The year 2020 will not be forgotten in a hurry. A leap year ushering in the Covid-19 pandemic which has claimed millions of lives globally and has left the world’s economy in tatters.
If any industry is almost exempt from the decimating effect of Covid-19, it would be Nigeria’s expanding contemporary music industry. The qualifier ‘almost’ is critical, in view of the leaps and bounds of growth that Afrobeats experienced in spite of the dire constraint of the times.
Local lockdowns meant restrictions on movement and a crackdown on gatherings. Consequently, there was a massive reduction in income for practicing musicians who rely on performing at concerts, tours and social events.
Davido, one of Nigeria’s Afrobeats stars, cancelled his North American tour for the album A Good Time in March 2020, shortly after the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 disease as a pandemic. He returned to Lagos and began recording songs for his fourth studio album, A Better Time. 
Davido was not the only musician who utilised the time afforded by the pandemic to tap into his creativity. This was the experience of most Nigerian musicians if the explosion of album releases in 2020 are anything to go by.
The year 2020 will be remembered as the year that brought albums back into fashion, the first wave of its kind in about a decade since the zeitgeist shifted in favour of singles. The album, which had all but become an archival vestige, returned to the front burner in either the long play (LP) or extended play (EP) format.
‘Vibes and Insha Allah’ is trendy slang for ‘cruise control’ aptly describing the ‘whatever happens happens’ mood occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also the name of rapper Reminisce’s EP, which he personally produced in his home studio.
Although the death of octogenarian highlife maestro Victor Olaiya in February predated the Covid-influenced lockdown, the death of his younger colleague, Majek Fashek, happened in the murk of it. The deaths of Cameroon’s Manu Dibango, Democratic Republic of Congo’s Aurlus Mabele and Mali’s Mory Kanté hit close to home, leaving big shoes to fill in the ‘world music’ scene.
It seemed timely for highlife duo The Cavemen to release their debut album Roots in the same year a highlife legend passed. Their intimate rendering and reimagination of Igbo heartland guitar-driven highlife is easily the most accomplished resurgence that highlife has enjoyed since Flavour N’Bania sampled Rex Lawson.