Alhaji Waziri Oshomah

Alhaji Waziri Oshomah is the creator of a unique dance music that's fused with local folk styles, highlife, and Western pop, and imbued with Islamic values.

Despite drawing comparisons with the electronic sounds of William Onyeabor, the visceral afrobeat of Fela Kuti, and Ebo Taylor’s Ghanaian guitar-led highlife, Waziri’s is a world unto itself. It is a world where musical expression and Islamic culture moves hand-in-hand. Soul music in the truest sense of the word.

Born into a Muslim Afenmai/Etsako family in southern Nigeria, Waziri was entranced not only by the highlife sound emanating from Lagos, but by local Etsako groups, who favoured driving guitar lines over the flamboyant horn sections of the capital. When his parents disowned him for fear he had strayed too far from his faith, Waziri responded by infusing his music with the teachings of Islam.

In 1970, against a backdrop of the Nigerian Civil War, he cut loose and started his own band, pouring Western-influenced instrumentation, electronic flourishes, and soul phrasing into the deep well of the region’s indigenous folk styles. Without transport, the band would regularly walk miles to gigs carrying what equipment they had on their heads. But Waziri was undeterred. “When we played, we didn’t have professional amplifiers.We used a locally built amp that was powered by ordinary torchlight batteries.” Buoyed by a powerful sense of purpose, he never looked back.