The period stretching from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s is often considered the 'golden age' of African popular music. Concurrently with the rise of popular music as a worldwide phenomenon, African popular music had its beginnings in the early decades of the 20th century, as radio broadcasting and sound recording facilities were gradually established by the colonial powers. By the end of World War II, European companies such as EMI, Gallo and Decca were starting to establish large-scale operations in the colonial territories. But African popular music really began to flower in the years of nationalist struggle and independence. With the winds of political change blowing in the air, popular music became extremely important as a component of the cultural life of newly or soon-to-be independent nations. Produced and consumed largely independently of local ethnic musical traditions — however much it may have drawn on them — popular music was seen as a powerful expression of newly national identity. The enthusiasm, idealism, and optimism that can be felt in the music of this era reflect the optimism and idealism of independence.
Symbolically, the challenge was for musicians not only to entertain, but to provide a uniquely African inflection of concepts such as the nation state, modernity, the city, and technology. Stylistically, the challenge was twofold — to modernize folk, classical and traditional genres on one hand, and to Africanize foreign genres on the other. Out of these two intertwined projects emerged African popular music. The equation worked itself out in as many different ways as there were locations, but Nigeria was undeniably a particularly creative setting. With a large population, an extremely diverse (and often turbulent) cultural mix, and such strong cultural traditions, it is no surprise that Nigeria would emerge as a most dynamic source of popular music. The discovery of petroleum deposits in the Niger River Delta in the 1940s and the oil boom that eventually followed in the late 1960s was the final catalyst in the ascension of Nigeria's capital city of Lagos as the powerhouse of the Anglophone West African music industry.
In Nigerian pidgin English, 'chop-up' makes figurative reference to a bountiful feast. 'Lagos All Routes' refers to the fact that while the music on these collection originates from various parts of Nigeria, it is inevitably filtered through the urban prism of Lagos, which literally exploded with music during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
The bulk of the music here (on both Lagos Chop Up and Lagos All Routes) falls within the style known as highlife, a pan-ethnic style of dance music native to Anglophone West Africa. The roots of highlife are held to be in colonial-era Ghana, and its early development was marked by two streams — dance-band highlife (an African adaptation of European swing and ballroom music) and guitar-band highlife (based in the 'palmwine' style of folk and street guitar music). The two styles eventually fused in the 1940s, absorbing along the way local African folk tunes and the music of marching brass bands. The founder of modern highlife is considered to be the Ghanaian trumpeter/saxophonist/bandleader E.T. Mensah. Mensah was enormously popular throughout West Africa, and his Nigerian tours planted the seeds of Nigeria's own highlife scene, spearheaded by guitarist Bobby Benson. Out of Benson's band came a generation of Nigerian bandleaders including the Cool Cats, led by trumpeter/vocalist Victor Olaiya, the so-called 'Evil Genius' of highlife. Olaiya's bands in turn spawned many influential Nigerian musicians including Fela Kuti, Victor Uwaifo, Tony Allen, Peter King, Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson, Eddie Okonta, and others. Moonlight Highlife and Omelebele are two of Olaiya's most popular songs: the former — with its quaint trumpet solo (reminiscent of Louis Armstrong) and plaintive horn background — shows Olaiya's roots in the older, Ghanaian style of highlife, while Omelebele augurs the increasing influence of American soul and R and B. Similarly, the Harbours Band's Da Wa Lohun (God Answer Us) and the Traveller's Lodge Atomic Eight's track Ikut Asana Edem are fine examples of the trumpet-led style of highlife. The Atomic Eight band was based in the eastern town of Aba and featured a front line of talented horn players including the multi-instrumentalist wind player Raymond Barber and trumpeter Babatunde Williams, who would go on to play a central role in Fela Kuti's Afrika 70. Their passages of collective improvisation reflect roots in the coastal brass band traditions of Nigeria and Ghana, and the more distant influence of New Orleans.
A guitar-oriented variant of highlife developed in Nigeria's eastern region, which is strongly associated with the Igbo ethnic group. The most-beloved eastern bandleader was trumpeter/vocalist Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson, who was actually of mixed Igbo and Calabari background. Lawson apprenticed with bandleaders such as Benson, Olaiya, and Roy Chicago before striking out on his own with a unique blend of Igbo lyrics sung over Calabari rhythms. Lawson's four tracks are central to the development of eastern highlife, with its characteristic blend of horns and profuse guitar finger picking. A bit younger than Lawson was guitarist Sir Victor Uwaifo. A former wrestler, Uwaifo hails from Benin City (where Edo and Bini are the main languages) but his song lyrics are generally sung in Igbo or pidgin English. Uwaifo is famous for deriving the concept for his akwete rhythm from the woven cloth of the same name. His 1965 hit Joromi is his best-known song, sung in Igbo and graced with gently picked guitar. A similar fusion is achieved in Gentleman Mike Ejeagha's reflective Onye Ori Utaba (Tobacco Thief), which features Ejeagha's proverb-strewn vocals interspersed with his gorgeous picking, also in the Eastern Minstrels' Selense, and in Sir Patrick Idahosa's Eni.
The tremulous vocal delivery that marks much Igbo highlife singing is particularly apparent in Steven Amechi's Onye Na Eli Nkwu (A Drinker) and Oliver De Coque's Tragedy Story. Alongside Lawson, Amechi, Uwaifo and Ejeagha, De Coque was a native of eastern Nigeria, but his ogene style reflected the strong influence of Congolese music in its quick tempo and style of vocal delivery, as well as the complex guitar lines. The Congolese influence is also clear in the work of the Super Negro Bantous, another Igbo highlife band popular in the 1970s and 1980s.
Some musicians also sought to infuse highlife with traditional elements. Chief Umobuarie's Ebalume and Etubom Rex Williams' Uwa Idem Mi both replace the standard drum set with bells and other percussion, and the guitar with thumb piano and/or indigenous string instruments of some sort. Highlife aficionados might notice that the thumb piano pattern on Uwa Idem Mi was one frequently adapted to highlife guitar playing in both Nigeria and Ghana.
