S.E. Rogie - Please Go Easy With Me
Before the lovely lilting lullabies of S.E. Rogie entered my life, wine and palms only evoked images of lonely, drunken self-abuse - or as I call it, Lonely Drunken Self-Abuse Fridays. However, ‘palm wine music’ is actually a whole genre of ambling, vaguely Trinadadian-by way of-West Africa music, named after booze made from the sap of palm trees - palm wine. A delightful-sounding tincture I’ve never had the personal pleasure of trying as I value my eyesight and have higher standards (THUNDERBIRD OR GTFO), palm wine was often imbibed at gatherings where fellas would ululate and fiddle with acoustic guitars. So now, when I think of palm wine, I think of drunk folks and palm trees, which just makes me think of Nick Nolte and the smell of wet terrycloth. Just thought I’d pop the cap on my brains and let you have a look around.
S.E. Rogie, born Sooliman Ernest Rogers, found quite a bit of notoriety outside of his native Sierra Leone, and as Leo DiCaprio might quip while squinting, he achieved heightened status and the accompanying ‘bling bling’ despite coming from a background steeped in ‘bling bang’. Rogie moved from Africa to the San Francisco Bay area in 1973, and during that time he was the recipient of numerous awards - including recognition from the United States Congress & Senate for his ‘contributions to the American way of life’. 1970’s America, history’s ill-remembered, puke-soaked societal urinal, briefly abandoned apple pie and baseball as the embodiment of American values and embraced ‘portuguese guitars’, ‘fermented palm tree oil’ and ‘Nick Nolte / wet terrycloth’ as their new cultural sigils, sort of like the time you were Buddhist for a bit after you came back from Thailand, Ward.
Rogie’s last album, ‘Dead Men Don’t Smoke Marijuana’ was released shortly before his death; cementing in the western lexicon the use of the term ‘Rogie’ as a colloquialism for ‘marijiuana cigarette’. At least by me. Hey, please go easy with me man - I just hit this fat S.E. Rogie and I’m totally bling bangin’.
S.E. Rogie (right). Portuguese guitar, also named S.E. Rogie (left)
141 plays
Ogyatanaa Show Band - Disco Africa
What can I tell you about these guys? Sampled by Madlib, remixed by Quantic, the original was a pretty rare print that first appeared this side of the pond of the “Ghana Soundz 2” compilation. The leads me to believe that they’re from Ghana. There’s often a shameful lack of information out of the ‘tubes about African music, which frankly, is racist, and if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Attica!
As the title suggests, you’re getting a hodgepodge, a gumbo even, a West African peanut soup if you will, of Afrobeat and Disco served up here. That bassline is so fucking primal it makes me want to slaughter mammoths and eat placentas, yet the congas make me want to have a hoity-toity dinner party and swap wives. I’m conflicted, but either way I’d like this song played during the consummation of my next marriage. WHO ELSE IS HUNGRY?
The Green Arrows - No Delay (Bullitt)
For many, Zimbabwe is most notable for 2009 ‘Worst Dictator of the Year’, Robert Mugabe, who by most accounts is a merciless corrupt cockface, but this isn’t ‘Thinky Thinks’ or ‘Protest-y Pouts of the Unshaven Pits’ - this is Deadly Deaths, y’all - and check it out - they have bands too!
The Green Arrows were a floating back-up band with a few originals, found playing in a hotel by South African producing legend West Nkosi - and, after some coaxing, became (allegedly) the first band to record an LP in Zimbabwe. A nice blend of the circular rhythms peculiar to much East and South African music, The Green Arrows also brought a Meters-like swagger to some of their more Western-tinged numbers, such as this one, ‘No Delay’.
This particular track has no reported direct association with Steve McQueen’s ‘Bullitt’, but while we’re talking about Steve McQueen, I always imagined that he smelled like a saddlebag full of a mix of lavendar and hay and that his rugged skin made a distinct crinkling sound as he smiled at you from across the table in a charming Chinatown dive, paused, and sipped his beer as he looked just slightly over your right shoulder at some passerby through the window. Zimbabwe! Not just last in your Grade 3 Social Sciences ‘List Of Countries’ project.
Zexie Manatsa, bassist and vocalist for The Green Arrows. Not pictured: Steve McQueen
271 plays
Super Eagles - Love’s A Real Thing
I know DD:LD isn’t designed to be my diary, but you should know this about me: I am deathly afraid of eagles. Their cold eyes, with their machine-like unfeeling precision, their callous disregard for the cuteness of field mice, their baldness, I’m allergic to feathers, Donovan McNabb, there’s a whole laundry list of reasons eagles are terrifying and the thought of SUPER eagles strikes enough fear in me to loosen my bowels alarmingly. Just posting this song by Gambia’s Super Eagles represents the facing down of a demon that has tortured me for much of my adult life. The discovery that this band is actually made up of humans helped me overcome my fears ever so slightly, though sufficient empirical evidence that they are not in fact giant (super) eagles dressed in the skins of humans they handily dispatched with their beaks and talons has, as of press time, yet to be produced.
Suspicious as I may be of their true origins, I’m led to believe that The Super Eagles were somewhat beholden to the tastes of tourists and dignitaries passing through Gambia in late 1960’s, as they made up most of the only paying audiences for non-tradional music at the time. However, with a donation from a kind benefactor, Gambian diamond dealer Solo Darboe, who thanks to a lack of imagination on my part I envision to be a black Han Solo type with a cool vest and ill-fitting gunbelt, they were suddenly freed up to write their own songs and tour. The Super Eagles were among the first modern Gambian bands to tour Europe. Despite this accomplishment, their influence didn’t spread far from West Africa, where they are considered legends.
As an interesting but completely tangential sidebar, the Nigerian national football team is also affectionally nicknamed ‘The Super Eagles’, a terrifying monikker that has surely helped them achieve the staggering accomplishment of qualifying to compete in the World Cup not ten, not five, but three times since, oh.. 1930. GO EAGLES!
321 plays
The Funkees - Akula Owu Onyeara
You really need some chops to back it the fuck up if you’re going to name your band The Funkees, but it’s not a bad idea to have an alibi if you can’t hold it down and live up to your name. An alibi like ‘No English!’. Luckily for The Funkees, they have both the chops and the no english. The Funkees, fronted by Jake N. Sollo (aka Jake Solo) were formed shortly after the Nigerian-Biafran war in 1970, in which a small area of Nigeria tried to become the sovereign nation of Biafra, which I’m sure involved all sorts of entwined and complex tendrils of geopolitics but we’re here for the music, maaaaaaaan.
The Funkees enjoyed some degree of success out of Nigeria after establishing themselves in the early 1970’s - the BBC reports that they recorded two Peel Sessions, in 1974 and 1975, for example. ‘Akula Owu Onyeara’ (roughly translated: ‘two ham sandwiches and an orange soda’) is culled from the killer “Nigeria Special” comp. It’s pretty infectious, but not in the bad way like Ebola, more in the good way like dancing fever. Dancing fever isn’t epilepsy, FYI - but both can lead to swallowing of tongues. Am I right, ladies?
