NIGERIAN BANDS THAT HAVE SHAKEN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
The Jackson ‘5, The Beatles, One Direction and the Grateful Dead are some of the many foreign music bands that have made good name and fortune for themselves over the course of time. The Nigerian space as well has birthed numerous bands – mainly boy bands – that came up with wave-making hit tracks at certain points. Sadly, many of these bands did not exist for too long mainly due to managerial issues. But we’ll be checking them out either ways; standing or not. This is a work of ITTY OKIM.

KOOLA LOBITOS (1958-1970)
This was a prototype band led by a man who came to be known as one of Nigeria’s and Africa’s most famous musician and composer, Fela Anikulapo Kuti in Trinity College of Music, London. They were known for doing love songs in R ‘n’ B, Jazz, Afro-soul, and Highlife genres. With its powerful horn-driven arrangements and the piano playing of Wole Bucknor, the group laid the foundations for what evolved into the sounds of Afro-beat.
Returning to Nigeria in the early ‘60’s, the band got its new members with Tony Allen on the drums, Ojo Okeji with the bass guitar, Yinka Roberts on the guitar, Isaac Olasugba bursting the saxophone, Tunde Williams and Eddie Aroyewu (trumpet), Tex Becks and Uwaifo with the tenor saxophone and Fred Lawal on the lead guitar.
In 1970 when Anikulapo was in the US, he renamed the band Afrika ’70.

AFRIKA ’70 (1970)
This was the refurbished Koola Lobitos as it still had the same members, leader and still did almost the same kind of music until Mr. Olufela began to write more socio-political songs than love songs. Some of the songs by this band famous for their bluntness in lyrics and oomph in rhythm are Unknown Soldier, Zombie and Coffin for Head of State; after which he renamed the band Egypt ’80. The band was very famous for having notorious concerts; one of which barred them from stepping into Ghanaian soil for life.

PLANTASHUN BOIZ (LATE 1990’S – 2007)
This boy-band had Innocent Idibia, Chibuzor Oji and Ahmedu Augustine Obiabo - whose stage names are TuFace, Faze and Blackface respectively – as its members. These three were college mates back at the Institute of Management, Enugu state. The trio thrilled Nigerians with their hip hop and R ‘n’ B tunes for over a decade and just when they had attained the peak of their career, the three young men decided to go solo and battle the giants of the industry, every man for himself. In years, very little was heard from Blackface and Faze after Faze dropped Kolomental in 2006 which took over the Nigerian air-waves for that year. While Innocent on the other hand has been putting out a lot of amazing hits and he has gotten himself the ‘legend’ tag in the urban music industry. Rumors went around in2014 that the band was back together and several times, the members had discussed reconciliation, but till today, they push out solos and kill their own birds with their own stones.

THE REMEDIES (1997-2001)
Eddy Remedy, Tony Tetuila and Idris Abdulkareem formed this musical group that hit the music space with resplendent tunes. Inasmuch as the band did not stay together for up to half a decade, the massive impact they made in the industry cannot be underestimated. Idris was the first to leave in 1999 just before he dropped Nigeria Jagajaga.

P-SQUARE (2003-2017)
Paul and Peter Okoye, who are identical twin brothers, used to do hip-hop and R ‘n’ B with Square label and in their active years, they released Senior Rita, Do Me, E No Easy, Chop My Money, Roll It, Getting Down, Bizzy Body and Personally to mention but a few. They did songs with foreign acts like Akon, Rick Ross and Dave Scott; mimicking the likes of Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown and MC Hammer.
The duo split in 2017 due to some managerial and personal issues. But whatever it was, it did rob them of their already beautiful repute as Mr. P and Rudeboy (their new names) have no uniqueness or glitter whatsoever.

STYL-PLUS (1997)
The group Styl-Plus (originally STYL) is a Nigerian R&B and pop musical group / quartet. The founding members were Shifi Emoefe, Tunde Akinsanmi, Yemi Akinwonmi, and Lanre Faneyi, the name STYL being an abbreviation of the founders’ first names.
In 1998 Lanre Faneyi died, and Zeal Onyecheme joined the group. This led to the group being renamed Styl-Plus, the "Plus" denoting the new addition to the group. In 2002 Yemi Akinwonmi left the group and the musical band became a trio without adding a new member. Starting 2003, the group had its own record label, STYL-PLUS. In February 2017, it was reported that Tunde Akinsanmi has left the group leaving Shifi and Zeal as the flag bearers of the group. Source: Wikipedia.
Inasmuch as they are still together, much has not been heard from this band in recent times. We hope they are still fine though and that they come back in the nearest future to pick up the baton and begin from where they stopped.

THE 79TH ELEMENT (2017)
Gold is a very precious metal. One of the most expensive and most sought after. It has the atomic number 79 in the periodic table of elements. Nigeria’s favorite World Music, Alternative Rock and Soul singer, Adekunle Gold, named his band the 79TH element to depict their oomph sound and the uniqueness of their kind of music. They are one of the newest Nigerian bands and the future seems bright for these youngsters. We can only wish them the best in their career.