Mother Africa by The Lijadu Sisters
Mother Africa (1977) was the Lijadu Sisters’s second studio album and released after their success with Danger. It “turned toward their Nigerian roots, featuring traditional talking drum, lyrics in Yoruba and highlife-style acoustic guitars” (The New York Times, 2019).
In a review for Pop Matters in 2012, writer Deanne Sole described the album as ”a surprise”, saying that it was ”tranquil, unhurried, musically noncombatative”, with ”a pair of voices rolling in harmony as though they were in church”.
It features a reworking of ”Iya Mi Jowo” (“Mother, Please”), their breakthrough song from 1969, which is ”sung by a daughter who wants to know what she has done to make her mother so distant and angry”, as Ms. Taiwo Lijadu retold many years later.
Tracklist
| 1. | Osupa | 6:20 |
| 2. | Iya Mi Jowo | 6:36 |
| 3. | Bayi L'ense | 6:38 |
| 4. | Orin Aro | 7:18 |
| 5. | Dibe Nuwa | 5:44 |
| 6. | Osupa (final) | 5:37 |
Credits
All Songs by the Lijadu Sisters
Engineer – Jubril Ogungbade
Instruments – Biddy Wright
Percussion – Ayanwunmi Ayanleke And His Talking Drum Band
Mixed By – LAK Adeniran
Design – Alex Olatunde
Design Concept – Ideas Organisation
Recorded at Decca Studios, Lagos.
License
All rights reserved.
Twins Taiwo and Kehinde were born in Jos, in northern Nigeria, on October 22, 1948. In Yoruba, ”Taiwo” means "the first twin to taste the world”, and ”Kehinde” "the second-born of the twins”, “the chaperone” or “the one who comes after Taiwo”. Though Taiwo is the firstborn, it is believed that Kehinde is the elder twin, sending Taiwo into the world first to determine if it is time to be born.