ARTIST...: Steve Monite
TITLE....: Only You
YEAR.....: 2022
LABEL....: Soundway
CAT.NO...: SNDWLP146
GENRE....: Disco
TIME.....: 36:22
SIZE.....: 70.27 MB
QUALITY..: 269kbps/48.0kHz/Joint Stereo
ENCODER..: LAME
SOURCE...: Vinyl
RLS.DATE.: 2022/11/30
WEBSITE..: https://www.discogs.com/release/4897638
TRACKLIST
A1) (06:24) Only You
A2) (05:49) I Had A Dream
A3) (05:50) Things Fall Apart
B1) (06:15) Welcome My Love
B2) (06:31) Only You (Disco Jam)
B3) (05:33) Things Fall Apart (Vocal)
Following on from 2016Æs Doing It In Lagos: Boogie, Pop & Disco in 1980s Nigeria,
Soundway Records return to that blistering set for the first and only officially
licensed re-issue of the highly coveted debut album from Steve Monite, featuring the
single 'Only You' that recently seeped its way into popular culture. Lovingly
restored and remastered for digital and vinyl.
Shooting, space-synth sounds ripple and vibrate, incessant grooves keep the tracks in
motion and Nkono Teles production, a producer often overlooked for his hand in the
Nigerian boogie sound, sets the LP into orbit. An album that was largely overlooked
on release in 1984, the track list includes the latter day hit Only You and Things
Fall Apart, the melody of which was lifted for Young FrancoÆs 2020 single FallinÆ
Apart.
Now living in South London, Steve Monite (pronounced mon-ah-tay) was born in 1961 and
grew up in Benin City, the capital of Edo State in southern Nigeria. A middle class
kid, the boarding school he went to was owned by his uncle and had some famous
alumni. Monite remembers the legendary Nigerian guitarist Victor Uwaifo, driving his
sports car into the school yard and donating a trophy and cash prize for students to
compete in musical performance.
He had learned to sing in the Anglican school choir, which is where he realised that
he wanted to pursue a music career. But the cultural backdrop was changing, and fast.
In the late 70s and early 80s, where the end of a military dictatorship was coupled
with an oil boom, Nigeria was flooded with money û and western records.
ôAfter the Civil War in Nigeria, everybody wanted something exciting,ö says Monite.
Highlife, the dominant music genre, was seen as outmoded. ôThe educated elite were
listening to American and English music,ö he continues. ôMy role models were people
like Barry White and Michael Jackson û they were young men like me. I liked the
[American] funk band Brass Construction; some English pop.ö
After his self-funded recording sessions in London failed in finding Monite a label
home in the UK, he returned home to immediately be picked up by EMI Records in
Nigeria instead. ôThey signed me straight away,ö he says, and found himself in the
EMI Studios with Nkono Teles, in the same studios where Paul McCartney and Wings
recorded Band on the Run in 1973.
Monite says that Teles had lived for a time in New York, where disco music was driven
by the whirr of the synth, and heÆd wanted to bring that into Nigerian music. There
was a Moog synthesiser in the studio and itÆs what took Only You in a spacey new
direction. ôI was the first African artist to play electro-funk,ö says Monite. ôTeles
was the visionary behind that song.ö
Monite wrote a further three tracks, 'Welcome My Love', 'I Had A DreamÆ and 'Things
Fall Apart', which formed the basis of his one and only album. Monite wrote æThings
Fall ApartÆ after the military coup in 1983, when the country was yet again plunged
into upheaval. ôThere was unemployment everywhere, food shortages, people scrambling
for survival,ö he says. ôSo many people, especially professional people like doctors,
lawyers, businessmen, left Nigeria.ö
In a way, the song documented the end of the golden age. With the middle classes
dispersed, NigeriaÆs halcyon boogie period was over. Steve Monite released his debut
album in 1984 but it fell on deaf ears, including that of the label, who didnÆt seem
to want to promote it. ôWhen my record came out, everything went cold.ö
So much to his surprise, years later and having relocated to South London, did he
find out that his music had finally found an audience he thought it always deserved.
ôæOnly YouÆ has woken up from the graveyard,ö he chuckles. He found out he was famous
thanks to his family in nearby Berkshire. ôI went to visit my brother and my seven-
year-old nephew told me, æUncle, I didn't know you were a star.Æ I said, æwhat are
you on about?Æ He said, æyouÆre an internet sensation nowÆ. So I went on the
internet, and I say, æWow'. I saw Steve Monite everywhere.ö
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