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artist.....: VA
album......: Wake Up You! Vol 1-The Rise And Fall Of
Nigerian Rock 1972-1977
year.......: 2016
label......: Now-Again Records
NA5120
source.....: WEB
moodswing..: Psychedelic Rock
releasesize: 179.00 MB
tracks.....: 18
length.....: 78:03
encoder....: LAME
quality....: 320kbps
scenealized: 06.02.2016
en the African vinyl-digging trend
peaked five or six years ago, there was
a rush, mostly among American and
European collectors, to press and
publish retrospective compilations.
From the mid/late-'00s onward, there
was a feverish proliferation of
digitized vinyl on mp3-sharing blogs,
many of which featured music from West
Africa. One of those blogs was the
popular Comb and Razor, run by Uchenna
Ikonne, who's since become the main man
behind a number of Nigeria-focused
projects for labels like Soundway,
Luaka Bop, and Now-Again. Since the
early 2010s, what some have called the
"Scramble for African Vinyl" has slowed
down a bit, if in part because various
collectors have rendered certain
vinyl-rich areas comparatively dry. So
it says something about Now-Again that
they took the better part of a decade
to properly license, credit, and
release what is now Wake Up You!: The
Rise and Fall of Nigerian Rock, 1972-
1977.
Where other Nigerian vinyl compilations
have focused on various permutations of
rock, funk, soul, and disco, Wake Up
You! specifically covers the short-
lived but influential period of
Nigerian rock in the country's post-
Civil War era (after 1970). On 34
tracks across two volumes and two
accompanying books, the compilation
documents some of the musical,
socioeconomic, and political trends
that shaped Nigerian Afrorock.
The majority of both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2
feature music from the height of
Nigerian rock in the early '70s, before
the scene started to decline. The
decade saw Nigeria experiencing a
petroleum-fueled post-war economic
boom, which ushered in a renewed sense
of optimism that proved a huge boon to
the growth of the country's music
industry. And yet, as the government
sought to rebuild the nation, leftover
wartime trauma and unresolved tensions
got swept under the rug. So it's very
possible that the sense of discomfort
and melancholy that had never really
gotten addressed then ended up bubbling
over into rock, particularly in the
East, which had borne the brunt of the
war as the former secessionist Republic
of Biafra. The compilation reflects
that reality, featuring mostly Eastern
rock bands.
Despite regional differences, there was
a collective desire, especially among
youth, to have some kind of
contemporary music they could claim as
their own that was "distinctly
African." This was one of the reasons
why James Brown's soul music, with its
pro-Black messaging and funky rhythms
that meshed well with pre-existing West
African musical traditions, had
exploded in popularity during the
region's independence era. His
influence continued into the next
decade and beyond, as evidenced
throughout Wake Up You! For instance,
on Vol. 1, The Hygrades' 1971 B-side
"Keep on Moving" directly references
"Cold Sweat" and has the cathartic
screams to match. This desire for a
homegrown music was also what helped
make Fela's self-branded Afrobeat so
popular, which would soon eclipse
Afrorock, even though the two weren't
initially that different. The stylistic
similarities between the two are clear
in their shared highlife percussion
rhythms and off-kilter organ work. This
can be heard across Vol. 1ùon The
Hygrades' "In the Jungle
(Instrumental)," The Funkees' "Baby I
Need You," OFO the Black Company's
"Beautiful Daddy," and many more.
On Vol. 1 opener "Never Never Let Me
Down" (1973), the little-known
Formulars Dance Band deliver a touching
number filled with nostalgic doo-wop
harmonies and lyrics steeped in
heartache: 'Just one thing you do not
know, girl,' the lead singer croons.
'And that is I need you/And one more
thing you do not know, girl/And that is
I love you.' By contrast, War-Head
Constriction's record "Graceful Bird"
(1973) ramps up into a heavy metal
track with long, snarling guitar solos
and piles of distortion. According to
Ikonne's liner notes, War-Head
Constriction also often played with a
later iteration of the band Waves,
whose psychedelic "Wake Up You"
(featured on Vol. 2) b/w "Mother" (on
Vol. 1) is the comp's namesake. Vol.
1's closing track, P.R.O.'s 1976 "Tell
Me," in turn references dub by way of
delay effects, hinting at the fact that
towards the end of the decade, a
several schoolboy and college rock
bands including teen sensations Ofege
started shifting their heavy rock sound
towards "dub and militant rockers-style
reggae." But even then, with the
exception of Afrobeat and with the
advent of disco, the public wanted
something smoother and glossier, and
Nigerian rock slipped more or less into
darkness (related: Funkees' cover of
War's "Slipping into Darkness" on Vol.
2).
