In the 1970s, Julius moved to the United States, forming a band with Hugh Masekela and later working as a session musician before returning to Nigeria in 1984.

A series of reissues in the 2000s and 2010s led to international touring and a collaboration with The Heliocentrics which reached the Billboard World Albums chart.

Orlando Julius was born in 1943 in Ikole, Nigeria during the British colonial era to a merchant family with roots in Ijebu-Jesa, Osun.

[2] He spent time trying to connect with highlife musician Jazz Romero, doing chores for him hoping to garner enough favor for music lessons.

Okonta's was one of the most popular highlife acts in Nigeria, and together they recorded several songs, performing many gigs, and even opened for Louis Armstrong.

[2] But by then he was less interested in playing highlife than "to put traditional [music] that I started with, and add a little bit of horns and guitar, and then do my own thing".

[4] To that end he formed Modern Aces in the early 1960s and began incorporating American pop, R&B, and soul into the African music he grew up with.

As new kinds of music became popular in the region, Julius formed new groups to keep up with trends, for example the Afro Sounders and the Evelyn Dance Band.

They recorded the albums The Boy's Doin' It and Colonial Man and went on tour, opening for high-profile acts like Herbie Hancock, The Pointer Sisters, and Grover Washington Jr. Over time, he met and played with several prominent American musicians like Lamont Dozier, James Brown, and The Crusaders.

He quickly began recording tracks for the album Dance Afro-Beat, leading him to put together the 18-person Nigerian All Stars band.

Moses Oluwafemi Agunsoye, gave him an honorary title, "Gbeluniyi" and considered him an "honourary [sic] chief".

[11][12] The day of his death, the Elegboro praised Julius as "a very good ambassador of Ijebu-Jesa town, Oriade as a local government, and Nigeria as a whole".