Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife Afro-Sounds

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 5, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Soundway
• ASIN: B000WM8IAU
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #95,715 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars Are Only Half Of The Story, February 27, 2008

By 

Classic Gibbon (Over the Rainbow) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife Afro-Sounds (Audio CD)

A wonderful and intelligently compiled collection of Nigerian electric highlife and Afro-rock from the early 1970's. With a four panel digipack case, a well written and informative booklet and 2 discs of impossibly rare music, excellently mastered for CD reissue, this is an absolute bargain.

Unlike many of the recent reissue collections of Nigerian music this one bypasses the more well known Afrobeat selections and concentrates on some of the more obscure sounds created in the nation's most fertile period. There is irresistably infectious highlife, there's embryonic Afrobeat style workouts and there are a few straight ahead rock sounds, although with a definite African influence.

The compilers deserve a big pat on the back for releasing such a varied, but consistently excellent album. Hopefully they have plans to extend this series and uncover further selections of some of the most joyous music on the planet.

If you're a fan of Fela, Femi, Franco, Nigerian, Ghanaian or Congolese music there is very little chance you'll be disappointed by this set. And at just over 24 dollars it's an absolute steal

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Free Nigeria and the Funk Will Follow, July 10, 2008

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife Afro-Sounds (Audio CD)

Nigerian music had a brief renaissance in the first half of the 70s, when the country was temporarily between wars and dictatorships. The scene seems to have exploded with experimentation inspired by sounds from the West, mixed with new interpretations of the perennially popular Highlife. I have no idea if this anthology is a representative sample of the scene, or if the best or most important songs and artists have been collected. But I do know that the anthology is uniformly fascinating and will be a real treat for anyone interested in a deeper exploration of modern West African music. While the collection's subtitle indicates "Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds and Nigerian Blues," that will hardly prepare the listener for the musical variety herein.

Collectors and experts might be able to fit most of the tracks here into the long-term development of Highlife, but adventurous listeners will be astounded by the experimentation found in the anthology's most offbeat tracks. For example, Celestine Ukwu & His Philosophers National, The Don Isaac Ezekiel Combination, and Mono Mono deliver what could be considered dark underground alternatives to Highlife. Tracks by Collins Oke Elaiho & His Odoligie Nobles Dance Band and Leo Fadaka & The Heroes sound like late-period Bob Marley half a decade before schedule. The selection from The Semi Colon illustrates the distant connections between Afro-Cuban and West African sounds, with some rock mixed in. Bola Johnson & His Easy Life Top Beats deliver a strange acid jazz take on authentic regional sounds, and the selection from George Akaeze & His Augmented Hits is heavily inspired by Bo Diddley.

In addition to those enthralling tracks, I for one am also hearing funk all over this anthology. The musicians of the early 70s Nigerian renaissance were clearly hip to James Brown and Sly Stone, and maybe even Funkadelic (who at the time were still fairly obscure even in America). Lowdown maggot-brained funk can be heard here in tracks by The Funkees (who looked like Funkadelic too), The Tony Benson Sextet, The Nigerian Police Force Band (apparently the world's funkiest actual cops), Dan Satch & His Atomic 8 Dance Band of Aba, and The Hykkers (whose lead guitarist was really breaking in one of Africa's newest wah-wah pedals).

For fans of West African music, especially those with a historian/collector mindset or who are simply hungry for new sounds, this is a consistently fascinating collection. Kudos to anthologist Miles Cleret for bringing these crucial sounds to the modern market. [~doomsdayer520~]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impossible to Describe or Shake, November 4, 2010

By 

Craig Riecke (East Syracuse, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife Afro-Sounds (Audio CD)

I've owned this mangificent set a year now, and it's still in heavy rotation. If the phrase "Highlife, Afro Sounds and Nigerian Blues" leaves you going "huh?" I can tell you ... it's no easier to describe the sounds represented here as time goes on. It's kind of like if, 20 years after Elvis, people still hadn't invented the term Rock and Roll.

"Amaninja", for example, skips like a record with a big claw mark swiped across it. I think it's 7/4 time. The voice is squealy, yet has weird low overtones in it. There's a lot of echo. It's that kind of impossible combination of sounds that makes the song indelible, and it describes feelings locked in my consciousness before. That's just one example, but there are lots of others.

What keeps them altogether is this African philosophy of "rhythm as melody". You repeat the notes, but vary the beats underneath. James Brown may have introduced the instruments that make it work here(electric guitar and organ), but the Nigerians take it far beyond funk.

Other Soundways compilations are just as good, but this one set an early high water mark for head-bobbing, brain frying fun. After hearing this, I find Western music just way too boring.