Orlando Julius & The Heliocentrics at Pardon, To Tu

About

Orlando Julius (born Orlando Julius Aremu Olusanya Ekemode, 1943) is a Nigerian musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is credited as one of the first musicians to fuse US R&B into traditional highlife music, creating his own influential Afrobeat sound during the mid-‘60s.

He is one of the founding fathers of Afrobeat. Orlando Julius changed the musical landscape in Lagos with his ‘Super Afro Soul’ 10” in 1966 fusing highlife, R’n’B, calypso and jazz. Later, during the ‘80s, he co-composed ‘Going Back To My Roots’ for Lamont Dozier. Signing to Strut in 2014, OJ collaborated with The Heliocentrics for the future Afrobeat opus, ‘Jaiyede Afro’.