[4] Mbarga grew up at Ikom, Cross River State with his Cameroonian father, a timber sawyer, and Nigerian mother, a peasant farmer.
While still a boy, his father inadvertently sparked his passion for highlife music when he brought home a secondhand Philips radio.
But Mbarga wanted to make a sound more like the western instruments of highlife, so he built his own xylophone from dried-out plantain skins and scooped bark.
[5] During the 1967 Nigerian Civil War, he escaped to Mamfe, Cameroon, but his mother and sibling stayed back in Nigeria.
Thus, he self taught and mastered the conga drum, bass and Congolese style electric guitar finger picking.
Joan, Lillian, Lucy, Lionel, and Nicoline are said to be either currently engaged in doing business or working white collar jobs at the Nigerian civil service commission.
[1] Although he only recorded one significant hit, "Sweet Mother," in 1976, which sold more than 13 million copies, Mbarga played an important role in the evolution of African popular music.
[1] He formed his own group, Rocafil Jazz, to perform regularly at the Plaza Hotel in the eastern Nigerian city of Onitsha.
[1] Despite Mbarga launching his own Polydor-distributed record label, upon his return to Nigeria, he and the original members of Rocafil Jazz separated after some disagreements.