v/a: Nigeria Afrobeat Special: The New Explosive Sound in 1970s Nigeria
Label: Soundway
Soundway has done a great job with this. Even the Fela Kuti cut — an early 7” version of “Who’re You?” that’s rawer than the more familiar version — has not previously been reissued. The other big name here, Orlando Julius, is also represented by a track new to CD, “Afro-Blues”; only one track here has been reissued outside of Nigeria before now. One of the revelatory factors of this compilation is how different everything is from Fela: his invention of the Afrobeat style inspired the other ten bands included here to follow him into the style, but in their own ways, so there’s more variety here than you might expect. The three-LP set has five additional tracks not on the CD. (Steve)
