Aja Wele-Wele

The self-taught Nigerian guitarist Oliver Nayoka began playing in church before forming his Talented Fellows of Africa band in 2006. Forget the hype of an over-excited press release that claims him to be the ‘Jimi Hendrix of highlife,’ but five million views for his videos on social media are evidence of the following he’s built in Nigeria and across the strong Igbo diaspora in Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and elsewhere. Released on Colombia’s Palenque Records, whose founder Lucas Silva acted as executive producer, and backed by his Talented Fellows, Aja Wele-Wele finds Nayoka mixing classic Igbo highlife with a sweet soukous guitar style, which has a strong tradition in Nigeria, via the prolific recordings of the late Oliver De Coque, a famed Igbo guitarist whose tutor was Congolese. The eight long tracks have a joyously, old-fashioned style, Nayoka’s rich and robust baritone vocals swathed in smooth harmony choruses, spiralling guitar solos, riffing horns and bubbling percussion. The album sounds as if it could have been recorded at any time in the last 50 years, but a crisp audio clarity seldom found in archival crate-digging highlife releases is a bonus.