Nigeria Special / Nigeria Disco Funk Special

NIGERIA 70 reissued!!!

$13.99 at my local store ... comes out tomorrow. missing the 3rd disc with the interviews and inexplicably missing the koola lobitos "Ololufe Mi" track that started the original set ... perhaps we can look forward to a koola lobitos reissue? thought maybe from the same label that put out "lagos baby"?

http://www.strut-records.com/content/nigeria-70-vol-1

whoooooooooo !!!!

Totally want. I'm hoping it turns up on eMusic (at least some of Strut Records' titles are there).

Bought the Disco Funk CD solely because it was on one of the clerks' top 10 list at Strictly Discs here in Madison, and I liked the cover. Amazing. Had no idea there were other comps from the same label, will now buy.

the series website is pretty cool: http://nigeriaspecial.info/

Got Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Ghanaian Blues 1968-81, another two-disc set, in today's mail. So far, fewer berserk acid-funk rampages than on the earlier Ghana Soundz sets, but it's still plenty sweet.

Coming in February: Nigeria Special Vol. 2 and Nigeria Afrobeat Special. Got promos of both from Forced Exposure; they're as awesome as everything else Soundway's put out so far.

The supply of great re-issue material seems inexhaustable, at least to labels like Soundway, Soul Jazz and The Numero Group.

As much as I love this stuff, there's something weird to me about the fact that virtually no one in the US is following current Nigerian music. Also, are any of the musicians on these comps still active? Is there a Nigerian oldies circuit?

Sir Victor Uwaifo is still alive, though I don't know if he's still making music. If he toured the US I'd go see him in a heartbeat. Nigerians are likely to have difficulty entering the U.S. for awhile, though.

Is there a Nigerian equivalent to that Hiplife Ghanaian comp from 2008 that featured young Ghanaians rapping over music that sometimes drew from old-school Ghanaian highlife?

And I don't mean imitating old Afrobeat records.

As much as I love this stuff, there's something weird to me about the fact that virtually no one in the US is following current Nigerian music.

I've heard people make a similar point about jazz, i.e., that the reissue craze has killed enthusiasm for newer, forward-looking jazz. Not sure if it's true in either case, but it makes an interesting parallel (to me, at least).

I check in on Allaboutjazz.com, and sometimes other sites (well mainly jazzcorner), and it seems to me there is a large community that remains interested and excited about newer jazz. You might be right w/r/t generalist music hipsters rather than jazz fans, or Nigerian music fans, per se.

(Or indie rock/indie pop types who listen to other things on the side.)

I don't think reissues are keeping people from buying new jazz albums. I think the crappiness of so much new jazz is keeping people from buying it. The same couple of dozen titles make up every jazz critic's year-end list, because they're the only good ones in a sea of bland sludge or hyper-intellectual wankery. The jazz scene is small enough that there are no hidden treasures - everybody who's paying attention knows about everybody who's doing anything worthwhile.

Re modern Nigerian music, I've got no clue what's going on. And even when I was editing Global Rhythm, the only African artists whose new albums popped up on my radar were the ones with US distribution - Baaba Maal, Amadou & Miriam, Salif Keita, etc., etc. I went to Victor Uwaifo's website a couple of minutes ago and he's got newish albums (the most recent one is from 2006), and there's a link beside each one that says "If you are a label outside Africa who wants to license this album, contact Victor Uwaifo."

I don't really want to de-rail the thread arguing with unperson about jazz, especially given that he knows more about it than I do and I don't even like that much of it, including the old classic stuff, but--

the fan lists as seen on websites like AAJ include more than a couple dozen titles. Whether they are all sucky hyper-intellectual wankery I don't know. (Sorry, just sitting here fighting the beginning of a sinus infection and need something to do.)

I'm exaggerating, but there really isn't that much going on, and consensus picks emerge pretty easily with little or no argument. For example, I just got an email announcing the winners (not the whole list, just the #1 spots) for the Village Voice jazz critics' poll, and while I didn't vote for it because my tastes are a little free-er and noisier than the majority of my peers, I'm not at all surprised to see that Vijay Iyer's Historicity won.

i literally couldn't find a copy of the vijay iyer album online to review for my twitter project

i tried like six times

Why not buy it from I-tunes, or since you write for the Voice some contact his label and ask them send you a download. Jeez. You whined about about Bassakou Kouyate the same way and I gave you the publicist's website. Really, there's more ways to get music than just from bit torrent sites. You live in NYC.

generally when you ask a strange publicist (ie, one who doesn't service you usually) there's an expectation that you're gonna cover it beyond a tweet.

