ebong's "Boogie Trip" (Cross River Radio, Calabar used to play this one a lot, not just on account of Doris being a local girl, but because the record is an ecstasy of funkiness).

I was particularly delighted, however, by the inclusion of Bunny Mack's "Let Me Love You," especially since I've been wanting to post up some of Mack's tracks for a while. Now I don't doubt that many of you might have attended an African party at some point during the past 27 years, and thus already have some familiarity with this hallowed slab of dancefloor dynamite; for those readers who remain innocent of its allure, allow me to elucidate:

"Let Me Love You" is, quite simply, one of the biggest African records ever. A collaboration between veteran Sierra Leonean singer Bunny Mack and London-based producer (also of Sierra Leonean extraction) Akie Deen. Deen really deserves an entry of his own, as he was a pioneer in promoting African music (and Black music in general) in the UK and was a key player during the period I sometimes call "the London era" of Nigerian music.

His main claim to fame, though, is his pan-African fusion of West Indian calypso, Brazilian samba, Sierra Leonean maringa, West African highlife and Congo rumba, sewn together with seductive disco beats and glossy production values. He called this style "discolypso," and it was quite a big deal indeed during the late 70s and early 80s.

("Ivory" by Nigerian singer Kio Amachree was another massive floor-filler in discolypso mode, though I'm not sure it was actually produced by Deen. I need to check that up.)

The release of "Let Me Love You" in a 1980 was the pinnacle of the phenomenon; the record was a bonafide international hit, reaching the number 5 slot on the UK disco charts and #76 on the singles chart, becoming an instant classic throughout most of (Black) Africa and the Caribbean, and being embraced even as far afield as Colombia.

The record has recently found new life on the international dance music scene, even inspiring remixes and remakes.

Here's the tracklisting.

1. "Boogie Trip" -Doris Ebong
2. "I Want Your Body" - Royale
3. "Listen to the Music" - Bayo Damazio
4. "The Way I Feel Rap" - Ronnie
5. "Ivory" - Kio Amachree
6. "Chics and Chicken" - Esbee Family
7. "You're Just Teasing Me" - Together
8. "What Ever Goes Up" - The Caprells
9. "Let Me Love You" - Bunny Mack

> DOWNLOAD IT! <

By special request... The Ikenga Super Stars

This one's for you, BigDaf... Don't thank me; thank John B!

And while you're at it, thank him also for this information about the Ikenga Super Stars of Africa, filched by moi from the breathtakingly thorough African Music Home Page:

The Ikenga Super Stars of Africa, led by Vincent Okoroego, a former member of Steven Osita Osadebe's Nigeria Sound Makers, were a leading Igbo "guitar highlife" group of the seventies and eighties in Nigeria. The Ikengas called their style of music "Ikwokilikwo," a word which has also been used to describe the early recordings of Oliver deCoque and Kabaka Opara of the Oriental Brothers, among others. About the meaning of this term, Fidelis N. Umeh writes, "...'Ikwokilikwo' actually has a 'vernacular' type of meaning in the Igbo language. To set it in context, take a look at a word like 'ngwo-ngwo.' Its meaning has been derived from the act of 'igwo abacha' (preparing cassava - normally in rich oily mixing bowl), 'igwo ncha' (preparing a dish called ncha with a special type of mixing bowl), etc. It has come to be used to describe any preparation which entails the act of 'preparation in a special mixing bowl.' Ikwokilikwo is derived from 'ikwo oka' (grinding corn into pulp form), 'ikwo okpa' (grinding beans and peas into pulp form) and denotes the grinding process. The type of music to which it refers is similar in vernacular to 'cooking' used in the U.S. in the 70's to refer to really 'heavy' music in rock, jazz, blues, etc."

Ikwokilikwo in the early days at least was associated with certain classes of people, particularly traders. Its hard-driving, bouncy beat was just the sort of thing to play over a market stall sound system to attract customers! The Ikengas' LP "Ikenga in Africa" was a pan-African best-seller, combining sharp Congo-style guitar work, rhythms similar to Camerounian makossa and lyrics in "broken" or "pidgin" English, which broadened its appeal across ethnic lines. Indeed, its call-and-response recitation of the countries of Africa inspired numerous imitations, including one by the Ikengas themselves! 1976's (and 1983's) "African Unity" was a rehashed version of the same tune.

Gilbert Hsiao has provided much useful information for this updated Ikengas discography that sheds light on the history of this influential group. One question which has apparently been resolved is the relationship between the "Nkengas," who issued at least two LP's, and the Ikengas. It now seems all but certain that these are one and the same group, headed by Okoroego. But this does not answer all of the questions! It has long been rumored that "Nkengas in London" was an Osita Osadebe master tape hijacked by Okoroego and other members of the Nigeria Sound Makers who defected in the early seventies. Absent any evidence to the contrary, this seems likely. "Nkengas in London" sounds not at all like other Ikengas recordings, for instance, "Ikenga in Africa." The vocals, the instrumentation, even the spoken comments at the beginning of the songs, are all classic Osadebe. For this reason, I have listed this recording in Osadebe's discography as well as this one.

