In the last fortnight, there have been significant activities on Facebook on Nigerian popular music of the late 1960s and the early 70s and the recording industry that evolved from it. These activities were triggered by some photos of that era posted by the irrepressible Timmy Nebuwa. Active in the conversation have been some steamrollers in the music industry of that era like Berkley Jones, Iyke Peters, Renny Pearl Nwosa, Jackie Moore Anyaorah, etc.
I have always been concerned that as a people, we do not pay enough attention to history so we do not get the appropriate inspiration and therefore make the same mistakes over and over again. With the permission of the Editor, I wish to dedicate this column in the coming weeks to look at some of the history of Nigerian popular music, the recording industry that thrived on the music and the influences from which the present buzz emerged. Much of the materials come from my book, Copyright & the New Millionaires. Please read on.
The Nigerian recording industry in the early seventies was dominated by three Lagos based multi-national recording companies, each of which carved out an area of influence for itself. These companies were Philips, which later became Phonogram and then Polygram and subsequently, Premier; EMI that later transformed itself to Ivory and DECCA, which eventually became Afrodisia.
In the early 1970s, Philips could be said to be the leader in Highlife music. The likes of Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson, Sir Victor Uwaifo, Celestine Ukwu, Victor Olaiya and Stephen Osita Osadebe had come out of the Nigerian civil war with their various interpretations of the Highlife sound in great demand. New names such as Paulson Kalu, Mike Ejiagha, the Eastern Minstrels, etc also churned out great Highlife tunes from the Philips Ijora Causeway studios in Lagos. While Philips did not dabble much into the local recording of western styled pop music, it was very active in releasing in Nigeria, recordings of the new kings and queens of American Soul and Blues on its Polydor label.
The king of the kings was of course ‘Papa’ James Brown whose song, “Say it Loud, I’m Black and Proud!” was a call for commotion on the dance floor. The revolutionary Black consciousness appeal of “Black and Proud” hit a deep chord with a lot of young Nigerians and was reflected in the lingo and fashion of the time. “Guys” wore the Afro hair style, tight fitting shirts, bell-bottom trousers also called labu and platform shoes. “Chicks” were also caught in the Afro hairdo craze, but did not use as much fabric in the making of their skirts as “guys” did with their labu trousers. The miniskirt was the rave. Anyone who was not dressed as a “guy” or a “chick” was a “jew man”! This was the era of the 7 inch 45 rpm singles on black vinyl. The different singles of James Brown such as “Sex Machine”, “Cold Sweat”, “Superbad”, “Mashed Potato Popcorn”, etc were all instant hits.
The EMI studio at Wharf Road in Apapa was the Mecca of the young Nigerian musicians who had become influenced by the wave that Black music was making in America. Some of these musicians were products of the war time pop bands that had sprung up both in Biafra and the other parts of the country.The most popular of these bands perhaps was “The Hykkers”. Another was “Marine Blossoms”. Otis Redding’s hit songs, Security and Direct Me had a major impact on the direction of these bands. So did the sounds coming out of Berry Gordy’s Tamla Motown which then was probably the most important hit music factory in the world. Motown was then ruling the world with artistes like Jackson 5, Diana Ross & the Supremes, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Four Tops, Rare Earth, etc.
The success of the single, “Love Rock” by “The Strangers” of Owerri led by Bob Miga ( real name: Bob Agim) opened the gates of EMI studios to more pop bands4.“The Wings” of Aba, inspired by their leader, Spud Nathans, also had a successful single with “Someone Else Will”. Also from Aba, “The Funkees”, a group with talents like Jake Sollo, Harry Mosco, Chyke Madu and Mohammed Ahidjo scored big with “Akula”, a song with a strong African tinge.
The Strangers was to break up not long after their huge success. Many of their fans shifted their loyalty to one of the succeeding groups, “One World’ fronted by lead singers Sam Mathews and Gab Zani. The environment in Aba also produced another significant group called “The Apostles” led by Walton Arungwa, about the same time that Soki Ohale was thrilling everyone with his song, “Highway Mini Girl”.
If the development at EMI had appeared like it would not last, that was settled with the huge success of two successive singles by the group “Wrinkers Experience”. The two singles, “Fuel for Love” and “Money to Burn”, written by Dan Ian, were favourites of the young and old around the country for quite some time. “Wrinkers Experience” was a bit different from the other bands because it had some Cameroonians in its membership like the irrepressible guitarist, Ginger Forcher.
In Port Harcourt, the group, “Founders 15” featuring the likes of gentleman, Iyke Peters had a successful single in “Be My Own”.
While the Eastern pop groups were making their different hit songs, a new sound virtually exploded on the scene. Fela Ransome Kuti had finally hit it big with a new band, “The Africa 70s”, a new sound, Afro Beat, a new song, “Chop and Quench” and a new venue, “the African Shrine”. The previously unacclaimed “Highlife Jazz” artiste, Fela, whose band “Koola Lobitos” had struggled in Lagos in the shadows of the great show man, Geraldo Pino, had in every sense become born again. Geraldo Pino himself born of Sierra Leonean parents and largely influenced by the stagecraft of James Brown later moved to Port Harcourt and for a long while had residency at Crystal Park Hotel, Aba and Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt.
After a rather unsuccessful tour of America, Fela was a changed man. He gave up his trademark western suits for very tight fitting trousers; his mid tempo Highlife Jazz for the raunchy and heavily percussive Afro Beat; his sweet trumpet for the very aggressive electronic keyboard; his ‘You love me and I love you’ songs for the audacious and controversial. Fela, who never touched cigarette, became a major convert to cannabis. Fela also gave up his middle class family lifestyle for girls and girls and girls! While Fela had countless roforofo fights with the Nigeria Police, he made many hit songs for EMI such as Shakara, Lady, I no be Gentleman, Open & Close, etc.
Sonny Okosun, who had been around for a while in the showbiz circle, first with a band, “The Postmen” and later with “Paperback Limited”, chose the period to positively announce himself as a major act at EMI. His single “Help” which had another great song, “Don’t Cry” as its flip side, was a major hit. Both songs had the immensely gifted singer, Perry Ernest Okocha on the vocals. Sonny eventually dropped Perry Ernest, added a big horn section to the locomotive sounds of ace drummer, Mosco Egbe and the group, Ozziddi was born. With Ozziddi, Sonny Okosun made such great recordings as Papa’s Land, Fire in Soweto and Mother & Child and became the greatest and longest hit maker at EMI Nigeria. What Sonny Okosun did was what had been expected of either Jonnie Haastrup, whose band “Monomono” had a massive hit on EMI titled, “Give the Beggar a Chance” and Segun Bucknor, whose “Soul Assembly” had experimented with some intriguing African rhythm in songs like “Poor Man no Get Brother’’. There were indeed suggestions at some point that Afro Beat was created by Segun Bucknor but such suggestions disappeared because of Fela’s undisputed dominance of the music genre.
This article was first published in Locomotion, Tony Okoroji’s weekly column in Nigeria’s Saturday Independent.
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