World Psychedelic Classics, Vol. 3: Love’s A Real Thing: The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa (2LP)

Format: 2x12" in gatefold sleeve.

These twelve amazing pieces are drawn from a broad spectrum of early 1970s West African psychedelic classics. Yet the fact that they barely registered on the Richter scale of contemporary underground music is one of the great ironies of modern popular music, considering how much Western counterculture drank from the musical, aesthetic and visual traditions of Africa.

Musically, the transatlantic links are strong and obvious: from James Brown’s urban African-American soul and funk, through Hendrix’s West Coast sounds, to the deeper grooves of Cuban rumba and Latin percussion. During those years, looking to Detroit, Los Angeles, or Havana was still more important than learning the latest lines coming out of Lagos, Kinshasa or Accra.

But by the early 70s, the transition from direct imitation of Western pop was already underway and, although the period of "authenticity" had not yet arrived, there was enough experimentation by a younger generation of musicians, producers and studio engineers to mark this era as something special. This compilation represents a unique period of musical cross-pollination, where the influence of The Beatles and Elvis gradually gave way to that of Franco and Fela.

However, in purely musical terms, it was neither a simple nor a one-dimensional transition from the foreign to the local. Although the same external forces influenced the entire region, they interacted with an enormous variety of indigenous traditions. In this sense, the connections remain more in the ear of the listener than in the minds of musicians and producers, and represented a far less abrupt break with the past than in the West.

By the late 60s, the previous synthesis between Western popular music and African languages, represented by figures such as E.T. Mensah, Bobby Benson, Star Band and Alfa Jazz, was beginning to run out of steam. A younger generation of musicians, more confident in their African roots and with much to react against, was establishing itself as the authentic voice of African rebellion and Black power.

In Anglophone West Africa, historically more open to American influences, Geraldo Pino's Heartbeats led the way, followed by Gambia's Super Eagles, Ghana's Psychedelic Aliens, Fela's Koola Lobitos, and Segun Bucknor's Soul Assembly.

Meanwhile, in Francophone countries, innovators like Benin’s Orchestre Poly-Ritmo, Cameroon’s Manu Dibango, and a host of state-sponsored bands in Guinea seemed to skip a generation by moving directly from boleros, cha-chas, and foxtrots to heavily Latin-influenced Sahelian sounds. By the end of the decade, “Black-rooted modernizers” were on the move throughout the region.

Aesthetically as well as visually, the sensibilities of the new generation of Western hippies and soul brothers reflected a variety of non-Western influences. These, in turn, resonated throughout West Africa as flared trousers, headbands, necklaces, beads, fluorescent colors, afros, platforms, and dashikis filtered from coastal capitals to the most remote villages in the interior.

Across the region, young people began to feel comfortably modern wearing traditional clothes. “London-style” suits, never too aspirational, were relegated while “Afro-boys” and “Santana-men” took center stage, despising more conservative styles and music as “colo” and “kyenkyemna.”

As in the West, the late 60s was a period of tumultuous political and generational change in West Africa. In addition to global issues like Vietnam, South Africa, and the Third World revolution, young people in the region began to highlight more local concerns, as the initial optimism of nationalist struggles gave way to military governments, corruption, and frustrated hopes. For the first time in modern history, with new ideas circulating globally at an unprecedented speed, a generational gap emerged in Africa.

Students, enrolling in ever-increasing numbers in West Africa’s new high schools and universities, led this new protest music movement. Student dormitories in Legon and Kumasi, Ife and Ibadan, Fourah Bay and Yaoundé acted as catalysts for musical experimentation, while rapidly expanding urban centers offered increasingly large and sophisticated audiences.

By the late 60s, West Africa’s club scene, represented by legendary venues such as the Weekend in Havana and the Tiptoe in Accra, the African Club in Lagos, and the Rose Pavilion in Dakar, featured an authentic urban weekend dance culture. The music was electric, amplified, and unmistakably youthful, eventually bringing a touch of modernity even to the most remote villages. It was new music for a new generation.

Music-making technology also took a leap forward during this period of rapid social and economic change. New studios emerged in coastal capitals, while producers and entrepreneurs like Faisel Helwani, Dick Essiebons, King Bruce, and even Ginger Baker embraced the aspirations of the new generation, facilitating crossover and fusion experiments, including the introduction of keyboards and effects into modern African music.

Cheap turntables and imported vinyl also began to penetrate more conservative rural areas, allowing teenagers to compete with middle-class and older farmers in defining the tone and direction of music consumption in West Africa.

Imported psychedelic music also offered new insights into how the rest of the world thought, inspiring a wave of creative, cheap, and vibrant album covers, and providing opportunities for young graphic designers, like Lemi Ghariokwu, Fela Kuti's cover designer, to showcase their talent.

This new generation of West Africans embraced psychedelia with complete naturalness. All the essential ingredients existed in abundance in the growing metropolitan capitals: centuries of experience with psychotropic substances, some of the most potent music on the planet, decades of adapting Western pop to local tastes, and an affinity for anti-imperialist ideologies. Added to this mix was a cultural philosophy that actively promoted music, a relaxed attitude toward sex, and the fluorescent visual imagery of everyday life, almost guaranteeing that funk, soul, and acid rock would be adopted as familiar, though not entirely indigenous.

Thirty years later, we can only speculate what impact the atmospheric and hypnotic rhythms of the Sahel, combined with the funkier sounds of the coastal capitals, would have had on a Western generation raised on mind-altering substances and a renewed interest in unconventional music. These twelve pieces represent the African beats missing from Monterey and that Woodstock didn't have, at a time when a global perspective was becoming more important than ever in the heart of corporate America.