Mary Afi Usuah trained as an opera singer at the prestigious St Cecilia Academy in Rome and spent 13 years touring Europe with artists like Duke Ellington and Deep Purple. She matched vocal chops with Robert Plant performing with Led Zeppelin and blew away the top names on the Lagos scene when she returned to Nigeria. She also broke a few hearts with her killer smile, if some accounts are to be believed. Mary Afi Usuah only released two albums, but she is undeniably one of the greatest female singers the African continent has produced. ‘African Woman’ serves as her legacy, along with the remarkable number of Nigerian female singers she mentored and inspired.
A keen guitarist from a young age, Afi Usuah's advances as a female composer/songwriter made her career unusual at the time. A similar exception came with the criminally underrated Lijadu Sisters, a twin duet who created dreamy soundscapes by singing in perfect synchronization; the same effect is made on Ekpenyong Abasi, with Afi Usuah's vocals reverbing into infinity against an echo of backing singers. She possesses the sultriness of the great African American jazz singers, complemented on most tracks by the kind of slow, dark funk that Sly & The Family Stone did best.
USUAH, Mary (aka
Mary Afi, Afi Usua) (Mary Afi Usuah) [194?, Oron, Nigeria – 2/?/2013] –
composer, songwriter, singer, musician (guitar).
And Now… Make Your
Peace With God – 1968 [sings: “Just a Coward”]
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