Ojinga’s Own

Formed in 1971 and still going strong with Eze Rockcliffe remaining at the helm, Yoruba Singers were first among equals in defining the sound of newly independent Guyana. Based in the capital Georgetown and pointedly taking their name from the Nigerian tribe, they gleefully pillaged the polyglottal inheritance of the country’s substantial African and Caribbean diaspora.

Newly remastered for vinyl and digital release by UK-based Soundway Records, Yoruba Singers’ 1974 long-playing debut, Ojinga’s Own, is a veritable musical melting pot into which are poured liberal quantities of traditional Guyanese folk music, calypso and steel-band accents from Trinidad and Tobago, echoes of Cuban Obeah and Jamaican rocksteady and roots-reggae, all laced with splashes of jazz funk.

Against a steady bedrock of uncomplicated flute and drum patterns, Ojinga’s Own sounds like an idea and a sound coming into focus. Despite its rawness and a certain raggedness, there’s much in this album already pointing towards greater sophistication from the Yoruba Singers. Take the steady walking rhythm of the title-track that blooms into an animated flute fantasia. Or the riotous free experimentation of ‘Uncomprehensidensible Radio-Matic Woman’, the tongue-in-cheek hymning of ‘Massacura Man’ and the infectious, laidback reggae underpinning of ‘G.o.–Go’ and ‘Woman a Dead Ya Fuh Man’.

Greater things were to follow Ojinga’s Own, but good to have this debut available again in such superior sound.