This may not appeal to a lot of Nigerians today, but I feel the very early Reggae influences in Nigeria, were great, very soul stirring. It's very different from today's Nigerian artists, who try their very best to mimic American rap artists. They're good, but they lack the depth, soul and acoustics of our early pioneers. Perhaps it also has a lot to do with the fact all the instruments used today are all computer-generated, and not the real thing!

Here are some of our early pioneers, feel free to add more as you see fit:

Bongos Ikwue - Still Searching.
Bongos Ikwue - Mariama.
Bongos Ikwue - What's Gonna Be's Gonna Be.
Bongos Ikwue - Woman Made The Devil.

Cloud 7 - Beautiful Woman.

Sonny Okosun - Mother And Child.
Sonny Okosun - Fire In Soweto.

Jide Obi - Kill Me With Love.
Jide Obi - Tales By Moonlight (Soundtrack).

Oby Onyioha - I Wanna Feel Your Love.
Oby Onyioha - Wait For Me.

Chris Mba - Baby Don't Cry.

Founders 15 - Be My own.

Christy Essien Igbokwe - Seun Re Re.
Christy Essien - Ever Liked My Person?

Tera Kota - City Called Sodom.

The Cloud 7 song was particularly poignant - a lot of guys that wronged their wives / girlfriends used to play "Beautiful Woman", seeking forgiveness!

Songs that passed a clear message, and inspired the soul. Some of us probably grew up with these messages forming the basis of how we interracted with others, and treated our neighbours / spouses. 

Joe nez - Business trip

^^^ That's a new one to me, will Google it, or search on Youtube.

On seeing the thread title, I thought I'll be seeing names like The Mandators, Ras Kimono, Orits Wiliki, Majek Fashek etc.

Christy Essien Igbokwe, Sonny Okosun, Chris Mba and the other peeps you have mentioned may have influenced Raggae but they didn't do/sing/play raggae music. . .their music was more of highlife IMO.

semid4lyfe:

On seeing the thread title, I thought I'll be seeing names like The Mandators, Ras Kimono, Orits Wiliki, Majek Fashek etc.

Christy Essien Igbokwe, Sonny Okosun, Chris Mba and the other peeps you have mentioned may have influenced Raggae but they didn't do/sing/play raggae music. . .their music was more of highlife IMO.

The artists you've mentioned were Nigerian Reggae artists, but came into the industry relatively late.

Cloud7 was a Reggae influence, from the early '70's. The others I've listed were also Reggae artists, interspersed with African Highlife, which made it all the more appealing. You see, I'm pretty old skool.

Feel free to feed me more ideas - I will ammend the list accordingly.