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Nigeria

A synth-funk mystery from Enugu

William Onyeabor

Between 1977 and 1985 William Onyeabor self-released eight or nine albums of idiosyncratic Nigerian synth-funk, pressing them himself at his own record plant in Enugu after learning the process abroad. Then he became a born-again Christian and simply stopped. He gave up talking about his old music almost entirely, later telling one interviewer, "Why would I want to talk about that? I just want to talk about Jesus." He spent his later years as a respected local chief and flour-mill owner. It took Luaka Bop's Yale Evelev years of patient work, plus a champion in Nigerian music historian Uchenna Ikonne, to license 2013's Who Is William Onyeabor? That reissue finally introduced his music to the world, and it happened on his terms.

Ginger Baker's keyboardist, gone solo

Mono Mono

Joni Haastrup was already known in Lagos, having sung James Brown covers as a teenager and then fronted Orlando Julius's Modern Aces, when Cream drummer Ginger Baker recruited him for Baker's Air Force in 1971 and took him touring in Europe. Haastrup came home and formed Mono Mono the same year, mixing Afrobeat with highlife, soul and the British rock he'd just spent months playing. Their debut, Give the Beggar a Chance, became one of the defining Nigerian rock records of the decade, and the band split by the mid-1970s. Soundway's 2011 reissue brought both their albums back into circulation. Haastrup kept performing for decades afterward, until his death in California in 2024.

The Collection