King Sunny Ade Juju Music CD

King Sunny Ade & His African Beats: Sunny Ade (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Jacob Ajakaye, Segun Shokumbi, Niyi Falaye, Femi Owomoyela, Mattew Olojede, Tunde Demiola (vocals); John Okeumeu, Bob Ohiri, Segun Ilori (guitar); Demola Adepoju (steel guitar); Martin Meissonier (keyboards); Jelili Lawal (bass); Mofes Acambi (drums); Shina Abiodun (congas); Adeyemi Adisa (bongos); Alhaji Timmy Olaitan, Rasaki Alakodun, Jomoh Gbadamosi (talking drum); Gani Alashe (shekere); Michael Babalola (maracas).
Recorded at Otodi Studio, Lome, Togo.
After nearly 15 years as Nigeria's biggest musical draw and juju music's reigning monarch, King Sunny Ade went global in 1982 with a brief but fertile stint on the Mango label. The three albums that resulted -- Juju Music, Synchro System, and Aura -- gave Ade unprecedented exposure on the Western market and introduced a slew of music lovers to the sounds of Afro-pop. Juju Music was the first of Ade's Mango titles and remains the best of the lot. Over the course of seven extended cuts, King Sunny Ade & His African Beats lay down their trademark mix of talking drum-driven grooves, multi-guitar weaves, lilting vocal harmonies, and pedal steel accents; for this major-label debut, the band also chucks in some tasteful synthesizer bits and a few reggae-dub flourishes. Besides classic juju pop like "Ja Funmi" and "Ma Jaiye Oni," Ade and his 20-piece entourage serve up percussion breakdowns like "Sunny Ti de Ariya" and a heady blend of soul, dub, and synth noodlings on "365 Is My Number/The Message." Throughout, Ade deftly inserts Hawaiian slide guitar licks and Spanish-tinged lines reminiscent of Hendrix' "All Along the Watchtower." Juju Music should not only be the first-disc choice for Ade newcomers, but for the Afro-pop curious as well. ~ Stephen Cook
Said by many to be the album that introduced America to "world music," JUJU MUSIC is a brilliant piece of Nigerian pop. The pulsing rootedness of traditional West African percussion and bells meets the tech-psychedelia of electric instruments in a cross-pollination that continues to influence Afro-pop and the worlds beyond. Late-'70s synthesizers spin trippy swirls of outer-space strangeness around blissful slide guitar lines and frenetic conversations between three talking drums as Ade and his army of vocalists warble their happy way through each verse. Call-and-response, one of the true cornerstones of African music, is present in every nook and cranny of the production--one can pick out a distinct dialogue between almost any two instruments at any given moment. Its combination of space-melodies with a heavy rhythmic base makes JUJU MUSIC a Pink Floyd record for dancers.