Hello everyone!
There are some days when I wake up and decide to go all highlife in music. In case you do not know, highlife songs are more local, with distinct beats, languages, and everything. They are one of the richest parts of music in Nigeria. So sometimes, I feel like leaving behind the usual trends of music we often play and diving deep into these kinds of songs. Naturally, I am not supposed to like these songs because I am young, and this type of music is mostly enjoyed by older people, especially since it is performed in native languages. But no, I have been heavily influenced by my dad and the kind of songs he used to play back in the days when we were at home in the villa. Yeah, these songs, whenever they come on, remind me of home and my dad.
Something happened yesterday....
Yesterday, being Sunday, I woke up very late and had to prepare for church. I had a very long night, and when I woke up, time was already against me. Usually, I cannot go about my morning routine without music playing. No, it does not work with my system. I will not feel at ease while running helter-skelter preparing for church and trying to beat time. So, I put on a mixtape of a highlife song by the Late Osita Osadebe. As I was about to get out of bed and go to the bathroom for a bath, a song just walked into my brain, but I could not recall the exact lyrics. It was a song in the same line as what I was playing but done by a different artist. I stayed in bed, completely focused on searching for the song on Google because I wanted to play it by all means, but to no avail. I searched and searched, used YouTube also, but still could not find the song.
I will not lie; I spent about 10 minutes in bed searching for this song, even though I was already late for church. After several failed attempts, my mind finally came back to its senses. That was when I quickly got up from bed and rushed to the bathroom to prepare for church. I arrived at church very late.
Throughout the day, my mind kept searching for ideas on how to find the song online once I had time to search again. I kept imagining how the ancient song used to be very entertaining when played on a local tape with a four-corner cassette and how people who knew the song danced to it in local beer joints.
Monday morning, I woke up with part of the lyrics ringing loudly in my head. I guess the gods of music revealed it to me in a dream. I searched on YouTube, and yeahhh, I got it!
It was very surprising because I thought the song was sung by one of the top artists of those days, but no, it was done by a not-so-well-known artist. The song is "DANCE TONIGHT" by Echo Toikumoh. It is performed in English with a local highlife beat. A very cool song, calling everyone to dance and forget life’s problems, to dance and let go of quarrels and enmity.
Lest I forget, the song lasted for 7mins with not so much lyrics but more of repetition of the same lines. But even at this, it's so entertaining. It gave enough room for the guitarist to make magic in the song.
When I downloaded the song, I kept it on replay, and I could see my brother, who was on the same bed, giving me a weird look. I knew he must have been wondering why I was playing such an old song on repeat. Well, this song is my song of the week, and it will stay on replay until my head gets tired of it. Lol
Thanks for reading.
Video from YouTube