In that way, Vol. 1 comes to a logical
close. The album itself is very loosely
chronological, though it doesn't follow
the arc of the accompanying book, which
is an important part of the
compilation. Vol. 1 sags a bit towards
the middle of its 18 tracks, but it
picks up again later on perhaps not
unlike the trajectory of Nigerian rock
over the decades. Many of the narrative
threads present on Vol. 1 are also
those that run through Vol. 2, and
certain bigger bands, such as The
Hykkers, The Hygrades, and The Funkees,
appear on both volumes. However, where
Vol. 1 is generally more exuberant and
brighter, Vol. 2 is more melancholy,
reflecting some of the darker realities
of the time.
Much of Vol. 2 expresses a desire for
freedom and a resistance to the social
and political dis-ease of post-war
Nigeria. On "Life in Cannan," Ceejebs
lament the state of what could have
been their promised land. Over nimble
jazz keys and thick bass, lead vocalist
Eyo ôCrosbeeö Hogan gathers his
listeners around him, intoning, "Come
around, people of this world/let's get
together and pray/Evil things are
happening every day/Many rich are
getting poor/The poor ones are dying
away." Echoing that sense of despair is
The Identicals' nearly-apocalyptic "Who
Made the World," on which they demand
answers to questions they know they'll
never get, howling, "Who made the
world? Who made the land? Who made the
moon?" Even the love songs here ride on
a sort of desperation bordering on
futility: on opening number "Come
Back," band leader Theodore Nemy's
voice cracks time and time again as he
begs for his "baby" to "come back." An
organ drones beneath him, sympathetic
(figuratively and musically) to Nemy's
grievances.
Perhaps most clearly exemplifying the
intersection of Afrorock and the
politics of the time on Vol. 2 is the
band Action 13, who appear on Vol. 1 as
their later iteration, Aktion. On Vol.
2, their song "Set Me Free" could
easily be interpreted as a protest
against the band's prison-like
relationship to their then-patrons, the
Nigerian military's 13th Brigade. Many
brigades of the time used bands to
entertain their soldiers, boost morale,
and reassure citizens, via music, that
all was well. Initially, their
patronage was helpful in providing a
number of Eastern musicians with a
living. But Action 13, like many other
bands with brigade numbers affixed to
their names, eventually grew
frustrated, and many tried to break
free to make a name for themselves
independent of the military. These
outside pressures, as well as labels
jostling to sign artists with varying
degrees of success, often augmented
bands internal instabilities as well.
There was a ton of back-and-forth
between bands. For instance, on Vol. 2,
we see Tony Grey, (former?) keyboardist
of the Magnificent Zenians (Vol. 1)
leading his own band, The Black 7;
certain members of Afrorock pioneer
Joni Haastrup's Monomono appear here
backing one Shadow Abraham; juju icon
King Sunny Ade makes a surprise
appearance producing The Believers'
"Life Will Move." Trying to make sense
of the bands relationships to each
other, to regional trends, to labels,
and to military involvement is like
trying to make sense of a messy maze of
crossed paths, dead-ends, and false
starts.
But in that sense, Wake Up You!: The
Rise and Fall of Nigerian Rock, 1972-
1977 does a thorough job of conveying
the angst and mutability of Nigeria's
protean post-war period. This was music
that helped people, young people
especially, to sort through their own
identities in the wake of war, even if
it was to define what they weren't. On
Vol. 1, in the chorus of their track
"Scram Out," from their 1977 album Be
Nice To The People, young schoolboy
rockers Question Mark sing, "I want to
feel free, I want to feel happy!" Which
at the end of the day, through all its
ups and downs, was what the movement
was about.
Url:http://www.rappcats.com/shop/wake-
up-you-v1/
psst, more info at nowagainrecords.com
01 Formulas Dance Band - Never Never Let Me Down 04:02
02 The Hygrades - Keep on Moving 04:11
03 Ify Jerry Krusade - Everybody Likes Something Good 03:27
04 The Hygrades - In the Jungle (Instrumental) 03:17
05 The Strangers - Onye Ije 02:59
06 The Hykkers - Stone the Flower 03:01
07 The Funkees - Baby I Need You 03:47
08 Waves - Mother 04:22
09 Ofo the Black Company - Beautiful Daddy 03:48
10 War - Head Constriction-Graceful Bird 03:57
11 The Magnificent Zenians - Ije Udo 03:53
12 The Apostles - Never Too Late 06:15
13 Aktion - Groove the Funk 05:03
14 Wrinkar Experience - Ballad of A Sad Young Woman 04:54
15 The Founders 15 - I Can't Be Satisfied 03:16
16 Tirogo - Float 05:34
17 Question Mark - Scram Out 03:55
18 PRO - Tell Me 08:22