A selection byThe Waxonia Desk
A general selection
Six records from Detroit, Lagos and Accra, offered as one subject rather than three genres. The distance between them is geographic and almost nothing else.
- Picks
- 6
- Years
- 1970–1977
- Curator
- The Waxonia Desk
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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The picks — selected, not ranked
Marvin Gaye / What's Going On
1971 · Tamla
The obvious one, and four decades of broadcasting have made it harder to hear rather than easier. A record everybody agrees about is a difficult thing to keep alive.
Also on Soul, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Curtis Mayfield / Move On Up
1970 · Curtom
Nine minutes of forward motion that works on a dancefloor and on daytime radio, which is a rare combination — and it is the long version that earns the claim, not the edit.
Also on Soul, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Fela Ransome-Kuti & Africa 70 / Shakara
1972 · EMI
Fifteen minutes before the vocal arrives. Programming a record like this for an audience trained to expect a hook inside thirty seconds is the whole problem, and it is worth solving.
Also on Afrobeat
Manu Dibango / Soul Makossa
1972 · Fiesta
A Cameroonian B-side that a New York DJ turned into a disco hit. The clearest single case for the argument this list is making: the route mattered more than the origin.
Also on Afrobeat
Ebo Taylor / Heaven
1977
Ghana rather than Nigeria, and looser than anything Lagos allowed. Much of what reached Britain as afrobeat was highlife that nobody had bothered to distinguish.
Also on Afrobeat
Herbie Hancock / Chameleon
1973 · Columbia
The record where a jazz musician of the first rank decides the groove is the interesting problem. If acid jazz began as a joke, this is the thing the joke was about.
Also on Funk, The Waxonia Desk — Where the Accent Moved, Twice Over
About the curator
The people who write the rankings on this site. We keep the lists honest, we argue about the order, and we get asked the same question more than any other: where should someone actually start. These are our answers.