Emeka Ogboh – Ayilara

11th December 2022 · 2020s, 2022, Music

I have never been to Nigeria but I feel as if I’ve spent time amid the hustle and bustle of Lagos while listening to sound artist Emeka Ogboh’s album 6°30’33.372″N 3°22’0.66″E.

The title takes us directly to Ojuelegba, an area around a main thoroughfare of that name, known for its nightlife and red light district (Ayilara) and street vendors and traffic jams.

Using field recordings he made himself, Lagos-born / Berlin-based Ogboh captures the everyday sounds of people and traffic, embellishing them with hypnotic percussive and electronic arrangements ranging from ambient soundscapes to the throbbing techno of his adopted home.

The album is specifically an ode to the area’s bus station, filled with overheard conversations of conductors and drivers of the city’s iconic yellow danfo mini-buses who traditionally shout out the names of stops for their passengers.

We also hear snippets of information in heavily accented Nigerian Pidgin, recreating the experience of travelling by bus in one of the most crowded and chaotic cities on earth.

Along the way we hear about the area’s history, including – on this track – the nearby red light district of Ayilara and intimate details about the bus crews’ day-to-day lives.

It’s Ogboh’s second album, following his equally oiriginal debut Beyond The Yellow Haze, both of them capturing the chaos of navigating Lagos’s streets on public transport, woven through dub-inflected percussion and electronica.

I find it simultaneously relaxing and energising and one of the few records I would play while reading a book.