Hi,
These days, pretty much all we can think about is how our favorite family gospel group from Aberdeen, Mississippi, the Staples Jr. Singers are heading out on their first European tour next week.
But for now, we interrupt this scheduled programming to share some breaking news:
We are releasing an Alhaji Waziri Oshomah 5LP box set!
Straight on the heels of his recently released and critically adored record, Alhaji Waziri Oshomah has a new box set hitting the shelves this Friday: Vol. 1-5 (1978-1984) is a 5 LP set that compiles—for the first time—his complete five-part Volume Series, which features the funky, spiritually potent music that he made during the years leading up to and after his first hajj in the early eighties.
In honor of the occasion, we’ve made a short (and dare we say it, amazing) film for you. It’s called The Celebration, and it stars Waziri himself performing in the small village of Azukhala Ekperi in Edo State, in 2002. We don’t want to give away the whole video, but we do want you to know that the narration was written by Waziri’s own son, Malik, who worked with us on this from Nigeria (gotta love WhatsApp). Here’s the special story behind this particular concert: It was to celebrate that Waziri had just built a new home in town, and it drew a ton of important people from all over the region to honor him. If you have some time today, we’d love it if you would watch it—and be transported back to the dusty streets of Waziri’s village in 2002. We’ve been calling it our Werner Herzog film, which hopefully you will understand when you see it.
When it comes to honoring Waziri, no one really does it better than his kids. That’s why the box set also comes with a copy of The Journey So Far, a 40 page book about Waziri’s remarkable life and career that was written by his own children. Rich in detail, it covers just about every topic related to Waziri, from his taste in cars and fashion to his preferences in keyboards, from his passion for farming to the trial-by-fire story of how he got his start in music.
The box set is out November 4th (that’s this Friday people!). You can order your copy here.
Love,
Luaka Bop
P.S. We should give some credit to the people who helped make “The Celebration”: The voice is from the eminent Abdulmalik Waziri Oshomah, the beautiful opening credit sequence was created by Paul “diddy wah” Diddy, and the film was edited by Savannah on-the-best-coast Weymouth.
