DC Share Revival: Review: Mixed Grill - Cry for Peace and Love (1979)

Rating: 90/100 - Genre: Afro-Funk.

Mixed Grill’s Cry For Peace And Love arrives as a studio project assembled out of Lagos session rooms at the end of the 1970s, produced for Odion Limited and distributed with Decca involvement. Recorded backing tracks were laid down at Decca’s Lagos facilities, then taken to Abbey Road for overdubs, remix and lacquer cutting. At the heart of the record’s propulsion is the bass-and-vocal presence of Ken (Babá) Okulolo, whose career before and after the sessions places him among the working pillars of Nigerian highlife and Afro-rock; his playing here supplies a steady forward motion that the arrangements lean on. The percussive plan is assembled from multiple hands: Gasper Lawal (credited on congas and percussion) brings the multiple-voice approach of a practiced session percussionist, while conga touches credited to Friday Posso and the drum-kit work attributed to Mike Kolins produce the layered groove the band uses as an organizing device.

Beyond rhythm there is a compact set of melodic and punctuating voices: guitar work attributed to Berkley Jones, James Eyefia (and others in the session roll), a small horn cast with Brother Dele, Fred Fisher and Sharp Mike, and keyboards credited to a player named Lemmy; those players arrange short horn hits, tightly strummed guitar figures and keyboard coloration so that the record privileges cooperative ensemble moves over extended single-player displays. Stylistically the album sits between Afrobeat’s rhythmic frameworks and the late-1970s disco/boogie and funk practices that were being absorbed into Lagos studio work at that time; contemporary reappraisals of Nigerian pop from that era place Cry For Peace And Love inside the same moment in which producers and labels experimented with slicker groove formats while keeping percussion at the center. That crossover intent—Lagos feels served up with a polished mix for international ears—is clearly audible when the drums and congas are examined against horn hits and four-on-the-floor propulsion.

The album’s title piece, Cry For Peace And Love, functions as an outward-facing thesis: the arrangement sets bass and hand percussion into a mid-tempo pocket while horns and layered background voices lift a repeated chorus phrase that operates as a communal hook more than as a private lyric sequence. Instrumentally the track places an elastic bass motif at front, supports it with multiple conga parts and a measured drum-kit pulse, and allows short flute or horn ornaments to punct the vocal lines; the overall production keeps the dynamic profile steady so the record can be used on dancefloors or radio without dramatic peaks or troughs.

A Brand New Wayo is the record’s most overt call to movement: it rests on a taut, repetitive low end and a syncopated guitar pattern that sits between highlife strum and disco comping, with conga layers and sharp horn stabs adding punctuation. That arrangement invites long vamps and repeated hooks, which is why DJs and editors have returned to this cut for 7" edits and digital re-sculpts—the track’s structure makes it pliable for club use while retaining recognizably Lagos rhythmic phrasing.

Funky People shifts emphasis more squarely toward groove construction: harmonically the arrangement pares back so that the rhythm section can press the pocket, with short horn motifs and interlocking guitar figures acting as meter-markers rather than melodic expositions. The mix leaves space for conga interplay and kit fills to ornament the ongoing vamp, which makes the cut a durable platform for DJs who need a steady syncopated groove to spin or edit. The track’s repeated frames function as a workshop for rhythmic detail—small percussion gestures are allowed to surface without interrupting the main pulse.

No One Can Rule The World introduces a briefer anthemic sweep through its chorus and melodic phrasing; the title line is delivered as a communal refrain, and the arrangement supports that by foregrounding call-and-answer vocals and horn figures that shape short, memorable hooks.

The album’s closer, Don't Cry Papa, pulls the dynamics down and opens space for more lyrical melody: flute passages (credited to Tee Mac on the release) and vocal harmonies take on a consoling role, and the rhythm section settles into a measured pocket that lets melodic lines carry the emotional weight without abandoning the album’s rhythmic language. The sequence of backing instrumentation and the reduction in percussive density at the end read like a deliberate coda, a moment in which the players move from the danceroom toward a softer register.

Two technical points are worth stating plainly for anyone working through the record in musical detail: the first is the way the rhythm section is built from overlapping percussive voices—drum kit plus multiple congas and auxiliary percussion—which creates polyrhythmic interplay as the album’s organizing device and allows horns and keys to function primarily as color and punctuation. The second is that the finishing work at Abbey Road, where overdubs and final mixes were executed, makes the record sound like a Lagos take refined for export; the Lagos tracking supplies drive and immediacy, and the London work supplies a level balance and clarity that was meant to make the grooves travel.

Biographically, Mixed Grill is not a single, continuous touring unit with a long catalogue but a session-name: the LP gathers seasoned Lagos players who passed through established studios and who also worked with other acts. Many of the participants—most visibly Ken (Babá) Okulolo and Gasper Lawal—went on to distinct careers and have separate discographies and projects, and modern reappraisals from compilers and labels have treated the LP as part of a Lagos-era cluster of records that were assembled by producers with export ambitions.

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Monday, October 6, 2025

Review: Mixed Grill - Cry for Peace and Love (1979)

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