An old man in a wheelchair, who had been staring blankly at the stage, suddenly straightened his back. His wife, fanning herself, froze. “Benny?” she whispered.
He was the last of the old-guard DJs in Calabar, a city that danced to the rhythm of two worlds: the frantic pulse of modern Afropop and the golden, swaying soul of Highlife. Tonight, at the annual Mary Slessor Heritage Jazz & Groove Fest , he’d been given the twilight slot—the sacred hour between sunset and the first lantern’s glow. The slot for memory. calabar highlife dj mix
Uncle Ben wasn’t just mixing songs. He was mixing eras . He layered a Prince Nico Mbarga guitar lick over an Etubom Rex Williams keyboard solo. He used the mixer’s filter like a spice, adding just enough resonance to make the old recordings sound fresh, new, urgent. An old man in a wheelchair, who had
“That, my son, is the sound of a river that never stops flowing. I call it… Calabar Sunset .” He was the last of the old-guard DJs
For forty-five minutes, Calabar Highlife reigned. The old people wept. The young people learned a new way to move. The girl with the pink braids found herself slow-dancing with the old man in the wheelchair, his shaky hand on her shoulder, a toothless grin on his face.