Basically, the music scene of the ’70s was principally dominated by the big funk rock bands and some other major acts like Sonny Okosun, Tony Grey, Fela Kuti, Sir Victor Uwaifo, who had big supporting bands. There were highlife bands all around a carryover from the ’60s where Highlife music reigned supreme as well as other ethnic music bands of the era, but when it comes to contemporary music, the eastern part of the country had it. We know of great bands such as The Funkees, Sweet Breeze, The Apostles, Wrinkars Experience, The Wings of Aba, The Hykkers, Strangers and the Doves among others. Most of the bands of that era were notably based in the South Eastern part of the country with the majority of them making the commercial city of Aba their home. Few were based in Calabar area and others like Geraldo Pino were Port Harcourt based and some others like Aktion Funk were in Warri.
There were obviously some other not so popular bands apart from those mentioned above across the country. The Doves were very popular in Uyo as well as Sunny Risky and his Vitamin Explosion band, Etubom Rex William and Emmanuel Ntia. It is certain that all these bands performed in the neighborhood Independence Hall. It is very possible that the big bands from Aba also played that venue too because they were quite popular across the eastern part of the country and Aba until recent years was just 45 minutes from Uyo through Ikot Ekpene. The bad state of the Aba – Ikot Ekpene federal Road is currently turning a trip between the two cities a circuitous and nightmarish journey through some indescribable routes.
Interestingly too, these bands developed what is popularly referred to as the Afro Funk, Funk Rock or Psychedelic Funk era of Nigerian music. Pondering over the word ‘psychedelic’ provides a clue to those big platform shoes of that era called ‘psychedelic shoes’ and in local parlance ‘Saika’, an obvious adulteration of the word psychedelic.
By definition, Funk Rock music can be described as a fusion of our West African rhythm with western music forms principally funk and rock music. It is important to note that music scene in the ’70s was principally dominated by rock and roll as well as funk music worldwide. The two music forms had evolved over time and by this period Rock bands and artists such as The Rolling Stones, AC/DC band, Kiss, Smokies, Queen, Police, Rod Stewart, Aerosmith and The Who were quite known in Nigeria. At this same time, Nigerians were also tilting to the Funk elements that emanated from America. James Brown was a major exponent of the Funk movement that also had Roy Ayers, BB&Q band, the Barkays, One Way, Dazz band, Brass Construction, Bobby Bird, Cameo and Rick James as some of the most popular Funk artists of the ’70s.
However being a Caucasian rooted kind of music, Rock and Roll as a genre did not have much established direct artistes to propagate the genre in Nigeria, and perhaps West Africa. On the other hand, Funk music with its African influence was easy to be adapted into the West African music culture.
Ed Emeka Keazor in an online article explains;
“One of the first superstars of Funk (not Afro-Funk) in Nigeria was incidentally not Nigerian- he was Gerald Pyne (Known by his stage name Geraldo Pino), the son of a Sierra Leonean lawyer settled in Nigeria, who took the country by storm in the mid ’60s with his explosive live performances”.
“Pino became the Funk Ambassador of Nigeria and with time became one of the most popular musicians in the contemporary music scene.”
Geraldo Pino influenced a lot of Nigerian artistes including Fela Kuti. He indeed bestrode the Nigerian music scene from his Port Harcourt base until his death in 2008.
The influences of international Rock and Roll and Funk music artistes on Nigerian musicians crystallized into the development of a variant of music that combined the Rock and Funk elements with the routine West African rhythm into a new music form that remains a five-star highlight in the music landscape in Nigeria till date. Ironically, the contribution of American Funk music to the development of Afro Funk Rock is rather a homecoming since Funk music was itself influenced by African rhythm exported to the diaspora by captured slaves from Africa.
The generic source of Afro Funk Rock is not in doubt. However, there are different versions to the creative origin of the music form.
Tony Allen, Fela’s former drummer is credited in one version with the creation of Afro Funk. According to Wikipedia;
“Post Fela, Allen developed a hybrid sound, deconstructing and fusing Afrobeat with electronica, dub, R&B and rap. Allen refers to this synthesis as Afrofunk.”
But In an online publication of the vanguardngr.com orbit archive publication of 4th December, 2016 Obi Nwakama tried to trace the development of the Nigerian Funk Rock scene, He writes;
“Music historians might be able to prove that the first true pop super stars in Nigeria were the Hykkers who began in Lagos in the 1960’s, moved to Port Harcourt just before the war to play at the club Scorpido and ended up in Biafra”.
“The Hykkers made up of Bob Miga, Pat Finn Okonjo, Emile Lawson, Jeff Afam and Felix Umoeffia, first broke to national limelight as lead acts in the old NBC- TV show ‘Saturday Square’. At the end of the war, the Hykkers returned to Lagos without Bob Miga who formed the Owerri band Strangers”.
He added further that;
“The era of the big rock bands were vital, and the Eastern parts of Nigeria, fed the Nigerian boom years with music that illuminated both the possibility of those years and the lingering renascent spirit of war survivors”
“The band, “One World” broke with ‘Strangers” and moved on to dig in with the Actions, already in Warri. The Fractions had regrouped under a new name, the Funkees with Jake Solo, Harry Mosco Agada, and Sunny Akpan.
In Port Harcourt, there was already Geraldo Pino, dishing out his own kind of Afro-soul, inspired no doubt by the “soul bother” himself, James Brown. But there was also Founders 15, with Ike Peters and Marshall Udeoru, whose monster hit “Be My Own”, is still a head turner. There was Soki Ohale and his Ceejays, with his signal song, “Oto n’Uburu.” From Calabar came the Doves, with their memorable single, “The Lord is my shepherd” and years later, “Everything will be Alright.” In Aba, the Apostles – made up of Walton Arungwa, Murphy Williams, Barry Starr, Chyke Fusion, Joel Madubuike and Henry Asu Tandu – held sway”.
Other music historians however trace the conception
of the psychedelic funk rock era to the residency of Ginger Baker, the British
drummer and founder of the rock group Cream in Nigeria between 1970 and 1976.
He set up the first ultra-modern recording studio in West Africa and also
worked with several Nigerian musicians including Fela Kuti. He influenced the
formation of bands such as SALT the precursor group to BLO,one of the bands of
that era basedin Lagos. Indeed Lagos also had its own share of the big bands
such as Ofege who were school kids from St, Gregory Obalende, and Larry
Ifediorama’s Ofo the Black Company, Monomono who had Joni Haastrup in their
lineup, Mixed Grill with Tee Macand BLO earlier mentioned.
The discographies of some of the bands that were part of the Afro Funk culture in Nigeria will be considered in next post.
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