Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story Of 1970s Funky Lagos

Nigeria 70
Reviewed by Sadie O., 5/27/09
Afrobeat and Afro-funk, all from Nigeria in the 70’s. Two and a half hours of killer music showcasing quite a variety of artists and styles. Most songs are quite long and involve a lot of jamming. The last half of CD 1 and pretty much all of CD 2 are totally great.
No FCCs detected. Follow the stars, but give it a listen yourself, as there’s something for quite a few different tastes here.
CD1:
1. 5:22 **snaky, relaxed, jazzy groove, smooth vocals, but all with just a hint of funk and highlife. Several horn solos and sections, building in energy.
2. 4:49 **upbeat and a bit uptempo highlife/funk, very swingy. Call and response vocals, keyboard solo, and totally alarming bit of fuzz guitar.
3. 6:10 ***cymbal roll and bits of instruments, gradually forming into slow, trance-y, psychedelic groove. Slow chanting, electric guitar solo. Kinda Grateful Deady, actually.
4. 7:16 ***upbeat soul strut with lots of polyrhythm and a fine horn section. Instrumental jam.
5. 5:02 **complex rhythm, sort of out-of-kilter vocal duet. Interesting.
6. 5:49 **slow talking drum and trumpet, vocal duet a la Amadou and Miriam, builds into midtempo Afro-funk. Ululations and farfisa. Nice bit of talking drum towards end.
7. 3:31 ***downtempo swingy funk, vocals in English. Breaks into inexplicably jolly la-la-las at end.
8. 5:41 ****big chant and flute intro, then some serious midtempo Afro-funk. Definite butt-scuttler! Interesting slide guitar bit, and a completely crazed sax solo.
9. 8:21 ****very complex drum intro and fun vocals, relaxed midtempo jazzy funk. Slides down real easy. Sociopolitical philosophizing in English. Bit of wah-wah guitar. Neet!
10. 3:12 **funky soul guitars and African-style chanting. Sloppy but fun.
11. 8:26 *****unusual march intro, then midtempo soul strut with odd instrumentation, political diatribe in English. Long funky-ass jam session with unexpectedly cool bass solo.
12. 4:09 *****blues guitars, vocals in English. Misogynistic, but insanely cool.
CD2:
1. 8:07 ****odd little vocal intro, then downtempo shuffling drum & guitar-based Afro-funk with horn section. GNARLY sax solo. Not to be outdone, there is a perfectly reprehensible keyboard solo as well. Yeah!
2. 3:32 *****aggressive guitar chord, then uptempo psychedelic garage rock, Nigerian style. Yowza!
3. 6:02 ****cute little keyboards with an uptempo drum shuffle, very odd lyrics in English – none of this makes any sense together, but what the hell! …ok, the lyrics are REALLY odd – another star for that!
4. 3:21 ***dancing time for dancers! Uptempo Afrobeat. Mostly instrumental, with a terrifying sax solo.
5. 8:12 ***cool jazz sax solo intro, then super groovy Makossa Afro-jazz-funk with really good players. Overlong bit with just sax and talking drum and percussion.
6. 6:16 ****big dramatic vocal and flute flourishes intro, then super-fine midtempo Afro-funk with strong vocals and a big, talented band.
7. 6:03 *****drums, marimbas, acoustic guitar, uptempo yet relaxed Afrobeat, a bit trance-y, but with a huge variety of interesting elements weaving in, taking solos… going majorly dubwise…
8. 4:15 ****chanted female intro, slow funk, great female vocals. The bass kills, and the ladies mop up the corpses.
9. 14:46 **jazzy uptempo instrumental funk jam. Pretty vocals in English start after 8.5 minutes.
10. 11:36 ***talking drums and other percussion, rubber band bass, pwings and high female vocals, odd but not unpretty. Synth solo!
11. 7:13 ****midtempo, relaxed, echo-laden, trance-y, with fine percussion. Gets nicer (and dubbier!) as it goes along. Is that a Hawaiian slack-key guitar? Blimey!