Nigeria!

So infectious it should come with directions to the free clinic.

by Rodney Anonymous

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Published: Jun 16, 2010

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

In 2005, the Ig Nobel Prize (an inspired send-up of the Nobel Prize) for Literature was presented to an anonymous group of Nigerians for distributing an audacious series of e-mails centering around a coterie of fictitious — yet surprisingly engaging — characters who all faced the dilemma of being unable to lay their hands on a great deal of cash without a small investment and a Social Security number provided by some enterprising and good-hearted member of the general public.

Although Tony Oladipo Allen does hail from Nigeria, and is not a fictitious character from an e-mail scam, he's quite a compelling guy. Allen taught himself to play the drums at age 18 and spent the '70s playing in Fela Kuti's Africa 70. Then he moved around Europe for a few decades and finally landed in the band The Good, the Bad & the Queen with members of The Verve, Blur and The Clash.

Tony Allen's solo effort, Lagos No Shaking, which was recorded in Nigeria's former capital, is a smoking-hot mixture of funk, dub, jazz and Afro-beats that has the power to make the lame walk and the blind see, and raise Pat Boone's penis from the dead. This CD is so addicting it should be sold in small vials on street corners, and so infectious it should come with directions to the nearest free clinic. This music is the reason why thousands of tight-ass killjoy honkie missionaries descended upon the Dark Continent.

Verdict:

If the song "Awa Na Re" doesn't stir something inside you, then you are dead. Stop reading and lie down.

 

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