Calabar Highlife Dj Mix __top__ May 2026

His nephew, little Etim, watched from behind the speaker stack, wide-eyed. “Uncle, the laptop is dead.”

He dropped Dame Patience Umo Eno’s “Inyanga Nka.” The Ibibio lyrics washed over the crowd like a prayer. Men in suits loosened their ties. A fish seller from Watt Market closed her eyes and sang along, her voice lifting above the speakers. She was sixteen again, dancing at the May Day carnival.

Uncle Ben ignored her. He slid the first CD into the deck. It was a burnt disc, labelled in faded marker: CALABAR HIGH LIFE – THE ROYAL MIX ‘04 . calabar highlife dj mix

Rex Lawson’s “Yellow Sisi” began to play. Not the original, but a rare, extended club edit that only DJs in the old Calabar Hotel poolside knew. The tempo was unhurried, the guitar line a shimmering heat haze.

Uncle Ben twisted the EQ, cutting the bass, letting the high-hat sizzle. He brought in the second deck. Victor Olaiya’s “Omopupa” merged with the first track, the percussion locking in a conversation that hadn’t been heard in twenty years. The bassline was a lazy crocodile, sliding through the muddy waters of the Calabar River. His nephew, little Etim, watched from behind the

The generator coughed black smoke twice, then fell silent. That was the first sign that Uncle Ben’s night wasn’t going to plan.

Uncle Ben ejected the silver disc, blew a single grain of dust off its surface, and smiled. A fish seller from Watt Market closed her

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.