Sonny Okosuns, Nigerian singer/guitarist R.I.P. (also spelled Okosun)

Died of colon cancer at Howard University Hospital in DC at age 61 on May 24th. He was best known for mixing Nigerian highlife-like music with rock and reggae. He later became an evangelist and was in the US seeing his daughter graduate, and getting medical treatment.

Evangelist Sonny Okosuns was born on January 1, 1947 in Benin City, Nigeria. With more than 39 album releases to his credit, many of them gold, Nigeria's Sonny Okosuns was one of Africa's most popular performers. Okosuns initially caught the pop music bug via Elvis and the Beatles, forming his first band, The Postmen, in 1964.

In the early '70s, he helped usher in a back-to-African-roots trend with a stylistic mix of Western pop and local highlife he called "Ozziddi." He later broadened it to include the rapidly spreading gospel of reggae. His diversity has kept him from being pigeonholed.

He was featured in Black Star Liner, a 1983 anthology of African reggae, and more recently appeared on the anti-apartheid Sun City EP produced by Steve Van Zandt. His albums typically feature vocals in English as well as his local Ishan language spoken in Edo State.

When the apartheid regime collapsed in 1989, Evangelist Okosuns cut another blazing path when he set the trail in the new blitz called gospel music. The new genre of music from the stables of Evangelist Okosuns who by now had added an s to his surname came in form of an album entitled Songs of Praise.

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