William Onyeabor

William Onyeabor was a Nigerian funk musician and businessman. His music was widely heard in Nigeria in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Despite his success, he remained an enigmatic, private, and reclusive figure. Onyeabor's songs are often heavily rhythmic and synthesized, occasionally epic in scope, with lyrics decrying war. Onyeabor himself and female backing singers provided vocals. According to the Luaka Bop record label, Onyeabor "self-released eight albums between 1977 and 1985 and then became a born-again Christian, refusing to ever speak about himself or his music again." The label reported that through attempting to speak with Onyeabor himself, and by talking to people who seem to have firsthand knowledge, it tried to construct an accurate biography of him for 18 months, without success.