Osibisa: "Criss-Cross Rhythms That Explode In Happiness"

In The early days of the DISCO MOVEMENT, deejays didn't have a lot of music to play. So at times it was a stagnant sound that was heard in these new DISCOS. Then deejays saw these wild cartoonish album covers featuring purple flying elephants. It caught our attention. Once we heard this new, strange music, a lot of us started buying up these albums, and playing randomly whatever we thought people would like, and dance too. It wasn't ROCK. It wasn't R&B. It wasn't JAZZ. What it was, was an AFRICAN music style called "Highlife."

OSIBISA was formed in 1969 by three Ghanaian and three Caribbean musicians in London, England.The band's percussive influence began to manifest itself within the music of their contemporaries. The OSIBISA poly-rhythms and percussive breaks were an integral part of the DISCO boom that was at hand. OSIBISA'S unique fusion of African, Carribean, R&B, Latin,Rock and Jazz paved the way for other artists to come to the big show. MANU DIBANGO and "SOUL MAKOSSA" comes to mind instantly.They could be the grandfathers to BOB MARLEY, THIRD WORLD, The T-CONNECTION and the emergence of African Music in the 1980s.

The Ghanaian founding members of OSIBISA are TEDDY OSEI, SOL AMARFIO and Teddy's brother, MAC TONTOH. They were seasoned members of the Accra "highlife" scene before they moved to London to launch their attack on the world music scene. The other founding members were SPARTUCUS R,a Grenadian; ROBERT BAILEY from Trinidad; WEDAL RICHARDSON from Antiqua; and LOSISI AMAO from Nigeria.

OSIBISA'S work was highly danceable. A fair comparison would be EARTH,WIND and FIRE from the USA, only with a "World Flair". Both groups featured highly complicated and sophisticated dance music with AFRO-CARRIBEAN bass-drum grooves and dynamic horn charts. Both groups could be criticized as "Insipid Disco" on titles which seek a more commercial appeal. OSIBISA classified their music as "AFRO ROCK". They originally favored instrumentals which were heavily interfaced with African chants and percussions as well as an organized horn section. All this underpinned with an aggressive bass line.

Their distinctive album covers were works of art. They featured Flying Elephants and hidden entities in their cartoonish art work. Their first four albums all found their way into New York City DISCOS. As early as 1972, Francis Grasso was playing "Music for Gong Gong" and "Wango Wango". Soon "Ana Bo 1" and "Move Up" joined the rotation. When other New York Area deejays found out, and Francis tried to keep it to himself, they too went out and acquired copies of OSIBISA,WOYAYA and HEADS, the first three OSIBISA albums. By 1973 the legend had grown, and two more albums, THE BEST OF OSIBISA and SUPERFLY TNT(Soundtrack) appeared on the scene.

Lovers of DISCO should go out and at least listen to our roots!! Today, the surviving members of OSIBISA are still playing, and touring in Europe and in Africa. I am no biographer, but we should acknowledge this pioneer group.