Chris Mba - Funky Situation

For a while there Nigerian boogie records were the 'bee's knees'. Fetching serious duckets on ebay and trading hands amongst collectors in London, Germany and France. It's obvious Nigeria was deeply inspired by Micheal Jackson. Judging from the countless album posing and clothing styles. This Chris Mba LP is one example. Another would be any LP from Dizzy K Falola. Dizzy, as well as Chris Mba even imitated the vocal styling of MJ. Even right down to those famous high pitched squeals. You know the one, sounds like a sexy choke. Like, 'are you ok, MJ?' But, the production on these LP's was Americanized in its 4/4 beats and adventurous in its sound. There's still very much Nigerian sounding rhythms on them as well, but more and more these LP's evolved into straight boogie soul LP's. There's so much going on within this track. Bells, Horn stabs, backing vocals, whispers, synth and guitar stabs and constant syncopation of them all. It's a pure treasure for me.
The other night San Francisco's Sweater Funk crew presented a world boogie night. It was recorded and will hopefully be available soon (I will post a link as soon as it's available. Thanks DTN!). But, Myself, Disco Tom Noble, and Allen Thayer dropped bombs all night long. We played boogie from all over, stopping off in Brazil, Nigeria, the UK, France, Israel, India, Italy, Holland, and Japan. It was great fun to hear all the tunes, but each of us had boxes teaming with more jams. So, there will surely be a 'part two'. I suppose why I've collected stuff from so many different countries is they are had such distinct and different sounds. Italo cats like AGO and Tom Hooker have such a distinct accent and sound. Even groups from Holland like Blue Feather are so different from italo boogie. Every country has it's own distinct brand and flavor. There was so much more we all wanted to play. This cut, was one of them. I only got to play a tenth of the Nigerian Boogie or Afro Funk that I brought with me. So, thank heavens for this blog. There's plenty more to come. And, I'll try to post some Dizzy K very soon.

Chris Mba - Funky Situation