Nkengas

By the mid 1950's, in West Africa, a distinct genre of popular music began to emerge from the Anglophone regions centered around Ghana and Nigeria. Heavily influenced by Calypso and Son from the New World, its infectious melding of rhythms and lilting melodies soon ruled the West African musical landscape. As the climate of political independence and optimism spread into the next decade, this post-colonial era spawned the evolution of a new, urban working class. This music was created for a new generation of social dancers who were ready to enjoy the "High-Life". The Nkengas were an early incarnation of the Nigerian band Ikenga Super Stars Of Africa. Under that moniker, they recorded two albums: Destruction and Nkengas In London (it has long been rumored that "Nkengas in London" was an Osita Osadebe master tape hijacked by Okoroego and other members of the Nigeria Sound Makers (link below) who defected in the early seventies). Nkengas had several members during its 11 years of existence, among them, the band of Igbo highlife's Chief Stephen Osadebe & his NIgeria Sound Makers and also members of the Africa '70 by Fela Kuti. They called their style "Ikwokilikwo", a word in the Igbo language similar to "cooking" as used in the U.S. to refer to heavy music in rock, jazz, blues, etc.. This word is used today to refer to merchants who use a sound system with high volume to draw attention of customers. The Destruction album, their first, was released in 1973 on the Orbitone (distributed by Tackle Records in England cat: OT 0050) and is a classic example of early 70's hard rocking highlife guitar music with a funky sax driven underbelly. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.