35. Majek, Beware

I consider Azuka Jebose Molokwu’s memoir on Majek Fashek

A pervasive myth about the current wave of contemporary dance music emerging from West Africa, called Afrobeats, Afro-Pop, or Afro-Fusion, is that it is an original invention emerging from the ether. Different iterations of its origin story centre on an enterprising musician struck by unique inspiration birthing a new sound from a sonic kitchen that he must have wandered into in a fugue state.

This is, of course, laughable.

But without a sense of our history, we are bound to perceive recurring patterns as novel events. Take, for instance, the current wave of Afrobeats titans from mid-western Nigeria. Rema, Shallipopi, and OdumoduBlvck are enjoying the limelight for bringing the tonal musicality of pidgin English into the genre. It is an age-long subversive linguistic achievement of phonation, prosody and cadence that we did not know Afrobeats needed. Its widespread acceptance still puzzles naysayers who do not understand that Afrobeats shares a certain aesthetic tendency with Highlife—…