For the next selection on the highlife turntable, I have selected the track Seikirimelemor by Prince. A.E. Amgbaduba and his Benrivs Dance Band off a Gabea record release.
I have never heard of the label and I believe its probably one of his rarest recordings. I got this LP from Chris Meserve during one of my visits to his house in New York. He gave it to me as a parting gift after one of our music listening sessions.
I received a message from Bestman Peres Doupere that this is actually an Ijaw song! He told me IK Belemu and many others used the term Seikinlade and the word itself means "Here comes dance" or dancing time.
He went on to say: The artist name is Emmanuel Amgbaduba. Amgbaduba is an Ijaw name that means big cheeks or literally big mouth. He also said he thinks Amgbaduba may have passed away in the 80's and that he was into music in the 60's before King Robert Ebizimor, Bestman Doupere, IK Belemu and many others. He started out playing native songs with african native drums before crossing to using english instruments for highlife music.
This makes sense as I have a 45 of his music from the mid 70's and another Ijaw player Lord Adusa played Asiko music back in the 60's before switching over to highlife.
I'd rank the beauty of his vocals and originality of his music along side other greats like Obiajulum and Mmadu Osa.
This song is one of my all time favorites. Check out the dreamy opening with its pulsating rhythms and the easy going introspective, almost philosophical, cadence of the vocals and the languid way they fades in and out of the song along side the chorus.
I tease my friends this is the song I want them to play at my wake because it says everything I ever wanted to say to them and everything they needed to know.
I hope you like it
Ubulujaja
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI commend you for posting this song. I would appreciate if you can post more songs of Amgbadugba. For many years I've been trying to download one of his songs titled Izon tu a seiyo. I'm not sure of the spelling.