Description
Fela Kuti‘s success in the West has hidden from view the diversity of modern Nigerian music. Like Lagos All Routes (HJR 017LP, 2005), whilst Lagos Chop Up sets out to put things in perspective — ranging across styles from the mid-sixties to the early eighties — musically it is mind-boggling. Here, there is juju, apala, Afrofunk, highlife. Some breathtaking classic fuji — raw Muslim street music — for twenty-five years now the real soundtrack of Lagos youth. And the Afrobeat tracks include one of the best you’ll ever hear — thirteen minutes of Shina Williams And His African Percussions. As Chief Ebenezer Obey puts it — “Eyi Yato”, something different. With detailed notes by Michael Veal (Fela’s biographer) and great artwork by the young Lagotian Ogunajo Ademola, Lagos Chop Up is, as Time Out puts it, “beautifully packaged“. “Both [Lagos Chop Up and Lagos All Routes] albums crackle with intelligence and electricity” –The Wire. “In a word, it’s heaven. As is the companion album” –All About Jazz. Features: Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey & His Inter-Reformers Band, Sir Victor Uwaifo, Travellers Lodge Atomic 8, Sagbeni Aragbada, Super Negro Bantous, Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson, Ambali Adedeji, Chief Umobaurie And His Group, Mike Ejeagha, Kollington Ayinla, The Harbours Band, Haruna Ishola, Dr Victor Olaiya, and Sir Patrick Idahosa.
