Back in the fall, we had a chance to sit down with the founder of the legendary African music blog - Combs & Razor
- to tap into his infinite knowledge about the Nigerian music
scene...which we thought we'd share in advance of his insane Nigerian
compilation: Brand New Wayo: Funk, Fast Times & Nigerian Boogie Badness 1979-1983...
As you'll see, our discussion was
exhaustive - and you're guaranteed to discover more about Nigerian music
than you ever thought existed. Just sit back, relax, and enter the
world of Comb & Razor.
Q:
Most of us became acquainted with your superb musical taste through
your Comb & Razor blog. How long have you been collecting music and
what inspired you to actually start blogging?
Thanks
for the compliment! I’m always grateful and somewhat mystified when
people tell me how much they appreciate my humble (and admittedly
inconsistent) blogging efforts. It was something I did primarily for my
own gratification, so I never expected so many people to so readily come
along for the ride!
I’ve
been an avid music fan since I was about nine years old but I think I
only seriously started collecting records in the mid-1990s, shortly
after I moved to the United States from Nigeria. At the time I was
mostly collecting hip-hop, boogie and soul records that I had heard
growing up in the 1970s and 80s but for whatever reason had never gotten
to own. From there I started buying a lot of deep soul and funk from
the 60s, as well as jazz, rock, reggae and Latin stuff. While I’d always
been into a wide range of music, my tastes and knowledge were expanded
exponentially by years spent working in record stores… back when we
still had record stores.
My
journey to music blogging was almost accidental. I started the With
Comb & Razor blog as a journal documenting the production of a movie
I was shooting in Nigeria. The style and content of the movie drew
heavily from the last half-century of Nigerian pop culture: Drum magazine, old pulp novels and fotonovelas, forgotten TV shows, vintage fashion, and lots of highlife and pop music from the 60s, 70s and 80s.
When
the production wasn’t proceeding as smoothly as we would have liked, we
decided to take a break to regroup and then come back to complete the
shoot. During this hiatus, just to keep the blog going, I started
posting up some of the music I was planning to use on the soundtrack…
just my way of trying to keep the dream of the movie alive. Plus, it was
a bit of a therapeutic thing; I was so bummed out about the failing
production and there was a certain comfort to be found in just immersing
myself in the music of what seemed to be simpler, happier times. To my
surprise, people seemed to dig it a lot and I started getting more page
views than I ever did with my movie diary, so I kept doing it. I started
spending more time researching the stories behind the records, and then
record labels started contacting me to write liner notes for reissues,
and somehow, alas, I never did get around to completing production on
that movie! I intend to get back to that one of these days, though.
Q: I know your knowledge of African music is ridiculous. How did you become so knowledgeable about Nigerian music?
I
came up in 1980s Nigeria, which might have been the most dynamic period
in the history of the country’s music industry. The economy was pretty
buoyant and there were so many labels releasing tons of music in so many
different styles. Nigeria’s record market was so fertile that it drew
musicians from all over Africa and beyond, so we were constantly exposed
to a rich smorgasbord of sounds and I just soaked it all up.
Plus,
we had a lot of good writing about the music scene in newspapers,
magazines, and books. I read it all as a snot-nosed third-grader, and
somehow managed to retain a good deal of it even when it seemed like the
entire era and its music vanished from collective memory. It was
almost like a mass amnesia fell over the populace: I would say to people
“Hey, you remember this record that was a big hit in 1983? Remember how
we used to rock that at parties?” The only reply I got was blank looks.
They sincerely lacked any idea of what I was talking about! Years
later, when I started tracking down some of the musicians, I would
sometimes have to remind them of some of their records that they had
completely forgotten!
Q: For those of us looking to explore Nigerian music beyond Fela, do you have any suggestions?
There’s
so much Nigerian music that the mind boggles trying to access it all.
Obviously, a lot of these records are quite hard to come by in the West
and when they do show up on eBay or other record markets, they are
prohibitively priced. That’s why I think it’s great so many labels are
putting out compilations and reissues that allow a wider audience to
experience this music. I’ve been concerned that most of these reissues
lean a bit too heavily towards funk-oriented material at the expense of
all else, but I’ve seen some encouraging diversity on more recent
releases. And of course, I look forward to adding to that myself!
