Bookmarks: Fatai Rolling Dollar

Now, that's a comeback: France24 meets Fatai Rolling Dollar, who's not only launching a comeback in his 80s, but also attempting to bring back an entire genre:

Wearing a yellow-and-blue outfit, canary yellow sunglasses and a military beret, he sits in a popular Lagos bar discussing the highlife music that was born in Ghana in the early 1900s and reached its peak in the region in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Highlife features quick, repetitive rhythms driven by electric guitar and wind instruments played beneath a sometimes melancholic chant that typically satirises modern life.

Turning off the music in Nigeria

In protest at the claimed non-payment of royalties by radio stations, Nigerian artists called for today to be a "no music day" on Nigerian radio.

Not quite sure I'm following the logic - if Nigerian radio stations don't pay to play music, why are they happy to take part in an event to draw attention to the problem rather than simply paying?

And since many stations just took the opportunity to play non-local music, the whole thing sounds like a bit of a own goal. Not that the foreign artists would have got any royalties, either. Perhaps Feargal Sharkey could go to Nigeria to help a music industry with actual problems? I'm sure we could spare him.