The Ikengas have had numerous personnel changes and defections over the years. A significant split occured after the band won a sizeable award from the Nigerian government for their performance at FESTAC '77 in Lagos. Guitarist Aloysius Anyanwu left to join the Oriental Brothers, and subsequently had a solo career. While the Ikengas were basically an "Igbo" group, over time they took on a broader character, enlisting musicians from other ethnic groups and Cameroun. In this sense they were part of a broader movement in Nigerian music in the late seventies and early eighties that I call "Pidgin Highlife," a trend that included artists like Prince Nico Mbarga who sang mainly in "pidgin" or "broken" English rather than vernacular languages. As this genre faded away in the early eighties, so did the Ikengas. I do not know if they are still performing as a group. - John Beadle

Ikenga Super Stars of Africa
Ikengas in Africa
Rogers All Stars, 1975



> DOWNLOAD IT! <

(I apologize for the slapdash nature of this post. I got a serious case of the busies tonight, and I also want to check out that new Mad Men show on AMC.)

(John, meanwhile, apologizes for the skips in one of the tracks; I don't think it's too bad.)

Get Yer Ju-Ju's Out, Part 2: I.K. Dairo MBE

So since we were talking about juju music last time, I figured I might as well continue in that vein with some music from the genre's first superstar, Isaiah Kehinde Dairo MBE (1930-1996). I.K. Dairo is often referred to as"the father of juju" not because he invented the style (which he most certainly did not do) but because he took it from the lowly status of a back-alley urban folk music to a sophisticated, cosmopolitan popular genre on par with the urbane and glamorous highlife.

Like many juju musicians of the early era, Dairo started out playing music on a part-time basis while he worked as a barber and manual laborer. In 1957 he formed the ten-piece Morning Star Orchestra. The level of innovation he brought to juju was immediately apparent: He simultaneously modernized the music--incorporating cutting-edge Afro-Cuban rhythms, emphasizing the melodic role of the guitar and novel instrumental voices such as the ten-button accordion--and more deeply indigenized it via the introduction of traditional talking drums and thoroughly researched texts drawn from Yoruba folklore.

This tradition/modernity paradox also informed the subject matter of his songs, which often essayed the complexities of urban life while extolling the traditions of old. An ardent follower of the Cherubim & Seraphim "white garment" church, he advocated Protestant values even when he was singing about hip-swaying, painted-lipped city sirens. Take for example, the tune "Salome" in which he describes a beautiful, light-skinded femme fatale and then sings how it is "her character" that attracts him (LOL yeah right, dude!), and how he wants to work hard to make the money to get her.

His ambivalent relationship with urban glamour and decadence is captured in this passage from a 1969 Nigerian National Press article by Benson Corporo Okagbare:

I K has a character trait which is peculiar to him; he does not like to be interrupted when he talks and if you interrupt he will go on talking without a break in the line of thought. This peculiar character trait is much to his advantage. In any hotel, whenever he is playing and Bacchus is at work, people go very close to him. Some even go to the extent of entering on the stage to talk to him. All these do not disturb I K. In certain cases when the crowd - particularly girls, in miniskirts crowd on him while playing, he will close his eyes to avoid distraction; he prefers the audience far from the playing stage. I K is one of the greatest admirers of beauty; he has a great likeness for girls but he loves them and admires them as he would his sisters. This is another candle placed on a candlestick. I believe others will see light.

"The girls I sing of are not my girlfriends or lovers. In certain cases I pick up certain names and sing of them. Most of the characters are fictitious I am currently composing a song on Sunbo - I know nobody of such a name. I sing of girls and of 'love' because these are, in face essential factors in our lives. They are necessary compliments [sic] to whatever we are. 'Love' is indeed one of the essential ingredients of music and love songs are most appealing to all and sundry. I therefore sing them merely to give satisfaction to the people whom I am happy to see satisfied. I have carefully avoided flooding the market with such songs as they are most likely to encourage immorality." I K then concluded that if a musician was to retain his glory long he must abstain.

Dairo and his Morning Star Orchestra (renamed the Blue Spots in 1961) immediately captured the imagination of the public and rose meteorically, performing on radio and television, and becoming the favored party band among the Yoruba contingent while also drawing in fans from other ethnic groups. For his cultural contributions to the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth even appointed him a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1963, making him the first and, to date (I think), the only African musician to receive such an honor.

Dairo & the Blue Spots' far-reaching appeal is documented in this article from the July 1964 issue of DRUM magazine.

His father gave him a drum to beat in his cradle. I.K. Dairo has been making music ever since. Today he is Nigeria's number one bandleader and he has been at the top for five fabulous years. How does he do it?

DAIRO IS A FIVE-YEAR WONDER

Britain has the Beatles who make teenagers scream and wail ecstatically at the slightest beat of the drums. America has pop singers like Elvis Presley and Chubby Checker whose music make [sic] her boys and girls go ga-ga. They are all worshipped by teenagers. Their grown-up fans are limited to people between twenty-five and forty years of age. But I.K. Dairo's music is a different cup of tea.


