taxi

Fela KutiThe Hykkers OnyeaborThree of his most

seminal records

How they lead a post-war

afro-rock revolution

A look at

Nigeria’s mythical

cult icon

Nigeria 001

UK £6

Taxi Magazine.indd 1 10/08/2016 13:31:57

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Protest music post civil-war

Capture The Colour

Afro-beat pioneer Tony Allen talks Nigeria today

Fela Kuti: His most essential works

William Onyeabor: The story behind the legend

Both Photo and Canon logo Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

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Welcome to the first issue of Taxi, an independent music magazine that aims to subvert the way we absorb music, by looking at it by country rather than by genre.

Thanks to the internet, the 21st century has become a golden age of musical discovery, introducing people to sounds both new and old from all over the world.

However, it has also created a culture of instant gratification with music, whereby we constantly sift through track after track searching for the industries ‘next big thing’. It may have given us access to more music, but it has also made music more disposable than ever before.

This is where Taxi steps in. Our aim is to shift this fast-paced throwaway attitude to music down a gear and delve deeper into the new musical cultures people are discovering, not by looking at it by genre, but by country or region.

This is a viable concept because like me there are people who, thanks to the internet, have been exposed to new types of music from different countries and they are keen to learn a more in-depth history of this music they are discovering.

People more and more are listening to artists from all over the world and from different time periods, and our first issue, focusing on Nigeria, is a perfect example of this as many of the songs discussed in this edition have been re-reissued by record labels over the last decade, such is the demand from music fans for them.

Although music magazines have been in decline over the last decade, the huge rise in independent magazine publishing has shown there is still a dedicated group of people willing to pay for print journalism, and who prefer reading longer forms of print journalism over digital media, which can often provide readers with very little substance to the stories that they are producing.

Taxi is a truly original magazine concept targeting both the niche market of independent magazines and anybody with a real passion for musical discovery. I hope you enjoy.

George Ellis

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EditorialGeorge Ellis

Cover Illustration Christie Rider

CD DesignGeorge EllisChristie Rider

Addtional ContentThe Vinyl FactoryUchenna IkonneEothen Allaptt

PhotographyGeorge EllisWikipedia CommonsNow Again RecordsAfro Beatles

IntervieweeQuinton Scott

Protest music post civil-war

Afro-beat pioneer Tony Allen talks Nigeria today

Fela Kuti: His most essential works

William Onyeabor: The story behind the legend

Photo courtesy ofNow Again Records

Photo courtesy ofGeorgeEllis

Photo courtesy ofWikipediaCommons

Photo courtesy ofGeorgeEllis

Taxi Magazine.indd 3 10/08/2016 13:31:59

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Talking

‘bout a

revolution

The story of how a new wave of protest music helped restore optimism to Nigeria after the

civil war.

Words by George Ellis

Photo courtesy ofNow Again Records

Taxi Magazine.indd 5 10/08/2016 13:31:59

When you think of figures of political resistance in Nigeria, Fela Kuti often springs

to mind first. Such was his natural charisma and global stardom, it’s hard not to look at him as the symbolic voice of unrest in the country. But whereas you would be right in thinking that Fela was often the masthead of such protest music in Nigeria, alongside him were an abundance of talented musicians and bands sweeping across the major Nigerian cities with a similar story to tell. Their message combined new sounds with themes that reflected the state of affairs the country was left in, in the wake of Nigeria’s civil-war. These bands, often encompassing the burgeoning afro-rock scene, were the true sound of the Nigerian post-civil war society.

Whilst Fela was taking his message of social upheaval to America, bands like The Hykkers, The Funkees and The Hygrades were taking their message to the streets of Nigeria, and having been directly affected by the fallout of the civil-war they were ready to put their built up frustrations and anger to use and once again begin playing across the country. Long gone were the soulful unitary days, where highlife, juju and native Yoruba music dominated Nigerian clubs. A new sound had formed, in part due to an influx of American

artists touring the country again, and partly due to the pain and suffering many local bands had experienced during the civil-war.

The Nigerian civil-war had ended quite literally at the turn of the decade in January 1970. Three years of fighting between the military backed west of Nigeria and the secessionist eastern state of Biafra, left an estimated casualty total of around one million people. Videos which can be easily accessed on YouTube show the leader of the Nigerian military government Yakubu Gowan declaring a ‘victory for common sense’, but to the people affected by the fallout this did not seem the case. People had simply been told to pick themselves up and carry on with what they doing prior to the war breaking out in 1967.

For the musicians of Biafra in the east however, returning to their usual style of highlife and American soul just wasn’t an option, as the war had left them and many others with permanent scars of the horrors they had witnessed. As Uchenna Ikonne, owner of the comb & razor label and a Nigeria historian, said in an interview with The Vinyl Factory “They had just gone through almost three years of hell during which people had lost almost everything and now were just trying to pull themselves out of the wreckage

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The Hykkers Pre-war when they werer a stright laced soul band, photo courtesy of Now Again Records

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and piece their lives back together. The music was just trying to ease the pain, make people feel good about themselves again”.

This mix of optimism for a brighter future and pain from a shocking past would go on to define the themes of Nigerian music across the first half the 1970’s, however it would be familiar faces visiting from the United States that would define the countries sound. With the political landscape returning to some level of normality across the country, artists like James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Bootsy Collins were beginning to tour across Nigeria, bringing with them the funk driven psychedelic sounds of 60’s America and Britain. They bought messages of freedom and rebellion in their songs, which captivated Nigerian audiences whose freedoms were only just returning to them.

