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Alban Nwapa grew up listening to Fela Kuti
and James Brown. At age 23, he began studying dentistry. In
order to be able to finance his university studies, Nwapa
started making his own music. During this time Alban worked as a
DJ in the well-known Stockholm club 'Alphabet Street'. Very
quickly his name became widely known, especially since Alban
often sang to the records he put on the turntable as a DJ. DJ
René couldn't help but notice him and so he was discovered.
Alban finished his studies and even opened his own dentistry
practice, keeping his disk jockeying as a lucrative sideline.
In 1990, he met Deniiz Pop from the SweMix label. Together with
Denniz and Rap-Queen Leila K, his first record, "Hello
Africa" - his declaration of love for his African home -
broke all records. Alban Nwapa took the stage name Dr. Alban, a
nod to his dental studies. His debut album Hello Africa sold
roughly 1 million copies world-wide.[citation needed]
One year later this success was surpassed by the second album
One Love. 1.6 million singles of the song "It's My
Life" were sold (the single was even used as background
music for a Tampax advert). It was #1 in the Netherlands, Israel
and Germany and #2 in the UK. The following single "One
Love" was #5 in Israel. The album immediately sold over 1.7
million units. Then followed the albums Look Who's Talking and
Born In Africa. All in all, Dr. Alban has racked up world-wide
sales of over 5 million albums (1994) and over 6 million singles
(1994), which resulted in 7 times Silver, 30 times Gold and 30
times Platinum. His hit single "No Coke" was used to
illustrate an anti-drugs campaign in Sweden. The single
"Sing Hallelujah" reached #5 in Israel.
After a re-release of "No Coke", Dr. Alban has
succeeded to hit the top10 charts worldwide with all of his
following singles. Countries like, Sweden, Norway, Finlad ,
Denmark, Belgium. France. Russia. Austria , Switzerland, Greece
, Turkey, Spain, Italy, to name a few.
He created his own record company Dr Records on which he
released Born in Africa, the first CD recorded completely in his
Dr Records studios. He had production credits on projects by
artists such as La Cream and Daddy Showkey.
More recently, his voice was featured on Sash!'s single
"Colour The World". After one year of silence he came
back with a new track entitled "Because Of You",
followed by "What Do I Do" and a new album, not
Euro-dance related. Alban was very satisfied with the new album
Prescription. Many hands have been involved in making this new
album sound special. There are also guest appearances from Tony
Rebell and Anthony B.
In 2007 Dr. Alban has released new album Back to basics. It is
sold only on the Internet through official website, with
exception for Russia where CDs and cassettes were issued. The
single of this album was Don´t joke with fire . Today, in 2008,
he releases a single with pop-star of the 90's Haddaway,
entitled "I love the 90's". Alban proves that he
didn't forget his fellow artists of the last decade and he
mentions in the lyrics some of the best hits of the Euro years:
"Rhythm is a dancer", "What is Love", "Scatman",
"All that she wants" and, of course, his own
"It's my life".
So stay tuned ...cause this year will be the 90´s year ! Its
time for the european acts to take back the control of the
american music dominance. |