Saturday, February 02, 2008

Still on that 80s girl pop


I actually was feeling Mandy Brown Ojugbana back in 1986. For one thing, her debut album was on Faze 2 Records, which was the hip, cutting-edge independent at a time when the traditional big record companies were slowly fading. And Mandy represented my generation with her poppy electro-boogie sound redolent of NYC freestyle. The big hit off the record was her cover of Bobby Benson's highlife classic "Taxi Driver," but there were a bunch of great songs on the LP. This was one of my favorites.

Mandy - "Touch Me"

(Sorry about the two small jumps... I really need a vacuum cleaner!)

Mandy cut another album and then promptly vanished from the scene. She reappeared last year, though, having relocated to Nigeria after almost two decades living in the UK. She blogs here.

Here are some clips from her recent appearance on New Dawn with Funmi Iyanda.

(Oh yeah... Just thought I'd mention that the dark-skinned girl in the red top on Mandy's right is media personality Tosyn Bucknor, daughter of, yep, the great Segun Bucknor.)




8 comments:

dalston shopper said...

This is fantastic stuff and great blog. I do african parties in London and also did some posts of interesting stuff on my blog - links below:

http://dalstonoxfamshop.blogspot.com/2006/10/star-taxi-music-3-1988-south-african.html

http://dalstonoxfamshop.blogspot.com/2007/11/star-taxi-music-5-south-african-black.html

Comb & Razor said...

dalston shopper...

first of all, i gotta tell you: that is a cool name. and it's attached to an even cooler concept! definitely adding you to the blogroll!

hopefully i get a chance to attend one of your parties soon...

T. said...

Man, this blog is giving me the crate-digging bug something fierce. Man are there some good finds on here! Good job...

Comb & Razor said...

hey... thanks for stopping by, T.!

Mandy Brown-Ojugbana said...

Hey! thanks for the props those were good times.A bit heavy on the make up for a 17year old I think!I need to transfer my album to cd I havent heard anything but taxi driver in many years.Great blog by the way.

Comb & Razor said...

you honor us with your presence, Mandy!

no need to apologize for the heavy makeup... when i was in Form 3, all the girls were trying to look just like you did on that cover! ('twas the 80s, m'dear!)

Anonymous said...

Hey, thanks for the song. You wouldn't happen to have "Breakthrough" would you? I loved that song and haven't heard it in years...

Comb & Razor said...

MsMak -

yes, i do have "Breakthrough"... in fact, i was planning to include it in an upcoming mix, but i'll send it to you before that... sometime before the end of the week (not tomorrow, though, so probably Friday).

thanks for reading!