He Lived the Highlife: Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and "Ka-Anyi Jikota"

Today's random tune is by Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, a Nigerian highlife musician also known just as Osadebe. Of the Igbo people, Osadebe's career spanned 40 years. He came from a family of musicians and dancers, and he started his career in Lagos singing at nightclubs with bands and orchestras. He eventually put out his first solo album in 1958, and eventually over his career he composed over 500 songs. While he started out doing Igbo highlife, his music came to also include elements of calypso, samba, bolero, rumba, jazz and waltz. As he matured, his music also began to reflect social commentary less confrontational but along the same lines as his countryman Fela Kuti. When highlife music began to fall out of favor in the 1980s, yielding to Jùjú music and Afrobeat, he gradually began turning his priorities to fatherhood over music and released his last album in 2000. Osadebe died in 2007. This song, Ka-Anyi Jikota, can be found on his last album, 2000's Kedu America, and on The Rough Guide to Highlife (2003).

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Stephen_Osita_Osadebe