Every Record a Weapon Against the State
Where rhythm became resistance, and a twelve-inch vinyl could destabilize a military junta
The first time I heard the opening bars of what would become the most dangerous record in West Africa, I was standing in a cramped shop on Allen Avenue in Ikeja. The owner — a wiry man named Baba Tunde who claimed to have been inside the compound during the first military raid — dropped the needle without a word. Nobody moved for the next eleven minutes.
The Compound That Recorded Revolution
The compound on Agege Motor Road was declared independent from the Nigerian state in 1974. The recording studio sat on the ground floor, separated from the communal quarters by a curtain of batik fabric. Musicians arrived at noon and played until the generators ran dry — sometimes fourteen hours straight, capturing takes the military would later try to erase from every pressing plant in Lagos.