Fuck Vampire Weekend. No, seriously: to paraphrase Dr. Gonzo, those swine should be fucked, broken, and driven across the land. Why make do with watery, lite-FM spoiled goods from those smirking poachers when you can buy organic, straight from the far more deserving farmers who coaxed this stuff out of the ground in the first place?
The title of this compilation is no exaggeration: Sir Victor Uwaifo was a towering pillar of Nigerian music by the ‘70s, one of the true innovators in twining the country’s traditional and tribal music with the electric mayhem coming across the Atlantic from the likes of Atlantic, Stax/Volt, and Motown. Guitar Boy Superstar focuses on Uwaifo’s injection of ekassa (traditional coronation music) with a shot of fretboard lightning, instead of his early highlife work or later disco deviances. The result is a laid-back stew of soul, funk, and rock that is as celebratory as its roots suggest: music of the king, by a king, and fit for a king.
Like a lot of the music to come out of Lagos at the time, Uwaifo’s body of work sounds like the product of sheer joy at the mutant idioms he was forging with his bands, often spilling into outright playfulness. “Agho” even borrows the riff from lounge classic “Tequila” (you know, the one where “tequila!” is the only lyric) for a funky workout between the horns and the keys, with Uwaifo’s licks holding down the rhythm. Uwaifo is frequently compared to Jimi Hendrix, and while that’s a touch over the top, the wriggling, fuzzy wah-pedal lines on some of the slinkier tracks here definitely bring Electric Ladyland to mind, as well as the “play like your momma just died” histrionics of Funkadelic’s forever-underrated Eddie Hazel. This is especially apparent on the last track, “West African Safari,” maybe the best, most eclectic and free-ranging number of the bunch. Parts of the song could almost fit in with John McLaughlin’s axe-slinging in Miles Davis’ fusion bands of the same early-‘70s period. As always, James Brown and the JBs are a heavy influence too, and tunes like “Do Lelezi” show that Uwaifo might have already been picking up moves from that hardest-working African disciple of the hardest-working man in show biz, Fela Kuti.
As far as Uwaifo’s career goes, this compilation is a great sampler pack. He’s certainly one of the more unique guitarists to come out of the wildly creative atmosphere of 1970s Nigeria. But the Nigeria 70: Lagos Jump collection released earlier this year by Strut Records is a better overview of the contemporaneous musical currents Uwaifo swam. Both Lagos Jump and Soundways’ own Nigeria Special compilation pack better killer-to-filler ratios, too. Their lack of focus on a single artist or group allowed the labels to pull a wider variety of tracks from the exploding number of local musicians who often made only a handful of enduring songs (like the Brooklyn blog babies of our own era). But if you’ve already wiggled your toes in the shallows, breathe deep and start plumbing the depths right here.