He’ is one of the Nigerian most talented Musician, Singer, Songwriter, Poet, and Music producer.
He has toured the world with his Band and Released lots of hit records through the years. The era of Akeeb Kareem was that of Orlando Julius and his Afro sounders, Johnny Haastrup of Monomono, Segun Bucknor and Revolution, Fred Fisher and his Ogiza Band among so many others genius who all created their different styles of afro soul fusion within varying sound identities and Nigerian musical emancipation.
With the help of internet and Nigerian diaspora we refound this brilliant and so friendly 61 years old man in London as evangelist preacher and asked him if we can reissue his fantastic album.
Akeeb Kareem was already recording Afro-Pop fusions for Decca West Africa records. It’ s second official album was produced by the famous Odion Iruoje for EMI Nigeria . The press was limited and really hard to find. This recording is particularly remarkable in that away from his regular outfit-In the first place, the great Berkely Jones, the guitarist who set the melodic pace and structured the progressive path for Ofege, the all-student group that created quite some impact in the 70s, was enlisted into the session. Beckley was also the guitarist for BLO, the three instrumental giants whose pop outfit created quite a star in the country- in the 70s. Beckely was the ‘B’of the group where ‘L’ stands for Laolu Akins, the great drummer and producer who is still around; while ‘O’ represents bass player, Mike Odumosu, who also had a stint with Osibisa. Johnny Wood, the greatest organist on the scene at the time, dominated the rhythm section. Also enlisted were trumpet and saxophone to boost the ensemble sound Tomorrow is the name of the album representing hope. It’s a 9 members session reunited under the name “ super black borgs”. Songs were all composed by brother Akeeb Kareem with psychedelique fuzz & bubbling moog runs , A pulsating, breathless and soulful batch of traditional Nigerian 6 / 8 rythms , soulful keys and inspiring and spiritual Yoruba lyrics.
Compositions that have experienced the typical Akeeb Kareem delivery include Sad memory, Tomorrow, Call me Blackman and the poetic “ Esin funfun” (white horse) and the famous “ Ololufe” wich means my love… Akeeb Kareem that is mode of dress and that of his entire band was in the true African fashion and Afro panafricanism political emancipation movement mixed with European contact always want to spread love , peace and unity ! He identified with the grass roots in terms of compositional themes and live shows. Almost all the musicians decorated and surrounded themselves with African relics of ancient times to depict the images of the band.
He left the country during the 80’ s, his last record out in 84 called Amebo was doing well in the market. It was occupying a confortable slot on the hit parade chart. He created a unique sound, another original afro soul fusion!
