MonoMono – The Dawn of Awareness (Soundway/Tummy Touch TUCH2026CD, 2011)
Joni Haastrup – Wake Up Your Mind (Soundway/Tummy Touch TUCH2028CD, 2011)
I wasn’t too familiar with Nigeria’s Joni Haastrup before this trio of reissues came my way. Still, I’d seen his name and heard some of his music on African compilations here and there, and enjoyed his vocal contributions to O.J. Ekemode’s groundbreaking 1966 album Super Afro Soul. Multi-instrumentalist Joni Haastrup was also a player in Ginger Baker’s post-Cream band Airforce, but it wasn’t until he formed his own group MonoMono in 1971 that he really got to stretch out musically and make his mark. Like many a fellow African, he did so by fusing the musical traditions of his home country with influences from beyond its borders.
1974’s The Dawn of Awareness has a brighter, Hugh Masekela-type swing to it, and like its predecessor emphasizes themes of mankind’s ongoing plight and the need to keep one’s mind and spirit focused on making things better. Guitars, bass and percussion are as out front as keyboards this time, and once again the songs fairly burst with infectious rhythms and uplifting lyrics.
In 1978 came Wake Up Your Mind , credited not to MonoMono but to Joni Haastrup alone, making it the closest he came to a solo album. Recorded in London, the sound is marginally slicker and more polished while the distinctly African underpinnings are unchanged.
Not as acclaimed as many of his compatriots, Joni Haastrup nonetheless played a vital role in helping Nigerian music get its due. In his work we hear the rising socio-political potency of Afrobeat, the more laid back good times of Afropop and the inventiveness that makes this stuff still sound great decades after it was first laid down.
Buy the albums:
- In North America: Give the Beggar a Chance, The Dawn of Awareness, Wake Up Your Mind
- In Europe: Dawn Of Awareness, Give The Beggar A Chance, Wake Up Your Mind
Author: Tom Orr
Tom Orr is a California-based writer whose talent and mental stability are of an equally questionable nature. His hobbies include ignoring trends, striking dramatic poses in front of his ever-tolerant wife and watching helplessly as his kids surpass him in all desirable traits.