N°128 Dr. Alban

If you are old enough to have experienced the 90’s music era, you probably know who the Swedish-Nigerian musician Dr. Alban is. 

Alban Uzoma Nwapa  was born in the year 1957 in south-eastern Nigeria, to a middle class Igbo family. He was one of 10 children.  

At age 23, he went to Sweden to study dentistry. To finance his studies, Alban became a DJ at nightclubs in Stockholm. It was lucrative for him because he became widely known in the scene for singing to the songs he put on the turntable. Alban finished his studies and opened his own dentistry practice, keeping his DJ-ing as a side job.

He laid aside his dentist’s drill to follow his music dream after meeting the legendary music producer Denniz Pop (Nordic Art Sunday n°62). Together with Denniz and Rap-Queen Leila K, they made Albans first record, Hello Africa. It was a declaration of love for his African home and it broke all records and sold roughly 1 million copies world-wide.

One year later, this success was surpassed by the second album One Love. Which included the smash hits It’s My Life and Sing Hallelujah! The album immediately sold over 1.7 million units and made dr. Alban a 90’s superstar. 

It is hard to keep up with such a massive success but Dr. Alban did have some success following One Love but nothing that came close to matching it. In total he has sold over 5 million albums and 6 million singles He is still active today at the age of 65 and lives in Stockholm.

Click here for Dr. Alban on Spotify

Click here for Dr. Alban’s official website

Click here for Dr. Alban on Instagram