Various artists – Doing it in Lagos album review: the sound of 1980s Nigeria

A lot of the excavations around African music involve deep dives into the 1960s and 1970s, but national or city scenes didn't suddenly cease to operate once the 1980s began. This compilation from Soundway heads to the largest city in Nigeria to divine the sound of Lagos groovers as that decade got underway. The country's economy was in good shape on the back of oil finds and a sense of democratic stability and, just as in decades past with Fela Kuti and company, many of the country's music-makers were tuning into influences from much further afield. This time, Nigerian producers and singers swapped their Afrobeat roots for more cosmopolitan and glitzy pop threads. Tracks such as Don't Stop That Music from Sony Enang, Godfrey Odili's Let's Do More Music and Livy Ekemezie's Holiday Action are the sounds of the international crowd, tracks which would sound as much at home on radiowaves and dancefloors further afield as they did in Lagos. A fascinating document of Nigeria's new pop dreamers. soundwayrecords.com