Premiere: Orlando Julius W/ The Heliocentrics: ‘Jaiyede Afro’

At his club residency in Ibadan, Orlando Julius was one of the very first to begin fusing US R&B with traditional highlife during the mid-‘60s with his Modern Aces band. His ‘Super Afro Soul’ album from ’66 set the blueprint for a whole generation of Afrobeat and Afro funk stars and, in an illustrious career, Julius met and played with Louis Armstrong, The Crusaders, Hugh Masekela and Lamont Dozier among others, famously co-composing the classic ‘Going Back To My Roots’ in 1979 whilst based in the USA.

For ‘Jaiyede Afro’, Julius takes us back to his own roots, revisiting several compositions from his early years which have never previously been recorded. The title track recalls his experiences as a boy: “my mother would go to group meetings with other women. They would sing together and play drums – I would play along with them and we would sing this song together.” Infectious chant ‘Omo Oba Blues’ is a traditional song sung at Julius’ school which he re-arranged in 1965 for his Modern Aces band. The epic Afrobeat jam ‘Be Counted’ stems from his years in the USA: “this was written around 1976 while I was living on the West coast. I did start recording it for the ‘Sisi Sade’ album around 1985 but it was never finished.” Other tracks include ‘Buje Buje’ and ‘Aseni’, both newly re-worked arrangements from his rare ‘Orlando Julius and The Afro Sounders’ album from 1973.

Born in 1943 in Ikole-Ekiti in Ondo State, Nigeria, Orlando Julius Ekemode (“Orlando was really a nickname, taken from the Nigerian actor, Orlando Martins”) had started in music from an early age, becoming the school drummer and learning flute, bugle and other instruments at St Peters Anglican School in Ikole-Ekiti.