Artists like The Hykkers and The Funkees soon began incorporating these distorted guitars into their music, as these psychedelic sounds became increasingly popular amongst Nigerians all over the country. Musician’s like Orlando Julius, who was a popular soul musician at the time, were even lucky enough to perform with James Brown during the early 70’s. He even wrote a song titled ‘James Brown ride on’ in which he declares his love for Brown and his funk laden guitar lead music. It showcased just how much Nigerian musicians were falling in love with this new fuzzy and ferocious way of playing guitar. As Guardian journalist Sean O’Hagan so eloquently pointed out in an interview back in 2010 “For young, hip Nigerians, the electric guitar was the symbol of all things new and vibrant, and the psychedelic sounds filtering out from San Francisco and London were the template for a hybrid sound that spoke only of the future.” In an instant, a new wave of protest music was born under the banners of afro-beat and afro-rock.

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Jeff Aham, guitarist for The Hykkers Circa 1971. Photo courtesy of Now Again Records

“The music was just trying to easethe pain, make people feel good about themselves again”.

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No band optimized this shift to afro-rock and afro-beat quite like The Hykkers. Having been driven out of Biafra late in the civil war, they were left without their instruments, and without a bass player or guitar-ist. Uchenna Ikonne in his book ‘Wake up you’, which documents this period in Nigerian music, believes it was this change in the lineup coupled with the horrors the band had witnessed during the civil war, that saw about their transformation as a soulful Beatles inspired rock band into an outfit whose sound was drenched in both funk and tenacity. New songs like ‘I want to break thru’ recalled the hypnotic psychedelic guitar play of a Hendrix ballad, and it was not just their music that changed too. Their outfits transformed from prim and pristine to outrageously colourful, and as Fela Kuti led the afro beat movement globally, The Hykkers were strutting their fuzzy afro-rock on home soil.

Much similar were The Funkees, who having been initially founded as an army band in Biafra, started to have a big impact on the burgeoning afro-rock scenes with their own slower and more seductive take on the genre. Tracks like ‘Dance with me’ and ‘Baby I need you’ lifted the funk straight out of James Brown’s own tracks and combined it with traditional Nigerian percussion to create a new smooth care free sound.

Sadly, The Funkees would leave Nigeria behind in 1973 to pursue music in London, and with the disbanding of The Hykkers later in the decade the once thriving scene would slowly fade away.

Fela Kuti and his decades of relentless performing and recording will forever make his music the focal point of political opposition in this era of musical history, and quite rightly so. Throughout his career his music directly challenged the heart of military oppression in a fearless manor unlike anything the country had seen before it. However, the musical landscape of Nigeria would have been very different without the messages of love and revolution from the other passionate bands and musicians found within the country, who made it their mission to speak their minds to the people of Nigeria at a time of political unrest. It was they who arguably made more of a local impact during the tumultuous political period of the country and in a sense represent the true sound of Nigeria’s post civil-war society.

The Hykker in a joyous mood, photo courtesy of Now Again Records

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Fela in Three3 essential records that defined Fela Kuti’s career, according to Strut records label boss Quinton Scott

1. Fela’s London Scene (1971)

This was a unique period because he’d come to London and was playing with a slightly smaller band than he’d normally go out with. This was just when he was really beginning to find his way in developing Afro-beat, but by having this smaller band he’d created a unique little moment in his career, as there isn’t really anything that sounds like this album in the rest of his catalogue. Tracks like ‘Buy Africa’ touch on themes of colonialism and big

businesses trying to muscle their way into African culture, and its just a fantastic example of the sort of slow-cooking tracks that Fela would continue to make over the next decade. Because it was recorded at Abbey Road Studios the sound of the music is just amazing, proabably the best album production wise that Fela ever made. It really adds to that muscular Afro-beat sound and to me its as essential as any record that you wil find in Fela’s collection.

3. Roforofo Fight (1972)

This one for me is spectacularly good. This is the record that really grabbed me when I first started discovering Fela. I remember going into Bar Rumba and hearing Gilles Peterson playing this week in week out. To me as a dancefloor track from Fela its just phenomenal because there’s so much power in track, and for me it’s up there with ‘Water Get no Enemy’ as an ultimate anthem of Fela.

2. Shakara (1972)

Despite being recorded just a year before London Scene this album has a very different sound to it. There’s only the two tracks on it which are ‘Shakara (oloje)’ and ‘Lady’, but for me it doesn’t get much better than these two. Again it’s a smaller band that recorded these songs but it’s got a very different feel to it, and it’s got the cross-over sound which people always associate with James Brown and Fela, especially with Shakara which is a really hypnotic track which you don’t often get with Fela’s music, so it’s quite a unique song in his catalogue because of this.

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Fela’s London Scene album cover. Photo courtesy of Afro Beatles Fela Kuti circa 1970. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Taxi Magazine.indd 9 10/08/2016 13:32:00

Fela KutiThe Hykkers OnyeaborThree of his most

seminal records

How they lead a post-war

afro-rock revolution

A look at

Nigeria’s mythical

cult icon

taxi UK £6Nigeria 001

Taxi Magazine.indd 10 10/08/2016 13:32:02