African Sounds from the Past: ‘Osibirock’ by Osibisa (1974)

Have you ever wondered what a Ghanaian-Caribbean Afro rock band producing music in the UK would’ve sounded like? Are you familiar with the ‘highlife’ genre? Osibisa, one of the most successful and longest-lived African heritage bands making Afro-pop, Afro-rock with highlife influences, was started by just a small group of men. They changed the genre forever.

Kumasi-born artist Teddy Osei was introduced to music at a young age, playing the saxophone while trying to form a band with his friends in college. He started a band – Star Gazers – with three other musicians: Sol Amarfio, the drummer, Mamon Shareef, and Farhan Freere on the flute.

Osibisa means “criss-cross rhythms that explode with happiness”, but the word originates from Fante word ‘osibisaba’, meaning ‘highlife’

Osei moved to London to study at a private music and drama school with a scholarship from the Ghanaian government and formed Cat’s Paw, a band that blended highlife, rock, and soul. The African highlife genre playfully blends the melodic and main rhythmic structures of traditional African music with Western instruments, characterised by horns and guitars. In 1969, he persuaded Amarfio and his brother Mac Tontoh, with whom he played in the Comets, to move to London, where Osibisa was born. Initially, the band was comprised of lead guitarist and vocalist Wendell Richardson (Antiguian), percussionist and tenor saxophonist Lasisi Amao (Nigerian), Roger Bedeau (Grenadian) on bass, and Robert Bailey (Trinidadian) on keyboard. Nigerians Fred Coker and Mike Odumosu were later replacements. The implementation of Caribbean influences, as introduced by Caribbean artists, had significant influence on the band.

According to interviews and lyrics, Osibisa means “criss-cross rhythms that explode with happiness”, but the word originates from Fante word ‘osibisaba’, meaning ‘highlife’. They spent the 1970s touring most of the world – India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Africa. At the same time, their success skyrocketed. The band reached 17 on the UK singles chart in 1976 with ‘Sunshine Day’, and their following single ‘Dance the Body Music’ hit 31 in the same listing.

Changes in the music industry – the death of singles, the CD replacement bubble, and record label integration – meant the band saw declining sales, jumping from label to label to try to remain successful. Some of the band returned to Ghana to set up a recording studio and theatre complex to help younger highlife musicians, seeing a quickly-fading future in the UK.

Both songs feel undeniably optimistic, blending African sounds to create a dense, exciting soundscape

Osibirock, their sixth studio release, however, was released in 1974. Interestingly, despite being their sixth studio release, it came out only 3 years after their debut album. Featuring ten tracks, with a total runtime of 38 minutes, the album cover features artwork ‘Negro Attacked by a Jaguar’ (1910) by Henri Rousseau, which illustrates a tense scene of conflict within a dense jungle in a primitivist style.

My favourite songs on Osibirock are ‘Why’ and ‘Komfo (High Priest)’; both songs feel undeniably optimistic, blending African sounds to create a dense, exciting soundscape. ‘Why’ begins slowly, gradually speeding up throughout as the melody grows – it’s the perfect song for fans of growing, jazzy tunes. The fast drums in the background lace the track with excitement, bringing the energy that the highlife genre was born to invoke.

‘Kelele’, the album’s fourth song, was sampled in a song by The Avalanches, ‘Stay Another Season’, which is where I found this body of work. The Avalanches’ song falls into the ‘plunderphonics’ genre, where heavily sampled, altered, and re-contextualised existing recordings are used to create new compositions, the track featuring a total of 24 other tracks.

I found out this information by looking at WhoSampled.com, a website that shows the songs sampled in a song. It’s a great tool to broaden your music horizons!