Nigeria: Afrobeats’ unpaid debt to highlife’s Crosdale Juba

Highlife, the West African dance music popular in the immediate post-colonial era of the 60s, is a source material for a handful of megahits in the last two decades since afrobeats emerged.

Paul Play Dairo’s Mosorire, an up-tempo remake of his juju legend father IK Dairo’s song of the same title, is one of such early hits that predate the contentious catch-all phrase, afrobeats.

The consensus on Davido’s Son of Mercy EP may be that it was an A&R catastrophe, but a little-known gem exists on that record.