Q: You wrote some liner notes for a Soundway Records compilation: The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria. How did you first become involved in this project?
I've
had a relationship with Miles Cleret of Soundway Records for a number
of years, as most of us in the African record digging community do know
each other. He had wanted to collaborate with me on something for some
time but never really found the right project until The World Ends
came around. Incidentally, I was already doing a lot of research on the
1970s afro rock scene at the time, so the Soundway comp gave me a ready
outlet for stuff I was already working on.
Q: Can you give us a little background about how rock inspired Nigerian artists?
Like
most kids around the world, Nigerian youths first encountered rock
& roll via Elvis Presley, quickly followed by "the British Elvis,"
Cliff Richard, who was arguably even more popular in Nigeria. This was
the beginning of youth culture in Nigeria. For the first time, teens and
young adults had music that was aimed squarely at them and their
experience, unconcerned about appealing to the adult audience. These
kids called themselves “hepcats” and started forming regional fan clubs
where they listened to and traded their favorite records amongst
themselves Out of these fan club gatherings, the hepcats started to form
rock & roll bands of their own. So you got the first wave of
Nigerian pop groups like The Spiders, The Harmonaires, The Cyclops, The
Hykkers, The Postmen and The Figures.
As
the 1960s wore on into the 70s, these local pop groups imbibed more
influence from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Jimi
Hendrix Experience, but the most influential foreign rock act might have
been Santana. Because that group had such a strong Afro-Latin flavor to
their sound, they illuminated the potential of infusing rock with
African rhythms. And that led to the development of afro rock.
Q:
I understand that most of the artists recording rock in Nigeria came
from the eastern part of the country. Can you explain this phenomenon?
It’s
true that most of the noteworthy Nigerian rock bands came from the
east, but there were also plenty of groups in the southwestern
metropolis of Lagos, which at that time was the country's capital. For
various reasons, though, the Lagos groups tended not to last very long. I
have a few theories as to why this happened.
In
Lagos, rock mostly remained an underground scene patronized by
university and high school students and some young adults. The
mainstream, however, stayed devoted to more indigenous pop styles like
juju and apala. So already, you have a gaggle of groups scuffling for
the spotlight within this relatively small subculture. And while Lagos
today is an enormous megacity, it was not quite as big then as it is
now. Competition was fierce, and the stakes were close to
all-or-nothing: If you had a major act playing a big show at one spot,
just about everybody who was anybody in Lagos would be there and at
venues across the city, other bands would be performing to an audience
of empty seats. So musicians went to great lengths to sabotage each
other’s sets and even to try to force one other out of the market
altogether.
Furthermore,
Lagos can be a very tough place to live for anybody, and especially so
for artists. A big part of the reason that someone like Fela was able to
thrive in Lagos (apart from the fact that he had a huge, forceful
personality and his music was, you know, pretty brilliant) was because
he was to some degree a native son; he came from a middle-class
background and his family owned property in the city. So he could
comfortably sit down to compose and cultivate an audience without
worrying about keeping a roof over his head. For a lot of musicians who
didn't have the same luxury and might have come to Lagos from other
places, they had to desperately scramble to keep their heads above
water. If they didn't see any significant rewards—which most
didn't—sooner or later they would probably have to pack up and go back
to their hometowns. Or they just disappeared into the masses of the
disenfranchised in slums such as Ajegunle and Mushin and were never
heard from again. And then the ones who might have been native
Lagosians, if they stayed with music, ended up joining juju and highlife
bands. So you find a lot of Lagos rock groups recording just one or two
records and then completely dropping off the radar.
In
the east, however, the scene was not concentrated in one urban center
but spread over a wide network of cities and towns across the region.
There was more room to breathe, and bands could ply their trade within
their respective turfs without stepping on each other’s toes. There was
still competition, but a lot more camaraderie. Also, it seems that
people in the east, for a number of reasons, were just more into this
kind of music than the folks in Lagos. Even the Lagos-based bands spent a
lot of time touring eastwards because that was where the real audience
was.
