Wake Up Your Mind: How African Psychedelic Rock Changed the Musical Landscape

Frontline’s Blessing Borode explores the impact of African Psychedelic Rock on music today.

As Brixton’s Hootananny opened its doors in early 2019, welcoming fans of ‘psychedelic R&B’ songstress Greentea Peng to her headline show, the room began to fill with retro sounds. Before she took to the stage to perform tracks from her Sensi EP, GTP played a warm-up DJ set, spinning tracks that might not have been too familiar to the demographic spilling into the South London venue. One track in particular snatched my attention, and after scrambling to open Shazam to put a name to the Afro-funk that leaked from the monitors, I was introduced to the music of Nigeria’s own The Funkees, who happened to be pioneers of West Africa’s Psychedelic Rock scene. A group who went from playing their first live show the night the civil war ended in Nigeria in the 1960s, to signing a deal with EMI and subsequently conquering dance floors and influencing today’s musical landscape. 

The appetite for West African music and Afrobeats in the UK grows deeper by the minute, popularised by artists from the diaspora across the globe. The explosive entrance of Afro-swing over the past few years is a recent example, with breakout stars like J Hus and Kojo Funds contributing to the genre’s mainstream success, incorporating a loose blend of Afrobeats and dancehall-inspired melodies, decorated with catchy rap hooks. The genre has had a significant impact on the sounds we hear in the mainstream, as have the jazz collectives in the UK who are preserving echoes of musicians like Ebo Taylor and Fela Kuti, centering West African polyrhythms at the heart of what they do. 

However, if you zoom in to the timeline of Afrobeats, you’ll see that there are many niche moments in its musical history that transformed the scope of what African music is today – one of them being the inception of Psychedelic Rock in Nigeria. This phenomena was underpinned by the political unrest that erupted in the 1960s, surrounding the Biafran war, and it was characterised by its distinctive use of echoing horns, distorted guitar melodies and traditional Afro rhythms. These sounds could be heard from musicians like Joni Haastrup, The Funkees, The Lijadu Sisters, War-Head Constriction, The Hykkers, Ofo and the Black Company, who are just a few of the names that emerged from the scene. In Joni Haastrup’s classic gem, Wake Up Your Mind, he sings over a deep groove encouraging Africans to be self-reliant for their freedom and to open their minds and souls and take back what they own:

‘Fellow Africans wake your minds 

My brother Africans wake up your soul

It is the only way to find out what we have to do 

It is the only way to get back everything we’ve lost

Cos we have gold, we have silver, we have oil so we’ve got everything

We have to open our eyes so we can see where we are going

We should open up our minds so we can get back our land

We don’t have to wait for no one to tell us what we’re gonna do

We don’t have to beg nobody to stop the wars in Africa…‘

It was this lineage of politically charged Psychedelic Rock musicians that influenced artists like Fela Kuti, who became the genesis of Afrobeat and Afrobeats. 

While the term ‘Psychedelic Rock’ has no direct link to any psychedelic substances, it relies on the ways in which music can take you to a mind-altering state through instrumentation, conscious lyricism and the occasional trippy vocal effect. A miscellany of anger and liberation, Nigerian psychedelia was a musically rich cure for the citizens who had witnessed the horrors of war. Many military administrators went as far as conscripting popular rock bands into the army to boost the morale of the soldiers and subdue angry civilians. 

While the Western world basked in peace, love and flower power against the backdrop of anti-Vietnam protests, many Nigerian musicians drew their inspiration from the funk of James Brown, and Jimi Hendrix’s elaborate guitar solos, even adopting a similar Western rock set up with a guitar, drums and bass. In contrast to the rhythmic highlife genre that originated in Ghana and quickly spread to its neighbouring countries, Nigerian psychedelia adopted a grungy yet soulful sound, reflecting the pain of war but leaving listeners with no choice but to groove along. 

The parallels in the creative response to political unrest can be found between the 1960s and now, with the recent #EndSARS protests that emerged in Nigeria as a result of police brutality. It led to a desperate outcry against corruption and calls for a change in the treatment of citizens by government organisations. As demonstrations spread across the country, we witnessed the resurgence of people’s interest in socially conscious songs from artists like Fela Kuti and internationally acclaimed neo-soul singer Asa, highlighting the fact that music and protest are inseparable.

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Davido’s contagious single FEM was the song on everybody’s lips during the peaceful protest from Lagos to Abuja and was labelled a ‘protest anthem’ in an article by Okay Africa. Across the seas in the UK, people joined forces to show their support to Nigeria with their own #EndSARS protests, where Grammy-winning Afrobeats stars Wizkid and Burna Boy also made appearances in unison. 

Nigerian Psychedelia was arguably the genesis of musical consciousness for its citizens, but more specifically the youth. It produced countless bands and music that is a solid part of the country’s political history, and with the music of artists like Fela Kuti, it has trickled into the minds of Africans around the world. The expression of rebellion and social power through music is a common denominator in various moments in history; it’s become a universal intention among musicians to use their art to criticise or comment on social and political injustices.

Words: Blessing Borode