Africana Series #1: Highlife, Biafra & the Nigeria Civil War

First up in the Africana series is highlife music from Nigeria, West Africa. The songs that follow are drawn from the Civil War era between 1967 and 1970, composed and played by musicians from the seccessionist state of Biafra (from which Monsieur Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedy's fame drew inspiration for his stage name). Sung in various dialects of the Igbo language, the musicians combine various local instruments (gongs, talking drums, udu, ibome etc.) to explore themes of war, starvation, and our earthly existence. Enjoy.

Onwu Zuru Uwa
Onye Nwe Uwa
Nkpake Do Owo
So Ala Temem

Meanwhile, our slick new streaming music jammer is up, thanks to the His Geekness, Fabricio Zuardi and the playlist guys at Webjay. I set this up on autoplay-if you are one of those "no autoplay when I approach a blog" fellas, simply hit the kill switch and read on. At some point you're going to have to face facts though-this is a music blog!