Ebenezer Obey

Ebenezer Obey and King Sunny Ade spent the 1970s in the kind of rivalry that actually pushes a genre forward — both refining juju music at the same time, both releasing 2 to 3 albums a year, each one sharpening against the other's latest release. Obey's own catalog, more than 100 albums deep with his band the Inter-Reformers, leaned into blending Yoruba rhythms with Christian themes; 'Board Members' became the classic that outlasted the rest. Born in 1942, he used that platform for moral and spiritual teaching more than most of his contemporaries, and that instinct fed directly into what Nigerian gospel music became afterward. Ade got the wider global reach; Obey shaped what stayed home.