In London Vol. 3 – Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, 1972

🇳🇬🎸🥁💿🇬🇧 Alongside King Sunny Adé, Ebenezer Obey is one of the two giants of Nigerian jùjú. Born in Idogo in 1942 and settled in Lagos in the 1950s, he founded the International Brothers in 1964, blending highlife and jùjú before the band became the Inter-Reformers. His style, miliki (simply “pleasure”), stacks guitars, Yoruba percussion and talking drums, and slips proverbs into songs made for dancing. At Decca West Africa he turned out record after record, including a London series. After In London in 1969 and On the Town in 1970, this Vol. 3 came out in 1972, with eight tracks mixed together, as was often the custom at the time, into two long sides made for the dance floor. The Chief Commander’s airy jùjú music unfolds like a slow sway in the warm savannah wind. Choruses and vocal responses alternate with long instrumental stretches over which Obey’s guitar soars. An invitation to dance, as the title Eje Kajo (“Let’s dance”) proclaims, closing side B. Sadly, no musicians are credited here: the Commander keeps the spotlight! In the early 1990s he turned to gospel, and remains one of the living legends of the genre.