Chapter One

With a 1973 debut record floating somewhere between San Francisco and Lagos, Blo were the pioneers of African rock. Fusing the mind-expanding twists of Jefferson Airplane, and the raw psych-funk of Shuggie Otis or Sly & the Family Stone, yet always under-pinned with the relentless Afrobeat of Fela Kuti, Chapter One defied stylistic definitions, and in turn created something uniquely remarkable.

First emerging out of the late 60s Nigerian pop outfit The Clusters, then part of Ginger Baker’s collective Salt, the Blo trio consisted of Berkely Jones, Laolu Akintobi and Mike Odumosu (hence the acronymic name).

Unlike the Funkees and other eastern Nigerian bands of the time, Blo’s sound is dominated by Western rock idiosyncrasies, and on occasion the Afrobeat is reduced to mere traces. Jones’ guitar wah-wahs and screams in a Hendrix-esque fashion on ‘Time to Face the Sun’, while lyrical bias is given to the supernatural (though the words aren’t exactly all that enlightening). Blow later adopted a disco sound, as heard on the Phases 1972-1982 compilation, which assembles 13 highlights from the trio’s long-unavailable LPs.

Chapter One established Blo as one of Africa’s primary live rock acts, yet their fame remained confined to the continent. Blo would have surely been welcomed in both in the US and Europe had the word spread.