Who can school me on William Onyeabor?

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/17/five-year-quest-reissue-william-onyeabor

"atomic bomb" blows my mind. i'm kinda obsessed

Now you have me fixated on that number too. The catchy vocal melody, the groove, the almost dub regggae like feel...It's slightly more traditional than some of the other cuts

Fucking awesome.

So good.

I wonder if Rickey did have a chance to hear any more. He would have loved this.

The only bad part about this comp is when the groove ends after ~10 minutes.

So great to have When the Going… on vinyl finally, but some other fantastic stuff on there. This one sounds even better at about -5 http://ex.fm/song/k2bry

"good name" is a banger

yeah "good name" is probably my fave, the whole cd is amazing though

almost certain to be a top ten of the year disc for me

um yeah, this is pretty amazing. kind of got overwhelmed with the seemingly neverending stream of african reissues from the past few years, but this one, holy smokes.

weird...this didn't hit me on first listen like it is for everyone else

but i dunno, i p much like all african stuff i hear so hopefully it'll grow on me

i bought a copy of this one http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/48179113/William+Onyeabor.jpg in a dollar bin and gave it to a friend for christmas 2 years ago D:

could it be worth mad cash now?

signs point to yes

fhuuuuuck

dogg yeah...

http://www.discogs.com/William-Onyeabor-Good-Name/master/605907

none for sale on discogs, one of his others has a few, but most don't have any for sale which is rare, the one that has some is a luaka bop reissue and that starts at $100

nah it was this one http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?q=william+onyeabor+anything+you+sow

seems weird that the bootleg version would end up in a dollar bin, in that only heads/collectors would be likely to buy it? things slip through the net tho

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/arts/music/an-elusive-mystery-man-of-music.html

Over the phone from Nigeria, responding to prepared questions, he stressed that all he wanted people to know about him was that “I was a sinner who repented and gave himself 100 percent to Christ.” Describing himself as a born-again Christian, Mr. Onyeabor refused to discuss his education (he reportedly studied film production in the Soviet Union and has a law degree) or his musical career.

“I am only proud of my music because of the creative aspect of it,” he said. “I didn’t use it strictly to praise God. That is why I have decided now that henceforth all my revealings will be to praise God and preach the word of God.”

"When the Going is Smooth and Good" is one of the best things I've heard in a long time. This is definitely one of my year-end favorites.

This whole comp pretty much blows my mind. Where should I go from here? (w/r/t other artists I mean)

didja hear the comp of francis bebey's synth stuff

This comp is absolutely wonderful. Any idea where I might have heard "Good Name" before? It sounded instantly familiar, but I can't imagine where I might have heard it. I see it was kinda a promo push for the comp, but it would've been a few years ago when I first heard it. Was it on some previous comp or covered somewhere else?

i bought my dad this for christmas.

great. let the "dad rock" backlash begin! ;)

I'm not sure there is anywhere to go from here. Onyeabor was such an oddball and he didn't have any traction outside his hometown - Luaka Bop said that even the music buffs they spoke to in Lagos hadn't heard of him - so he seems to exist in a world of his own.

not got the heavy groove of onyeabor but i will second francis bebey as being well worth your time if you aren't already familiar

thx folks I will check him out

kept hearing 'good name' enough to take a plunge on the comp - serious business.

The documentary on him is available free online. He is far far from Sugar Man.

pretty hard panning here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R11ZAWY5A9VA3A/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00E3FMHOU

His only review!

lol maybe it's the writer of the transcribed songlines review

Okay I just listened to this last weekend. It's FANTASTIC!

It's classic outsider art. Part of the appeal is the strangeness of the whole thing. I think that brutal reviewer was expecting Fela Kuti or something. There's plenty of room for both.

His only review!

He's got dozens of reviews, mostly raves.

don't think I've ever read Songlines but is that srsly a review they printed in a newsstand publication? reads like something the work experience kid wrote

mind numbing!

Going to see Byrne & Co. perform this at the Warfield tomorrow night. Anyone here check out the NYC shows?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/arts/music/the-songs-of-william-onyeabor-at-the-brooklyn-academy-of-music.html

Ben Ratliff on the NYC tribute gig

Here's part of it:

It’s a big production, running on shaggy, sweet-hearted enthusiasm, and organized by the young Sudanese-American musician Ahmed Gallab, who records as Sinkane. The show included David Byrne; the keyboardist Money Mark, best known for his work with the Beastie Boys; Devonté Hynes of Blood Orange; Pat Mahoney, formerly the drummer in LCD Soundsystem; the saxophonist Joshua Redman; the indie-pop singers Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip and Luke Jenner, once of the Rapture; and the Lijadu Sisters, also from Nigeria, ....

The concert worked as music, not just as outsider-artist myth, for a couple of reasons. One was the rhythm section, with two trap-set drummers (Mr. Mahoney and Jay Tram), the percussionist Lekan Babalola, the talking-drum player Kofo the Wonderman and the bassist Ish Montgomery. (The audience immediately got the point: At least half the crowd stayed up and danced through the entire show.) And another was the energy of Money Mark and of the guitarist Jonny Lam, who burrowed into the music’s tight, needling lines, and Mr. Redman, who built fluid, expansive solos on top of them.
But the concert also appeared to be an act of creative defiance, and maybe even a little antagonism, toward a musician who will not agree to be understood as record collectors want to understand him. It used his silence to construct what sometimes looked like a revue of eccentricity or marginality. It opened with a New York street preacher, Rufus Cannon, pulling a battery-operated amplifier down the central aisle and testifying on the glory of God — an action that would seem to be inspired by Mr. Onyeabor’s faith but might not have the intended effect at a convergence of Brooklyn music nerds — and closed with expert demonstrations in the ancient arts of disco roller-skating and break dancing. All of which was spirited and extravagant. But not uncomplicated.

Luke Jenner, once of the Rapture;

lol at this

anyone else going to the show at the Greek tonight?

so those who have this collection? how does it _sound_ compared to the many downloads that brought this guy to american attention? it's all mastered from vinyl sources i would assume.

i mean i love this guy's stuff but i don't want to plunk down hard-earned dollars for stuff i already have unless it sounds notably better.

btw i don't think this warrants the term "outsider art" (a term i'm not terribly comfortable with to begin with)

it sounds pretty great to me

this remix album is pretty wack

FUCKING HELL THAT WAS A GREAT SHOW. if I wasn't in the middle of the music-seeing-est run of my life right now it would be the best thing I've seen in 2014 by a comfortable clip. Kele Okereke was the big guest vocalist for this date and he was fucking GREAT; also holy shit I forgot how great Alexis Taylor is at singing. highlight was "When The Going Is Smooth And Good", although Byrne was stupefyingly awesome on "Fantastic Man."

speaking of "When The Going," if you're on the fence about buying a physical copy of the comp, that song's not on the Spotify version and it's arguably Onyeabor's best song so yeah.

well, unlicensed downloads of all his individual albums (save, i think, for one very rare one) were and probably are widely available. so i have all of the songs on the comp in MP3 format. of course, chances are that a professionally-mastered, physical-media copy will sound better, but with needle-drops like this one can never really know.