Prince Nico Mbarga

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Prince Nico Mbarga (1950 to 1997) was a Cameroonian-Nigerian highlife musician, born in Abakaliki in Nigeria, the son of a Nigerian mother and a Cameroonian father. He grew up in Ikom and as a boy heard his first highlife on a second-hand radio: Taxi Driver by Bobby Benson. His father came from a family of xylophone players and taught him the instrument. Mbarga built a xylophone himself from dried plantain skins and bark, because he wanted a sound more like Western instruments.

Music and breakthrough

During the Nigerian civil war he fled in 1967 to Mamfe in Cameroon. There he worked as a band boy for a Congolese group and got to know Congolese rumba. He became self-taught on conga, bass and electric guitar in Congolese finger-picking style. Back in Nigeria he first had a regional hit with his band Rocafil Jazz with I No Go Marry My Papa. Then in 1976 came Sweet Mother, sung in Pidgin, which became one of the best-selling records in Nigerian music history. With Rogers All Stars the band recorded nine albums between 1975 and 1981.

Influence

Mbarga created a mixture of Nigerian and Congolese guitar styles of his own, with soft vocals and light acoustic melodies. In 1982 he performed in England, known for his glam-rock-style clothes. Sweet Mother is sometimes called the anthem of Africa. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in Calabar in 1997.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• ?Bele