Amala: A Wake-up Call To Highlife Music

Peterson Agu, aka D Lion, has come a long way in his quest to resurrect highlife music in Nigeria. With 10 years experience in the highlife music genre, he finally launched his 12 track album titled ‘Amala’ the owners of the land. On this note, Yetunde Ogundipe takes a look at the trend of highlife music in Nigeria and Agu’s effort to revive it.

Highlife is the music of West Africa; it started in the 1920s. But Ghanaian highlife became popular in the early 50s among the Igbo people, and other guitar-band styles from Cameroon and Zaire soon followed. The Ghanaian, E. T. Mensah, the most popular highlife performer of the 1950s, toured Igbo-land frequently, drawing huge crowds of devoted fans.

M2′s findings reveal that Bobby Benson & His Combo was the first Nigerian highlife band to find audiences across the country. Benson was followed by Jim Lawson & the Mayor’s Dance Band, who achieved national fame in the mid-’70s, ending with Lawson’s death in 1976. During the same period, other highlife performers were reaching their peak. These included Rocafil Jazz and Prince Nico Mbarga, whose “Sweet Mother” was a pan-African hit that sold more than 13 million copies. Mbarga used English lyrics in a style that he named panko, which incorporated “sophisticated rumba guitar-phrasing into the highlife idiom”.

According to Benson Idonije, Agu’s highlife mentor and former manager of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, highlife was the prime music in the 50′s and 70′s until it was truncated during the Nigerian civil war, although many other factors also retarded its progress.

After the civil war in the 1960s, Igbo musicians were forced out of Lagos to return to their homeland. The result was that highlife ceased to be a major part of the mainstream of Nigerian music, and was thought of as being something purely associated with the Igbos of the east.

Highlife’s popularity slowly dwindled among the Igbos, supplanted by jùjú and fuji. However, a few performers kept the style alive, such as Yoruba singer and trumpeter Victor Olaiya (the only Nigerian to ever earn a platinum record), Stephen Osita Osadebe, Sonny Okosun, Victor Uwaifo, and Orlando Owoh, whose distinctive toye style fused jùjú and highlife.

“Effort is being made to revive highlife, I am part of the initiative that has been trying to revive it and I am happy that Peterson Agu has also made an effort through his new album” Idonigbe explains.

“This music needs consistency and Peterson Agu is on that trend. His music is very inspiring; it will appeal to the young and the old. In it you will find some classic highlife as well as highlife that identifies with today’s youth.

The fact that hip-hop is enjoying wide spread recognition today is because young musicians are beginning to identify with highlife. Listen to artists like 2face, Timaya and Nice they are beginning to identify with highlife and this is why people are accepting them. Whatever music you play, you will find yourself coming back to highlife, because it was the first contact of West Africa music with foreign music,” he adds.

Speaking at Agu’s album launch, Dr. Abraham Maxwell, a musicologist from the University of Lagos, says “lots of improvement has been made on Agu’s album since the last time I listened to it; the rhythm is pleasing and I am sure it will bring back highlife. However I want to employ all the DJ’s to promote him and let the people know that there is more to this genre of music.”

The new album, Amala, is to serve as a rebirth of the genre in the Nigerian music industry. It is produced by Puffy T and Pereze, and released from the stables of LIllybees Music record label.

Charles Iyoha, the facilitator of LIllybees Music record label says of Agu’s efforts; “there is no intellectual platform of music in Nigeria that supersedes highlife. We want to promote music with life and not just computer based music. Peterson is the first artist we are signing on the label and we are proud to associate with him.”

The album contains 12 songs. The third track, titled Celebrate, features the highlife genius, Fatai Rolling Dollars. Also in the album is Oluoma, meaning good work; E be like, this talks about the attitude of a man in love; We do Nija; Amala and many more.

Agu, who discovered his love for music as a child in his home town in Abia State, started acquiring skills for self improvement when he came to Lagos 13 years ago. During his search for knowledge, he worked with Wole Peku, former band leader for Majek Fashek and Femi Lasode, owner of Even Ezra Studios. He later joined O’Jez, a popular hangout in Lagos, where he worked as head of events and promotions for seven years.

However, Agu describes his music as highlife of yesteryears, today and the future. But on what gives him the assurance that his music will appeal to the Nigerian youth at a time when hip-hop has practically taken over, he says, “Amala contains classic highlife and different blend of genres with highlife. This is done in other to appeal to today’s youth. Moreover, life is all about concept, highlife music is evolving; it can’t be like the highlife in the days of Oliver de Coque.”