Artist.......: VA
Album........: Lagos Chop Up (Fuji, Afrobeat, Highlife & Juju)
Label........: Honest Jons
Genre........: Ethnic
Catnr........: CD15
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Sep-21-2006
str.date.....: 000-00-2005
quality......: VBR/44.1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. sir shina adewale - awa ni superstars 02:14
02. dr. victor olaiya - omelebele 05:59
03. etubarmrex williams - uwa idem mi 04:31
04. kollington ayinla - alhaja sikira adunni - 07:01
ayinla fuji e gapupe
05. ikenya super stars of africa - soffry 09:29
soffrey catch monkey
06. nigerian army rhythm group - ebawn se 06:27
07. eastern minstrels - selense 04:08
08. oliver de coque - the tradegy story of two 09:28
friends
09. steven amechi & his rhythm skies - onya na 03:01
eli nkwu
10. cardinal rex jim lawson - owuna derina 03:04
11. wokkers brigade band - kpalongo 03:00
12. shina williams & his african percussions - 15:05
ise aje male
Runtime 73:27 min
Size 92,6 MB
Release Notes:
An inspired trawl through the treasure trove that
is urban Nigerian social music of the late '60s
through mid '80sùa laid-back, all-night,
intertribal dance party featuring classic highlife,
Afrobeat, juju, and fuji hits of the era in all
their four-track, one-take, original glory.
The '70s, give or take, were arguably the Golden
Age of indigenous West African dance music: the
decade before it forged wholesale fusions with
Western pop and became global rather than local in
genesis and outlook. Horns, electric guitars, and
kit drums had been introduced from the West, and
jazz and funk ran through highlife and Afrobeat,
but in all other respects the music remained
intensely African: sung in native languages, shaped
by the region's traditional folk songs and driven
by its uniquely rich cross-rhythms, and displaying
a purely African sensibility in its lyric subject
matter and extended playing times.
The album kick starts with the raw and youthful
juju of Sir Shina Peters and Segun Adewale (trading
together as Sir Shina Adewale). Adewale would go on
to create the high energy yopop style which briefly
threatened to dislodge established juju stars Sunny
Ade and Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey in the mid
'80s, and the cranked-up drive is apparent already.
Other young radicals include Kollington Ayinla,
whose intense, viscerally thrilling, drum-driven
fuji displaced its more staid apala parent in the
late '80s.
There are two superb Afrobeat tracksùNigerian Army
Rhythm Band's ôEbawa Se (Party With Us)ö and Shina
Williams & His African Percussions' fifteen-minute
closing medley. The Rhythm Band's lineup includes
saxophonist/bassist Ojo Segun Okeji, who had been a
member of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti's pre-Africa 70 group
Koola Lobitosùthe cool, chugging,
jazz-meets-highlife groove is pure early Fela.
Williams' more codified Afrobeat is propelled by a
relentless and greasy organ, guitar, and drums
groove, broken up by a raucous trombone solo and
Fela-esque call and response vocals.
The rest of the tracks are mostly highlifes, in the
style's various guisesùthe R&B tinge of
trumpeter/vocalist Dr Victor Olaiya, the so-called
Evil Genius of Highlife; the horns and guitars
Eastern region style of Steven Amechi, Oliver De
Coque, and Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson; and the more
rootsical, percussion-dominated Etuborn Rex
Williams and Workers Brigade Band #1.
In a word, it's heaven. As is the companion album
Lagos All Routes, featuring more classic cuts from
Ebenezer Obey, Sir Victor Uwaifo, Travellers Lodge
Atomic, Super Negro Bantous, Haruna Ishola, and
other rainforest and savannah spacemen