In 1974 the young musician Prince Nico Mbarga, leader of the Rocafil Jazz, arrived at the EMI studios in Nigeria with a demo tape just recorded.
It was the time when in Nigeria the Biafra war had just ended, petroleum was driving the economy by producing a new unknown richness and the Nigerian disco industry was at its maximum. People were buying so much music that the European majors, like EMI, Decca and Philips having sensed the situation and smelled money, opened local branches in the main cities of the country. Nigeria became together with Cote d’Ivoire one of the main countries to produce music throughout all Africa. Nightclubs were multiplying and young people were cultivating the dream of becoming musicians or DJ.
In Nigeria the EMI together with Decca produced mainly afro-funk and afro-beat music - amongst which Fela Kuti and Sonny Okosu - while Philips was specialized in highlife. The diplomatic staff from EMI took the tape from the hands of the Rocafil Jazz’s leader then inserted it in the player and listened to it. The song was entitled Sweet Mother.
I will never forget you
For what you suffered for me
When I used to cry you would take me in your arms
And you would say "my little one" why do you cry.
Stop, stop don't cry anymore."
When the song finished the officials discharged the young musician coming from Onitsha. Later they let him know that they were not interested in his music. "Too childish" this was their justification. Nico Mbarga then referred to Decca but the result was the same.
In the end Sweet Mother was published two years later, in 1976 by a small label in the Anambra State; the Rogers All Stars. Nobody expected this but more that 13 million of legal copies were sold. Sweet Mother by Prince Nico Mbarga became the greatest success in the African musical history of all times. Still today all Africans know and dance to this song and in 2004 an opinion poll undertaken by BBC proclaimed it "the number one African song" even more than Vuli Ndiela by the south African Brenda Fassie, more than Lady by Fela, more than Mario by the Congolese Franco and even more than the vocal version of Malaika by Miryam Makeba.
to find immediately food to eat.
If I get sick my mother starts crying,
and says she would prefer dying
Then she prays and says "God help,
help my little baby".
If I don't sleep she doesn't sleep
If I don't eat she doesn't eat
She is never tired".
Prince Nico Mbara is from the Ibo ethnie - he is not to be confused with the legendary guitar player from Congo; Doctor Nico - born on 1 January in 1950 in Abakaliki, in the Enugu state of Nigeria. His mother was Nigerian and his father was from Cameroon. During the sixties, while his country was burning due to the civil war between Ibo and the Yoruba-Hausa alliance, his family escaped to Cameroon. It was there that Nico learned to play the xylophone, percussions and electric guitar and in the end he became part of an orchestra that entertained hotel clients.
When he returned to Nigeria, Prince NIco formed the Rocafil Jazz, with whom he began showing regularly at the Naza Hotel in Onitsha. Their second single “I No Go Marry My Papa”, published by EMI was quite a success locally, but Rocafil had to wait for the release of Sweet Mother to return to the fore. After having reached success Rocafil Jazz produced other nine success albums. In 1982 Prince Nico moved to London where he continued playing with his original band and in 1983 the Cameronese singer Louisiana Tilda joined the band. She later became the solo vocalist of Rocafil Jazz. With the money he earned from his intense artistic activity, Prince Nico built in Nigeria two hotels, the Sweet Mother Hotel. On 24 June 1997 a motorcycle accident has forever closed mister Sweet Mother's mouth.
Prince Nico's success is due not only to the sentimentalism of his lyrics and to the use of pidgin English that made the songs understandable to all Anglophone Africa, also and widely it was due to the musical influences coming from the most embroiling and most diffused musical African dance genres. In Rocafil Jazz's sound one can recognize the highlife guitar of the Ibo Nigerian bands, makossa from Cameroon and Congolese rumba and soukouss which are very present in the dynamic guitars arpeggio. It is infact the agility of Prince Nico's guitar that characterized more than all the other elements his music. It gave that taste of lightness and cheerfulness that made them irresistible to all Africans who love dancing.
But could you want another mother? No!
To forget you would be like forgetting my own life and the air I breathe
And you, really, if you forget your mother
It would be like loosing your own life."
Aki Special, published by the American Rounder Records, contains 7 songs, all of them from the LP Sweet Mother (1976) and Free Education in Nigeria (1977). It is the apex of the Rocafil Jazz success. Anybody interested in popular and/or modern African music can not disregard this album. If you happen to stay with Africans, from any country, and you can put on some music, if you put on Sweet Mother you will find out what we are talking about.
--- Prince Nico Mbarga Discography ---
Author: Prince Niko Mbarga & Rocafil Jazz
Title: Aki Special
Year: 1987
Label: Rounder Records
Track List:
1. Aki Special
2. Christiana
3. Sweet Mother
4. Wayo In-Law
5. Free Education in Nigeria
6. Onye Ori Obi
7. Nature
Sweet Mother - Text (pidgin)
Sweet mother I no go forget you
for the suffer wey you suffer for me.
Sweet mother I no go forget you
for the suffer wey you suffer for me.
When I dey cry, my mother go carry me--she go say,
'my pikin', wetin you dey cry ye, ye,
stop stop, stop stop make you no cry again oh."
When I won sleep, my mother go pet me,
she go lie me well well for bed,
she cover me cloth, sing me to sleep,
"sleep sleep my pikin oh."
When I dey hungry, my mother go run up and down.
she go find me something when I go chop oh.
Sweet mother I no go forget you for the suffer wey you suffer for me
When I dey sick, my mother go cry, cry, cry,
she go say instead when I go die make she die.
O, she go beg God,
"God help me, God help, my pikin oh."
If I no sleep, my mother no go sleep,
if I no chop, my mother no go chop, she no dey tire oh.
Sweet mother I no go forget you,
for the suffer wey you suffer for me.
You fit get another wife, you fit get another husband,
but you fit get another mother? No!
And if I forget you, therefore I forget my life and the air I breathe.
And then on to you men, forget, verily, forget your mother,
for if you forget your mother you've lost your life.
T. P. Africa wants to be a small bridge reaching a living land. The suffix T. P. - Tout Puissant (almighty) - wants to highlight Africa's potentials,
