Seventy Years of Nigerian Album Covers – in Pictures

Clockwise from top left: Synchro System by King Sunny Adé and his African Beats; 999 by Olamide; What Happens in Lagos by Ajebutter22; Beasts of No National by Fela Kuti; Roots by the Cavemen; Rockstar Parole by Lady Donli.

By Alice Fisher

Opemipo Aikomo is a self-taught digital designer based in Lagos, Nigeria. He started out making posters at university and it was an early attempt to create a magazine that sparked his interest in Nigerian albums. “I struggled to piece together a story about the history of Afrobeats, but in the process I got interested in the designers creating cover art for what is now a big cultural export,” he says. Working with the makers’ collective Wuruwuru, Aikomo created Album Cover Bank, a digital archive of album artwork reaching back to the 1950s. Aikomo personally loves the recent output – such as artist Funto Coker’s design for Roots – but Cover Bank is about much more than art, he says. “Every album cover is a story, and this is an archive of thousands of stories waiting to be told.”

Insert Project Name by Aylo, designed by Svstw, 2017.

Subaru Boys: Final Heaven by Cruel Santino, designed by Upson Martin., 2022.

Nativeworld by Native Sound System, designed by Sinalo Ngcaba, 2022.

Beasts of No Nation by Fela Kuti, designed by Lemi Ghariokwu, 1989.

999 by Olamide, designed by Duks, 2020.

The Dread Driver by Desmond, designed by Ghariokwu Lemi Arts Company, 1991.

Synchro System by King Sunny Adé and his African Beats, designed by Lynn Goldsmith, 1983.

Roots by the Cavemen, designed by Funto Coker, 2020.

Danger by the Lijadu Sisters, designed by Robert Stace, 1976.

Eli by FireBoydML, designed by Niyi Okeowo, 2019.

Jungle Juice by Aura, designed by Tony Esemokhai, 2016.

What Happens in Lagos by Ajebutter22, designed by RO the Visualist, 2017.

Rockstar Parole by Lady Donli, desgined by Funto Coker, 2020.

Read the original article on The Guardian.