Generally, yes, but the Twitter reviews were your schtick, so it would have been easy to convince the publicist (particularly the publicist in question) to send you a copy.

I think more artists should have their publicist's contact info on their website. Even if it's a general contact email at a major label.

I'm still having a really hard time believing that Asiko album came out in 72.

n/m, '77. That makes more sense.

Both Haastrup and Ken Okulolo still teach and play music in Oakland, California

I see that the liners have some information on where some of these folks now are.

Generally, yes, but the Twitter reviews were your schtick, so it would have been easy to convince the publicist (particularly the publicist in question) to send you a copy.

I think more artists should have their publicist's contact info on their website. Even if it's a general contact email at a major label.

― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Monday, December 28, 2009 8:14 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha, not to derail this thread, but i've def had some awwwwwkward convos with smaller publicists this year about why exactly i need their record.

Got Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Ghanaian Blues 1968-81, another two-disc set, in today's mail. So far, fewer berserk acid-funk rampages than on the earlier Ghana Soundz sets, but it's still plenty sweet.

― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Monday, September 21, 2009 7:30 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i just got this too! good stuff!

I love this stuff so much.

"I love this stuff so much" so much, so much.

There are two new comps out. Anyone heard them?

v/a: Nigeria Special volume 2: Modern Highlife, Afro Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-6

v/a: Nigeria Afrobeat Special: The New Explosive Sound in 1970s Nigeria

Both great.

Yeah, I reviewed both of those for The Wire, and they kick ass.

Are there any modern Nigeria compilations out there, apart from the Lagos Stori Plenti one from a couple of years ago? Everything out there seems to focus on the 1970s afrobeat heyday but a lot of the modern stuff I've heard has been tremendous.

Soundway strikes again - The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria, another 2CD set, will be out July 20 in the US. It's awesome. And btw, there's an excellent article on the dudes who run Soundway and Analog Africa in the new issue of Jazziz.

so anxious to download this (as soon as my brutal PC problems are finally resolved).

yeah i raved a little about the world ends comp on the african psych thread. its really good.

In case you don't know, Nigeria won this year's Pop World Cup!

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/06/pop-world-cup-2010-the-final/

(podcast of the whole thing here - http://freakytrigger.co.uk/popworldcup-podcast/ )

Thank you Mr Hand - I think this is the link with all the tracks in one place, though.

thanks!

Being completely ignorant of the earlier soundwave comps, hearing The World Ends in Rough Trade today was the first time I've been stopped in my tracks by a record in ages. It's absolutely fantastic!

Is digging for certain types of old African music on vinyl throughout the continent, neo-colonialist?

http://africasacountry.com/2010/09/14/collection-cultures/

The reissue train has been slow to recognize larger genres in Africa like Soukous, Highlife, or Benga, unless they find an artist that has an added funk or rock influence. In the past the tendency was to look for “authentic” music that sounded more “traditional.” Are they now shying away from things that sound too … African?

stop bumping old topics, god

It's an interesting topic. I don't know if I entirely buy that -- I mean yes there's this trend of trying to find things that fit the "funk" "psych" or "rock" labels on the one hand, but on the other hand, you have blogs like Awesome Tapes from Africa, labels like Sublime Frequencies, etc.

I mean I thought the old idea of looking for "authenticity" in African music was seen as sort of quasi-colonialist too, although maybe the new trends are just new forms of the same sort of condescension. Ultimately I can't, as an American listener, listen to soukous with Congolese ears, afrobeat with Nigerian ears, etc. I love those genres but there's always going to be an element of "Wow, this is awesome because it sounds so strange and familiar at the same time." And that means I'm inevitably exoticising the music a bit whereas a Congolese person might hear a big soukous hit the way I hear a Prince single, as just a good, familiar song that gets played at parties.

The subject of anthology/compilation as revisionist history is sort of a great one in itself. Harry Smith certainly was guilty of a certain kind of distortion with his anthology, taking a bunch of novelty records and songs of varying degrees of localness/commercialness and shaping them into some supposed "old weird america". I think there's a little of that with the Nigeria Special type comps -- look how funny and weird these guys seem with their pidgin english and outlandish disco outfits playing music that sounds like the bizarro version of our own. But I'm sure the rock and funk and rumba and disco and all that stuff that influenced african pop styles seemed like a strange, far out kick to African urbanites in the 60s and 70s too.

tldr