Africa Is a Country

The Trumpet King

The Trumpet King

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nxi4YRlAxI&w=480&h=295]

Jeremy of Naijablog forwarded me this Youtube video of two recorded songs by  Zeal Onyia, the master Nigerian trumpet player from the 1950s of whom Louis Armstrong on a visit to Nigeria in 1961 was to have asked:  “Who is that hip cat?” Here are two of Onyia’s highlife inflected compositions, “Money Trouble” and “Lumumba.”  (The recordings you hear “were taken from a tape of tape that was originally recorded off an old 78 rpm record given to Don [Maxwell, the guy who originally uploaded them to the internet] by Zeal Onyia himself in 1964.”) You can read the story how these two recordings came to be in the possession of Maxwell on his site Abstract Concrete Works.

— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.