Inspired by James Brown’s funk and Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic rock, Nigeria’s commercial hub was a hotbed of addictive grooves in the Seventies
There is no doubting the impact James Brown has had on African musicians. “The Godfather of Soul’s” 1967 number-one hit, Cold Sweat, has been described as the first true funk tune and its impact on musicians in Nigeria like Fela Kuti and Segun Bucknor was immeasurable.
Kuti, who had been playing a mixture of jazz and highlife with his band Koola Lobitos, relocated to Ghana to forge a new direction for his music in 1967.
Bucknor returned to Lagos in 1968 after three years of studying at New York’s Columbia University, all fired up by the soul and funk he had heard in the United States and determined to bring this new music to Nigeria.
But both artists were pipped to the post by Sierra Leonean Geraldo Pino who arrived in Lagos with his band, the Heartbeats, to wow local audiences with his take on the James Brown soul and funk sound.
Those who are interested can sample Pino on the 2005 Retroafric reissue, Heavy Heavy Heavy, which combines live and studio recordings of the funk legend.
Kuti was famously quoted as saying: “After seeing this Pino, I knew I had to get myself together, quick!”
The rest, as they say, is history. After a brief trip to Los Angeles in 1969, Kuti returned with his renamed band, Africa 70, and began a two-decade run that would establish him as one of Africa’s greatest musical pioneers.
So much so that in 1970 Brown and his band arrived in Lagos to catch Africa 70 at Kuti’s nightclub, The Shrine, and raved about the experience.
Like Kuti, Bucknor realised that merely aping the James Brown sound would not do and so began to develop his own musical vision: soul music with a distinctly African sensibility.
“It was the start of a trend in which live groups said: ‘Let’s not just try to be better than James Brown. We’ve gone through that apprenticeship’,” said Bucknor.
Bucknor began writing and recording politically aware songs filled with social comment like Sorrow, Sorrow, Sorrow, Poor Man No Get Brother and Adebo, and for a time some considered him to be giving Kuti a run for his money.
But by the mid-70s his popularity had waned and his band, the Revolutionaries, no longer existed.
Now, thanks to the boutique reissue label, VampiSoul, 16 of Bucknor’s best tunes are available on Who Say I Tire.
Listening to the 12-minute soulful funk of Sorrow, Sorrow, Sorrow and the James Brownesque Baby Get Your Thing, it becomes clear why Bucknor was an early challenger to Kuti’s throne.
But the fact that the majority of the songs compiled in this album were produced in 1970 suggests that Buck-nor didn’t have the staying power to mount a sustained challenge.
Regardless, this compilation couldn’t have come soon enough for this under-recognised star of Nigerian music.
Another Seventies’ Nigerian-focused release comes from Soundway Records and is titled The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria.
Released in two volumes, it comprises 32 smoking-hot psychedelic rock and funk tracks and is a companion piece to Soundway’s 2008 release Nigeria Rock Special: Pyschedelic Afro-Rock & Jazz Funk in 1970s Nigeria.
The summer of love may have been in full swing in the US and Europe, but Nigeria was in the grip of civil war.
The music on these two volumes highlights a time in which young Nigerians, tired of the dominant highlife sounds, picked up guitars and, inspired by Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors, created some of the most visceral and vibrant music ever recorded.
With great names like the Thermometers, the Hygrades, the Identicals, the Strangers, the Comrades, the Semi Colon and Action 13, these bands recorded killer, organ-driven funk grooves smothered in distorted, psychedelic guitar riffs.
Whether it was the powerful funk rock of Ofo the Black Company, which is literally bathed in fuzz-rock goodness, or the molten groove of the Lijadu Sisters, with their sensual Life’s Gone Down Low, it is clear that Lagos was where it was happening.
Other highlights include the Elcados’ smoking funk track, Chokoi Et Oreje, the surf-rock inspired funk of Breakthrough by the Funkees and the rather bizarre, laidback pysch-rock of Blacky Joe by P.R.O, which stands for People Rock Outfit.
Almost every one of the 32 tracks is worth listening to.
With Soundway now having released three compilations of Nigerian psychedelic rock, one can only hope we will see the reissue of a few full albums some time soon.