“All Night Long (All Night)” is a hit-song by American singer Lionel Richie from 1983. Taken from his 2nd solo album, Can’t Slow Down (1983), it combined Richie’s soulful Commodores style with Caribbean influences. This new, more dance music, pop-inspired approach proved popular, as the single reached#1 on three Billboard charts (pop, R&B and adult contemporary). It peaked at #2 on the UK singles chart and also Canada, Australia, South Africa, Netherlands
The song lyrics were written primarily in English, but Lionel Richie admitted in the past, that “African” lyrics in the song, such as “Tom bo li de say de moi ya” and “Jambo jumbo”, were in fact his own, made-up dialect alongside much gibberish and not authentic African language. Richie described these portions of the song as a “wonderful joke”, written when he realized that he didn’t have the time to find and hire a translator to incorporate foreign-language lyrics, as he wished, in the song.