Q: What happened to the whole psychedelic rock scene in Nigeria? It seems to have vanished.
Well,
what happened to the psychedelic rock scene in America or the UK or
Germany or Mexico? It was a style that captured the zeitgeist of a
particular period in history, but time marches on and people move on to
the next popular sound. In Nigeria in particular, the audience began to
want to ”get down” more than they wanted to “freak out” and so there was
the demand for much more direct dance music like funk, disco and
guitar-band highlife, then pop and reggae and Congo music and hip-hop
and the wheel keeps on turning.
Q:
You have some other projects coming up with Now & Again Records, as
well as your own label. Would you mind giving us a sense of what to
expect from you in the future?
Yeah,
I’m collaborating with Egon of Now Again on a compilation of Nigerian
rock and funk. This is of course a subject that’s been visited by a few
compilations lately but we hope we can bring a new twist to it. I’m also
working with Luaka Bop Records on an anthology of the Nigerian avant
garde funk musician William Onyeabor.
In
addition, you can look forward to some releases from my own Comb &
Razor Sound label. The first one will probably be available in February
2011: it’s an overview of Nigerian boogie music from the 1980s with an
80-page mini-magazine featuring lots of exclusive photos and
information. We have similar examinations of other genres coming after
that, as well as a full-length book chronicling the development of the
post-war eastern rock and pop scene. Also, more collaborations with
Voodoo Funk and AfricanHipHop.com
Q: Who would you say are your favorite artists from yesteryear?
Nigerian
artists? Wow… Too many to choose from! I really like the funk-rock
groups The Hygrades and The Funkees. I’m a big fan of Jake Sollo, who
was a member of The Funkees before going on to become a prolific and
influential producer in the 80s. I love a lot of highlife artists like
Sir Victor Uwaifo, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, The Oriental Brothers,
Dr. Victor Olaiya and Etubom Rex Williams. I used to be a big, big(!)
fan of William Onyeabor too, but I must admit that my personal
interactions with him have dulled my enthusiasm for his music somewhat. I
guess I still dig his records, though.
Q: How about your favorite find on vinyl? Do you have any that you're particularly proud of?
I
come across so many records of different types that it’s hard to
isolate any particular one (or five, or ten) as my favorites. They all
appeal to me for different reasons—sometimes on a sentimental level,
sometimes because they’re just so rare, sometimes because they fill in
the gaps of a story that I’m researching. And sometimes it’s that they
just offer mindblowing music. Some recent finds I’ve been fond of
include:
1. Shango Dance Band, 6
th Infantry Brigade – S/T LP (EMI, 1974)
This
is a pretty rare and heavy afrobeat album by this group led by Ojo
Okeji, formerly a sideman in Fela’s Koola Lobitos group. There’s some
similarity to Fela’s sound, but it’s a bit more relaxed and less
raucous. And with song titles like “I Need Your Love” and “Women Are
Great,” you know he’s got loving on his mind more than political
agitation!
2. The Front Page – Sparkle In Your Eyes/Gimme Some Time 45 (Anodisc, 1975)
This
is one of those records that I don’t necessarily think is musically
superlative though it’s still quite enjoyable. But I was pleased to find
it because it’s not all that often you come across 45s from the Anodisc
label. The Front Page was a relatively obscure soul group from my
hometown of Aba. I think they released just two singles, this one and
another, “You Can’t Change Anything.” The group would re-record both
singles with a heavier, funkier sound about a year later under the new
band name The Friimen Muzik Kompany.
3. The Semi-Colon –
Ndia Egbuo Ndia (Afro-Jigida) LP (EMI, 1976)
Semi-Colon
is one of my favorite Nigerian music acts and this little-seen LP is
considered the group’s best album. A lot of heads have mixed feelings
about Semi-Colon albums because the styles usually fluctuate radically
from funk to pop to rock & roll to reggae, but this one is lean,
fierce psychedelic afro rock from end to end.