His music is not just a teenage drug, it also acts as a tonic on the grown-ups. For over five years, he has been treating the country to an unprecedented musical extravaganza--to a music that cuts across age and tribe, that is equally enjoyed by the ten year old and the septuagenarian and which gives the same kick and pleasure to the man from Lagos or from Abakaliki or from Ogbomosho or from Kaura-Namoda.

In spite of the fact that juju highhlife bands are common in Yorubaland, Dairo's music has more appeal than the music of all of them put together. It also commands more attention and respect among educated people and artists, because most of Dairo's compositions reveal a search into the past and because of their historical connections with the Yoruba folk songs.

Says Dairo: "Many older people have come to ask me for the meanings of the words I use in my songs and the majority of my Yoruba listeners are baffled at some of the incantations, verses and expressions I use. It costs me a lot of money and time to research Yoruba history and folklore. I have to travel around, talking to old men who know a lot about such things; I then go back home to turn them into modern music."


The original caption to the photo above was "DAIRO FINDS A lonely spot to compose a sad song. He says: 'I'm at the top and I mean to stay there.'"

Ironically, even as this article was rolling off the presses, Dairo's run as the King of Juju was coming to an end; 1964 was the year that a young guitar hotshot named Ebenezer Obey--lately departed from Fatai Rolling Dollar's band--formed his own seven-piece International Brothers orchestra, offering an ultramodern blend of juju-highlife, soul, country & western, Congolese rumba and an unabashed celebration of miliki, or "enjoyment" that made Dairo's studious traditionalism and Christian temperance appear hidebound and colo in comparison. Dairo managed to crank out a few hits here and there through the end of the sixties, but he really couldn't keep up with the escalated cutthroat competition amongst bands that had come to characterize the genre.

Dairo remained a beloved avuncular figure on the juju scene and given his propensity for moral messages and melodies inspired by Anglican hymnology, it was a natural move for him to put his juju ministry to service as the head of his own Aladura church, with its distinctly Yoruba brand of Christianity with a subtle orisha worship flavor.



Towards the end of his life, he also served as a professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, Seattle. Upon his death in 1996, Radio Nigeria paid tribute to Dairo's standing as a sainted figure in the juju canon by playing nothing but his music for five days straight. His legacy lives on today not only through his evergreen songs, but through his son Paul IK Dairo (bka "Paul Play") who is the spitting image of his father, and one of the most popular singers in Nigeria today:



(Obviously, that "spitting image" comment was a reference to physical resemblance rather than musical. As much as Paul has expressed his disinterest in ever playing an accordion on record, the way he keeps his finger so heavy on that Auto-Tune kinda makes his vocals sound a little bit like an accordion sometimes. So in a bizarre way, he is maintaining some small piece of Baba I.K.'s musical voice, no?)

The album I'm posting here is Definitive Dairo, which probably suggests a representive anthology of his work, but the title is misleading. It's actually a lost 1971 London session that was unearthed after his death. I wish I could reproduce the lovely liner notes by juju scholar Chris Waterman, elucidating the song texts, but it's not really necessary to enjoy the music.

One thing, though; I kinda chuckled at producer Andy Frankel's efforts to rationalize the last two, Lingala-inflected songs on the disc, "Congo Kinshasa" and "President Mobutu"; he explains that the Blue Spots had just returned from Zaire, where they had enjoyed Mobutu's lavish hospitality and basically, it was a more optimistic time in Africa when nobody yet knew how the leopard-hatted one was going to wild out in coming years.

While I'm sure there's truth to this reading, I really can't ignore one aspect of the juju genre that's always kind of bothered me: Remember how I said before that juju was always sorta synonymous with toadying to me? A big part of the juju musician's repertoire has always been the ability to flatter wealthy and powerful patrons in their songs. That, to me, is some semi-feudal bullshit that I wouldn't mind seeing eradicated with all alacrity. While I know that praise-singing is a eons-old musical tradition throughout sub-Saharan Africa, so is abuse-singing (as exemplified in the modern era by Fela) and I used to be sickened by the unequivocal, oily encomium oozed by juju musicians upon robber barons, despots and other corrupt, blood-sucking reptilia (whether dressed in agbada or khaki) just as long as the money was flowing.

And that's why I found it a major head-scratcher why, when looking towards Africa for a "Third World Superstar" to replace the recently departed Bob Marley, Island Records ignored the logical choice of Fela in favor of King Sunny Ade.

King Sunny Ade? The hell?

Bob Marley became the first "Third World Superstar" because, in addition to being a gifted songwriter in the conventional pop mold, he was slick and sexy and projected the image of a real rebel against the system. This last element particularly appealed to the rock audience, which has continued to value and pay lip service to the idea of "sticking it to The Man," long after that concept ceased to have any real meaning. King Sunny Ade--apart from the fact that he didn't even sing in a language that the proposed audience could understand--he didn't stick it to The Man; he sucked up to The Man. And they were surprised that their precious rock audience didn't cotton to him the way they hoped?

...

Shit, I've wandered away from the point. I come to praise juju, not to bury it. Whatever philosophical difficulties I might have with it, it's still some good-ass music.



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