Prince Nico Mbarga & Rocafil Jazz

How do you scan a 12x12 LP record jacket with a standard paper-size scanner? I have yet to figure this out.


Prince Nico Mbarga & Rocafil Jazz - Wayo In-Law
Sweet Mother (Rounder, 1976)
+download via zshare

It took awhile, but I managed to connect my father's old turntable up to my computer, so now I can finally transfer all the vinyl records I have into mp3s. I'm not a vinyl collector, really. I understand the impulse to collect old records, and if you are a DJ it makes perfect sense. But I'm not a DJ and so it all seems rather indulgent to me. Like even more indulgent than writing a blog, if that is possible. (Seriously, who needs a vinyl copy of Joanna Newsom's Ys? It's ridiculous.)

All of my records are older than me and belonged to my parents back in the day. It's weird. From what I gather, after vinyl records phased out my parents just stopped buying music. Or maybe it's just that it coincided with them having children, and they didn't think they could afford to spend money on cassette tapes. Either way, growing up I had to discover the joy of collecting albums on my own. But we always had all these old records boxed up in the house, and a few years ago I sorta appropriated/inherited them. So that's where these records are coming from.

****

I'm not completely sure, but Prince Nico Mbarga's Sweet Mother LP might be the most popular Nigerian record to come out of the country, so it seems like a good place to start. I'm sort of torn between posting the entire thing here, since it's out of print. But there are certainly other places where you can find these songs, so I'll probably not, just to be safe. "Sweet Mother" is the track that most people know already, so I thought I post "Wayo In-Law" instead. The melody seems familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

****

On a different note:
So was Mbarga really a prince, or was that just the name he chose for himself?

I've always wondered why there have been so many Nigerian musicians with titles like "Prince", "King", "Commander", etc. There's got to be perfectly good social and historical explanations for this. I don't think the phenomenon is just limited to musicians. My father used to sometimes call himself Prince Ade--something that my mother, coming from a Canadian background, found to be rather absurd. I think he mentioned a few times that he believes there is some distant relation between his family and that of one of the Obas of Lagos. But my father says a lot of things, if you know what I mean. . . . I can't help but wonder if calling himself a prince was simply a matter of pride, having something to do with reclaiming some of the dignity that Nigerians all but lost during colonialism. If that's the case, fine. Call yourself what you want; I'm cool with it. But honestly now, can there really be so many estranged princes and kings running around? What's the deal, people?

Just for interests sake, since it seems I'm already off on a tangent, and because it amuses me that wikipedia calls it a popular tourist sight, here's a picture of the Oba's palace:

You can't really tell from the picture, but my uncle and I are being accosted by one of the guards. My brother took the picture just before another guard tried to grab his camera from him. Apparently, pictures are not allowed (without payment).