Helen Nkume Young Timers Band
Helen Nkume And Her Young Timers Band

Helen Umebuani Nee Nkume was born in 1943 at Nbiabike Amekpu Ohafia. Though her father was a prominent member of the community, her family moved to the bigger city of Umuahia, capital city of Abia State, while she was still young. She received her education there and while in secondary school she met her future husband, Umebuani Onwuzulike. Their marriage was blessed with three wonderful children.
Helen started her musical career in the early 70s, forming a group known as the Young Timers. They recorded their first couple of Highlife albums for Tabansi, both of which became hits in the east side of the country. By the late 70s she self-produced and released her two best albums: "Young Timers Band" and "Vol.IV", which were pressed in very limited editions and distributed mainly in the area where the group was active, Umuahia and its surroundings.
The music on those albums have a certain progression to them. The "Young Timers Band" LP is mostly still steeped in the highlife mood that distinguishes her earlier work but one track, "Umo Imo Special", stands out from the rest. It's a fusion between highlife, jazz and afrobeat and totally dance-floor friendly - what we would call “Countryside Afrobeat”.
"Vol.IV" has a more defined Afro Funk sound but the tracks "Music" and "Onye Ije" are clearly among the most loved of that Countryside Afrobeat genere. (We'd like to note here that on this last track we decided to maintain its original sound as much as possible. In fact, the production is somehow quite lo-fi, with the music relatively low and in back compared to the up front vocals, a style that we believe was intended by the group.)

By the early 90's Helen had become born again and started performing on gospel Albums, eventually becoming one of the most successful Nigerian gospel musicians of the 90's.

Helen Nkume albums are some of the most elusive produced in Nigeria during the 70s and finding her family has been as complicated as finding clean copies of her albums!
We remember the first time we found her orange album. We didn't know what it contained but something about the cover shouted “pick me up”! We were in a village near Umahia, had no light nor way to listen to it on our turntable but when a cover speaks to you that way - you have to trust it. Once we got back to our room we played it and were happily surprised. Our minds started mulling over the idea of making something special and we started to talk with all our friends, musicians and artists in the area in order to find some info about her. For 2 years though – nothing, apart from discovering that she had passed away in early 2000. Luckily our good friend Austin from The Combats was able to locate her daughter and son in Umuhaia and we were finally able to license the music from them. Sadly, not much material was left, only one very, very damaged picture.