Ahuja Bello & His Golden Eagles Band :: Late Bobo Doherty (1982)

Nigeria, 1982. Released the same year as King Sunny Adé’s masterful Juju Music, this incoming medley of highlife-psych jumps in at the six-minute mark of the side-A medley from Ahuja Bello and His Golden Eagles Band’s Late Bobo Doherty. Born Ismaila Dele Bello, “Ahuja” was an electronic repairman who found his calling in Lagos. First, by playing drums for Expensive Olubi And His Golden Star Band, and later, by fixing a guitar for Adé, who then enlisted Bello in his band and bestowed his nickname upon him. As such, it’s no surprise that this AD edit from Bello’s subsequent solo career, and from an album one hundred percent released on his own Sky Records, has fat, slinky Jùjú vibes courtesy of smoking hot guitar rips (a bit post-punk in their sharp, edgy turns), a sinewy synth bassline, and bubbling, cloud-bound energy. Bello and his band begin to sing a little over three-minutes in and those bright, buoyant guitar tones begin to shimmer and warp. Desert mirages in this paradise of funk. | c depasquale

Gbemi ro, oba to da mi, A dani loro, Aiye onipekun (AD edit)

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