4. The Hygrades –
Baby/Jumping Cat 45 (EMI, 1971)
Debut
single from the influential eastern rock group, The Hygrades. “Baby” is
a nice light pop tune, though not particularly compelling. The real
winner is the wild guitar instrumental on the flip.
5. Stone-face & Life Everlasting –
Love is Free/Agawalam Mba 45 (EMI, 1973)
Excellent
single from former Hygrade Stoneface Iwuagwu. The a-side is a beautiful
psychdelic pop rock song with beautiful vocals. The b-side? One of the
heaviest, most aggressive and relentless funk tunes I’ve ever heard!
6. Charles Duke –
Send Them Back/Suk Usan Idang 45 (EMI, 1973)
Two
sides of groovy funk-rock from Duke, formerly of The Ceejebs. I count
myself really lucky to have found this one as it’s almost completely
unknown. Even Duke himself had forgotten about it when I asked him!
7. The Doves –
Ewat Udem/Akan Anwan Isong Idung 45 (BEN, 1974)
The
Doves were a very popular pop-rock group throughout the 1970s and early
80s, but this early work from them has a deeper, more rugged vibe. The
a-side is a delightfully unruly highlife number and the other side is
wiry native rock. Total gem.
8. Foundars 15 –
Fire Woman LP (EMI, 1977)
Foundars
15 was one of the more sophisticated funk-rock groups of the 1970s and
this is their most satisfying LP. The sound is heavy and distorted and
the arrangements are audaciously complex for the time.
9. The Apostles –
Down Down The Valley/Battery Rock 45 (BEN, 1973)
This
was the first record by The Apostles of Aba, one of the east’s biggest
groups. It was the pleasant pop of the a-side that put them on the map,
but the organ-driven instrumental b-side is the real winner for me.
While it’s clearly derivative of “Acid Rock” by The Funkees, it goes
much further than that track. It sounds pretty futuristic by today’s
standards, so I can only imagine how far-out it must have been in 1973!
10. Mary Afi Usuah & the South Eastern State Cultural Band –
Ekpenyong Abasi LP (SESCULT, 1975)
Mary
Afi Usuah is one of Nigeria’s unsung national treasures. She trained in
opera singing in Italy and sang on the score of a couple of movies
there, such as Demofilo Fidani’s spaghetti western
And Now Recommend Your Soul to God. She
also happened to be my music teacher for a while in the early 80s, but I
didn’t know at the time that she had recorded this amazing album with
highlife bandleader Dan Satch Joseph. It’s so rich and deep and
spiritual, with notes of rock, jazz, traditional rhythms and European
film music. Soundway included a track from this LP, “Ima Mma Nyem” on
the
Nigeria Special 2 compilation, so you should check that out.
Q: By the way, what are your thoughts about the musical FELA?
I've
really not had the chance to see it, unfortunately. From the bits of it
I have caught on the Tony Awards and elsewhere, it does seem like quite
an exhilarating aural and visual experience! But I have to admit
feeling a bit dismayed at the apparent lightness of its libretto. It
seems to me that there isn’t much focus on storytelling beyond a few
bullet points of the man’s life. I was really hoping the upcoming Steve
McQueen-directed Fela biopic would deliver a more fleshed-out portrait,
but I recently read that the producers had scrapped the screenplay
written by Nigerian playwright Biyi Bandele and opted for a looser, more
abstract, music-driven narrative approach. Which to me sounds like they
might be looking to draw inspiration from the musical. And that’s okay,
I guess… It seems to be a fantastic concert party and scads of fun, but
I’d really love to see a well-done, sufficiently nuanced examination of
Fela and, perhaps more importantly—to me, anyway—of the society that
shaped him.
Q: The other day I was listening to nothing
but Afro Funk on Pandora...and I found myself wondering how come we
don't get this caliber of musicianship anymore. Do you think there's
hope for the African music scene? Are there any contemporary artists
that you listen to from back home?
