Holding in partnership with The NATIVE, NTS, and Numero Group amongst others, each event will feature screenings of ‘Konkombe: The Nigerian Pop Music Scene (1979),’ from the Cannes award-winning, 14-part musical docuseries ‘Beats of The Heart.’ Beaming in on one of the most innovative periods of Nigerian music, ‘Konkombe: The Nigerian Pop Music Scene’ narrates how native styles like juju, Afrobeat and highlife all evolved in step with the country’s social, political and spiritual currents and created iconic stars like Sonny Okosun, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, The Oriental Brother, and the Lijadu Sisters.

Speaking of  working on ‘Konkombe,’  Yeye Taiwo, one half of the Lijadu Sisters, remembers it as a “beautiful” experience. “When they came, my daughter was about 8 months old, and they watched us rehearse in this house you see in the film,” she says. “The house had two floors, and we would care for my daughter upstairs, and rehearse with the musicians downstairs. And so all day, they would see myself or my sister, just walking up and down the stairs… back and forth, back and forth, all day long… holding my daughter. But when we were upstairs, we kept singing and rehearsing, as if we were in the same room.

“I would be coming downstairs holding the baby, and still singing the song with the band, and everyone would be like, “Wait. what, are you still singing the song with us?!”, and laughed. I kept the beat with the band, and kept singing along with my sister although we were on different floors.”

Diana Silman, the wife of the series’ filmmaker Jeremy Marre, remembers the sisters as a beacon of the fight for women’s justice. “Beside being struck immediately by their beauty, the outstanding memory of them is their determination to fight for women,” she says. “Women were not to be relegated to the background of Nigerian society. Whilst they were well aware of the glamorous image they projected on record covers and publicity material, they talked bitterly about the record companies.”

Widely remembered for their forward-thinking music that blended elements of rock, afrobeats, funk disco and soul, the Lijadu Sisters are an integral part of Nigeria’s music history as well as innovators in their own right.

Inspired by the month-long, globally-influential Festac ‘77 festival, ‘Konkombe’ captures the courageous Lijadu Sisters at the center of the wider Nigerian musical movement of the ‘70s alongside contemporaries like Benjamin “Kokoro” Aderounmu, King Sunny Adé, I.K. Dairo, and the Sisters’ second cousin Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti, before they moved to the US as political refugees.

Timed around their birthday on October 22nd, the upcoming events will include a conversation with surviving sister Yeye Taiwo Lijadu, who recently dove deep into the duo’s legendary career, legacy and resurgence in a conversation with The New York Times.

Out this Friday, September 20th, the remastered edition of 1979’s ‘Horizon Unlimited’ marks Numero Group’s inaugural LP/CD release with The Lijadu Sisters, restored in the higher fidelity than ever before, and presenting hits like “Come On Home” like they have never been heard.

The package also includes the first-ever transcription of the record’s lyrics in both Yoruba and English, corrected album credits and original artwork. In addition to this, a redesigned music video for opening track “Orere Elejigbo” is out today.

Featured Image Credits/ The NATIVE.