Alhaji Waziri Oshomah

Since 1973, singer, composer, and bandleader Alhaji Waziri Oshomah has combined deep devotion to Islam and community with his own hybrid Nigerian highlife/Afemai music on dozens of recordings. Oshomah's sound embraces the secular and the sacred, melding local folk styles and pan-Nigerian highlife (from the more horn-driven approach of Lagos to the grittier, more guitar-centered Afemai style of the village of Estatko) with Western and Afro-pop. His lyrics draw on Judeo-Christian imagery while conveying Islamic values in an accessible way. His debut, 1973's Ikkhayeapeya Iyowame,...