Afro-Blues. Orlando Julius and the Afro Sounders. 1973. Phillips.

 Two years prior to the Biafran surrender that ended the Nigerian Civil War, a report entitled “Industrial Survey Nigeria 1968” disclosed the sobering statistic that 70% of the nation’s 625 largest manufacturing businesses were owned by non-Nigerians. In addition, less than 6% of Nigerians controlled fixed foreign assets, while Britain controlled 56% and the US 20%. In an effort to take back their economy the west African country issued the Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decree and took other assorted measures that became known as “Indigenization” and “Nigerianization.” A year later, at Ginger Baker’s recently constructed Batakota Studios in Lagos, Orlando Julius and an assortment of musicians recorded the material that would become the legendary LP Orlando Julius and the Afro Sounders. Julius was already well known in Nigeria first as a saxophonist on the colonialist-friendly Highlife scene, then, along with the great Fela Kuti, as reinvented Afrobeat master. Anthemic, horn driven, and polyrhythmic unto perfection, Afro-Blues is a heralding funk instrumental that, like Bitches Brew and Voodoo Chile, seizes, redefines, and ultimately transcends Black Power discourse through artistic dynamism and clarity. The song is broad and expansive, arranged to draw the mass audience it so rightly deserves, and it’s structured around key pop elements like solos—tenor sax, trumpet, and organ—and verse that only heighten the sophisticated musicianship of the august group into stratospheric pop greatness. It’s a sexy, aggressively personal declarative statement about soul-based indentity that, at a time when Nigeria was struggling to gain its footing globally, also functions on a national scale. From the 2010 Soundways release Nigeria Afrobeat Special: The New Explosive Sound In 1970s Nigeria

June 15 021

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