Does Pandora have a
good afro funk selection? I’ve never really tried programming for any of
that stuff on there! I should probably check that out…
Anyway,
the music industry in Nigeria is more vibrant right now than it’s been
in a long time and I’m very excited about the progress that’s been made.
I mean, for the first time—in my lifetime, anyway—most Nigerian youths
support and identify with homegrown music more than they do stuff from
overseas! That’s a pretty big deal, considering how enamored Nigerians
have always been of foreign sounds.
That said, while I listen to
and enjoy a lot of the contemporary Naija pop music, I really can’t say
there’s too much of it that really grabs me and shakes me to the soul or
dazzles me on a consistent basis. I think the reason that I’ve been
unable to connect with it on a deeper level is because of, as you said,
the paucity of the musicianship. And mind you, when I say
“musicianship,” I don’t even necessarily mean it in the traditional
sense of live instrumentation; I think there are some incredibly
inventive musical things that can be done with computers and sampling
and sequencing. The problem is that the basic concepts of musical
construction have largely been abandoned.
Q: What sort of concepts are you talking about?
Well…
Just the structure through which we create and listen to music. In the
past, in appreciating a piece of music, you had any number of features
you might observe. Beyond fundaments like melody, harmony and rhythm,
you might listen for tone, texture, syncopation, voicing, phrasing, and
so on. But now, through a gradual process of reductionism, this array of
musical elements has been boiled down to the binary formula of “beat”
and “lyrics.” And the lyrics are given primacy of place in the equation,
with the “beat”—the actual musical component—being relegated to a
background role. People dance to the “beat,” but they don’t really
listen to
it per se. When’s the last time you heard a commercially-released
instrumental track? That idea barely makes sense now because music on
its own has little value; it’s just the hodgepodge of sounds that act as
a cushion for the words.
Mind you, none of this is unique to the
Nigerian situation—it’s pretty much the status quo for most
contemporary pop music almost anywhere in the world. And I don’t want to
come off as the old geezer shaking my fist and grumbling about how
these darn kids have destroyed music, because these trends were actually
initiated by my generation.
To make a parallel, look at what's
happened in Congolese music. The classic Congo songform was like a
three-course meal: you had your lovely, melodic verse, then your lilting
chorus, then you get your verse again, maybe served with a dollop of
countermelody. Then you have another chorus. Then, you get the moment
everyone's waiting for, the
sebene. That's the breakdown
section where the tempo accelerates, the rhythm changes direction and
the guitars start playing hypnotic, interlocking rhythm patterns. That's
the dessert portion of the meal—when all the dancers get to throw down
and show out. And then maybe you’d cool done with another verse before
the band hit you with another helping of
sebene on the way out.
If
you listen to the direction a lot of soukous music went in the 1990s,
this measured sense of dynamics was largely thrown out the window.
Tracks started out with the
sebene and rode that
sebene
all the way to the end of the song. It’s like nobody had the patience
to make their way through the “courses” of a song, they wanted to
proceed directly to the dessert and eat
only dessert. And hey,
I’ve got a massive sweet tooth myself but if I eat nothing but cake and
ice cream all the time, eventually I’ll get sick!
Now in Naija you don’t have the
sebene, but what you have is the hook. A lot of the popular songs are really
all hook.
The primary concentration seems to on fabricating an insanely catchy
lyrical refrain, preferably one that’s built on a trendy catchphrase, or
has the potential to create a new one—“Kini Big Deal!” “Gongo Aso!”
“Ginger Ur Swagger!” “Wa Wa Alright!” And if you can score a big enough
hook, you barely even have to write verses.
Of course, I don't
rule out the possibility that perhaps I'm too old to truly "get" it
because it's not really made for me to "get." Just like the highlife
generation never understood the hepcats in the 1960s because they made
music that was not designed to be “got” by the old squares. I guess I’m
one of those old squares myself now. While I may listen to the new music
and come away disappointed because it’s not meeting my expectations of
what music should be, the kids really feel that this music is expressing
their unique experience and worldview, then I think that’s cool. Music
should not stay in one place… It’s got to keep moving, and if that
alienates some dusty old geezers, so be it. Time marches on!
addistunes.com
