Sidiku Buari’s journey from Ghanaian sports star to disco prince is surely a peculiar one. A multiple medal-winner at various African athletic championships in the 60s led somehow to a music scholarship at The York Institute in the US where being the all-rounder that he was, he became a fan of and eventually played baseball for the York team. This is where the story becomes even more unusual. One of York’s music teachers heard him singing chants and songs in the Ga language to lift the team up and he suggested that Buari record some of his vocals to a rhythm track and see what happens. What happened was that American audiences loved it and so began a career that spanned 15 albums! This definitely isn’t novelty music by any stretch. Buari put the same drive and effort that marked him out as an athlete into being a successful musician. Working early on with rhythm greats like Bernard Purdie, Salsoul legend Gordon Edwards and production whizz Steve Jerome (Sugar Hill), his sound is both authentic downtown New York and Accra and neither is weakened by the other.
‘Disco Soccer’ came out on Polydor in 1979 and this is NYC disco done as well as it can be done, seriously. This is an immaculate collection of spandex-clad, big hair boogie that never lets you go. It’s late 70s disco as we know it but also not. Enormous basslines, the best disco string sections in the business, the Brecker brothers leading the brass, killer female backing vocals and sinuous all night grooves enhanced by African percussion workouts, call and answer vocal arrangements from Buari and just great songwriting. There’s so much quality disco out there right now but this is a brilliant snapshot of the time, of those glitter ball nights of NYC’s clubland seen through the eyes of an unconventional man. ‘Disco Soccer’ is a party from start to finish so get your lunges in and polish the floor, it’s dancing time!
BUY HERE - https://www.bbemusic.com/downloads/disco-soccer/
Words - Justin Turford