In 1963, Premier Records Limited was nothing more than a dream housed in a modest building, powered by belief and grit. Back then, Nigeria itself was young, full of rhythm, possibility, and contradiction. The founders had no roadmap, only conviction that African music deserved to be recorded, preserved, and heard beyond village squares and radio static.
Michael Odiog, Premier Records MD
Now, at sixty-three, the company stood at a crossroads once again… The building is older. The staff is smaller. But something had changed in recent years. There was a renewed interest in the past, in vinyl, in authenticity, in the raw sound of instruments unfiltered by algorithms… Young artists had begun knocking on their doors again… Not because Premier Records was the biggest… But because it was REAL.
THE old turntable still worked, barely. Its needle, worn but stubborn, crackled to life each time it touched vinyl, as though it carried within it the memory of every song it had ever played. In the quiet office on the third floor, dust motes floated lazily in the sunlight while Adewale stood still, listening.
Sixty-three years.
That was how long Premier Records Limited had lived, longer than many of the men who built it, longer than the trends it had survived, longer even than the city that had grown around it.
Adewale ran his fingers across a stack of records, their sleeves faded but proud. Highlife legends. Early juju experiments. Protest songs from restless decades. Love ballads that had outlived the lovers who once danced to them.
“This place,” he muttered, “is history pressed into circles.”
But history had not always been kind.
In 1963, Premier Records Limited was nothing more than a dream housed in a modest building, powered by belief and grit. Back then, Nigeria itself was young, full of rhythm, possibility, and contradiction. The founders had no roadmap, only conviction that African music deserved to be recorded, preserved, and heard beyond village squares and radio static.
They started small, recording local bands, capturing live sessions with equipment that hummed as loudly as the performers. Electricity was unreliable. Funding was scarce. But music? Music was everywhere.
And so they pressed it. Carefully. Proudly.
By the 1970s, the label had become a cultural force. Artists came from far and wide, Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu, bringing with them sounds that blended tradition with experimentation. Premier Records (formerly Phillips West Africa Records, Phonogram Records and Polygram Records) became a home for voices that might otherwise have faded into obscurity.
There were nights when the studio never slept. Trumpets cried. Talking drums spoke. Guitars wept. And outside, the world shifted, military coups, oil booms, uncertainty, but inside those walls, something permanent was being created.
“LEGACY”
Adewale had joined the company much later, in the 2000s, when the world was already changing. CDs replaced vinyl. Then came MP3s. Then came something even more intangible, streams floating invisibly through the air.
The old guard resisted at first.
“How do you sell what you cannot hold?” one executive had asked.
But the younger ones adapted. They had to. Piracy was rampant. Sales declined. Studios fell silent. At one point, it seemed as though Premier Records itself might become just another relic, like the turntable gathering dust in the corner.
Yet somehow, “IT ENDURED”.
Perhaps it was stubbornness. Or perhaps it was the same spirit that had started it all: the belief that “MUSIC MATTERS”.
Now, at sixty-three, the company stood at a crossroads once again.
The building is older. The staff is smaller. But something had changed in recent years. There was a renewed interest in the past, in vinyl, in authenticity, in the raw sound of instruments unfiltered by algorithms.
Young artists had begun knocking on their doors again.
Not because Premier Records was the biggest.
But because it was REAL.
Adewale smiled as the record finished playing. The final note lingered, then dissolved into silence.
He walked over to the window. Lagos buzzed below, loud, chaotic, alive. Just like it had always been.
“Sixty-three years,” he said softly. “And we’re still here.”
Behind him, the turntable spun on, waiting for the next record. The next story. The next voice to be etched into time.
*Odiong picking the Association of Music Managers Aof Nigeria , AMAN award for Premiere recently
And as long as there were stories to tell, rhythms to capture, and voices to amplify, it would remain exactly what it had always been:
A keeper of SOUND. A GUARDIAN of MEMORY. A HEARTBEAT that refused to fade.
HAPPY 63RD BIRTHDAY TO NIGERIA’S OLDEST RECORD LABEL .
- https://www.facebook.com/michael.odiong
