Staff Reviews

Various - The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria

Review by Mike Gutierrez

For music junkies and funk rock aficionados looking to pad their collections, it's a real treat, part of a growing library of early post-colonial pop music that becomes increasingly relevant as rock and roll transforms into a global phenomenon. »

User reviews

• 9/10 by djsupermazembe

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'the world ends' is the latest title from soundway records showcasing a wave of guitar driven and psychedelic groups that sprung up in nigeria during the early 1970s. featuring 32 electrifying and funk laden grooves, this is the sound of a generation attempting to pick up the pieces after the devastation of the nigerian civil war. spread over 2 cds and 2 triple gatefold lps, this bumper collection is brimming with youthful exuberance, fuzzed out guitar and cosmic organ vibes and owes much to the psychedelic sounds of jim morrison, santana, hendrix, jefferson airplane and james brown. as the summer of love was blossoming in london and san francisco, nigeria was imploding into civil war. also known as the biafran war of 1967, it was a grisly conflict taking over three million lives yet at the same time as the country was being pulled apart there was a new world beginning. the tracks featured represent a forgotten chapter in nigeria's musical history when the youth threw their varied morsels into the pot from hard rock to psychedelic soul when guitars were cherished instruments, symbolic of a new movement, when highlife and afrobeat played second fiddle to 'the beat'.
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