Society & Events
Nightfall On Traditional Music Genres?
There was was a time the Nigerian social scenes were bubbling with rich and dynamic traditional music of various genres. Full African percussions were employed and deployed to maximum enjoyment and satisfaction. Patrons and fans alike droll over each other to catch fun with them and appreciate them with gifts. The artists were living big the status of superstars; the fans also did appreciate them with heavy spraying of currency notes on them at parties. Their LP vinyl records were always sold out in record times. But that was then. The period between 1950s and early 90s, was particularly good for the traditional music stars and their grade. Nightlife was flamboyant in Lagos area. Social circles were bubbling. The stars were dishing out melodious tunes, evergreen tunes that captivated the mood of the time. That was when there was Sakara. The superstars were late Abibu Oki and Yussuf Olatunji, popularly called Baba L’egba, they handed over to Mukaila Ligali, Baba L’epe, Saka Olayigbade and others. There also was Apala, whose main exponents were late Alhaji Haruna Ishola and Alhaji Ayinla Omowura, popularly called “Egunmogaji” of Egbaland. These genres of traditional music dominated the scene in the urban Lagos and Abeokuta areas. From the upper mainland of Yorubaland, there was Adamo from Ijesa/Ile Ife, Osun State area. This was led by the late Odofin of Iperindo, Ilesa, Chief Adedara Arunralojooba, later late Deji Ayankunle of Esa Oke joined. There was Awurebe of late Alhaji Dauda Akanmu Epo Akara in Ibadan and also the Dundun of late Pa Tatalo Alamu in the same Oluyole city of Ibadan.
The Ekiti music blues of Elemure Ogunyemi, the Dadakuada of Odolaye Aremu and Iya Aladuke of Ilorin, Kwara State, the Ewi Ballard of Olanrewaju Adepoju and Olatunbosun Oladapo of Ogbomosho. Also, from Okitipupa and Igbomina areas were Batile Alake and Aduke Eyinfunjowo.
Indeed, Juju, Fuji, Apala, Sakara, Dundun, Adamo, Dadakuada music were among the popular genres of music that originated and evolved among the Yoruba people of Southwest, Nigeria, which extended by cultural afility with the Ibariba and Tapa people of Niger and Kogi States, the Ajase people of the Republics of Benin and Togo, at various times. However, how, and when these forms of music emerged in the Nigerian music scene has remained a puzzle to keen observers. As most of them did evolve from the folklore songs of hunters, Ogun worshippers, Sango worshippers, Egungun festival of the ancient Yoruba people. The tradition and culture of the people encourage singings and dancing. Ijala, Aro Ewi of hunters, egungun, Sango or Ogun worshippers formed the base of most of the sings of the modern traditional music genres.
These music genres came with various brands and rhythms that were unique and refreshing.
Juju genre cannot strictly be categorized as a traditional music genre. It leans heavily on highlife genre with the heavy percussions of the Yoruba traditional music. Even the inverted Afro-Juju of Sir Shina Peters which evolved from the fusion of Fuji musc of late Ayinde Barrister, afro-musuc of late Fela Anikulapo and Juju of music of Ebenezer Obey may not fall into this categorization.
These various traditional music genres dominated their various communities before the advent of highlife, juju and lastly Fuji music. The arrival of Fuji genre in the mid-70s however, totally changed the face of traditional music.
Of particular interest is the dorminant and distinctive role of agogo (gong) in these music genres. Aside gangan, Apala drums, agogo is most prominent percussion among all genres of local music. But now it is almost extinct, as none of the Fuji, juju, apala musicians make use of it any longer
Generally, music in Nigeria has come a long way. Since the country gained her independence in 1960, there have been variety of music genres experienced at one point or the other. Nigerians have since been experiencing different evolving music genres like Sakara, Apala, Juju, and Fuji in that order, amongst others. It is however noteworthy that these genres have defined the music landscape in the country, even till the present.
The pioneering exponent of Fuji genre, late Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister (MFR), a retired Sergeant in the Nigeria Army, practically fused Sakara, Dundun, Highlife, Juju and Apala to form his Fuji. He made the use of African percussions, particularly agogo very prominent.
The many controversies surrounding the creation of this fun-filled genre of music notwithstanding, the huge chunk of the credit goes to the late Ibadan-born Ayinde Barrister. Alhaji Kolawole Ayinla too played a starring role in pushing the genre to national acceptability. By mid-80s, Fuji genre had become a direct threat to Juju music genre. The genre had successfully swallowed Apala, Sakara, and Dundun. It has taken a shade of Dadakuada and Adamo. And with the successful introduction of piano, Hawaii chords, jazz drums and other Westernized percussion instruments, juju genre was pushed to the precipice. By mid 80s, juju music was on the back foot in the social circles all over the country. The first call in music entertainment was Fuji, the second was Fuji and even the third was Fuji. From Ayinde Barrister to Kolawole Ayinla to the young Wasiu Ayinde and later the Bonsue exponent, Adewale Ayuba, who single album, Bubble created unending bubbles in the social circles in late 89 to early 90.
Once Baba L’egba died in 1978, Ayinde Barrister seemed to completely took over his music and fans. He recomposed many of his old hit tracks to a greater success. Alhaji Kolawole Ayinla too recycled late Ayinla Omowura’s music copiously after his death. Note that in these endeavors, agogo percussion was very loud and prominent.
Therefore, from that point on Sakara became part of Fuji. And by 1981 when the Egunmogaji of Egbaland, Alhaji Ayinla Omowura died, Apala suffered a huge loss of verve and vibe. Alhaji Haruna Ishola was becoming old. He too unfortunately died in 1982. From 1981, Ayinde Barrister in his LP tribute to late Ayinla Omowura had consciously taken over Apala and merged it with his Fuji. He profusely used Apala drums which hitherto were not used in Fuji. Fuji had before Ayinla’s death relied more on Sakara drums.
“Apala kan sese de la t’owo omo Ayansola, Akanji Ade mi I”, (A new Apala has just arrived from Ayansola’s son, my Akanji Ade), he sang gleefully after paying an emotional laden tribute to the late Apala meastro. Haruna Ishola was old and weak, so could not challenge the budding superstar from amassing his genre with Fuji. By 1989, Ayinde Barrister had incorporated Bass guitar, piano, and Hawaii chords to his Fuji. This he did, without letting go of agogo. This is the completion of the total taken over of the social circles by that genre. Other Fuji artists quickly followed suit. This period of prominence shot many budding Fuji artists into the limelight. There emerged Obesere, Pasuma, Osupa, Malaika amongst others.
But unfortunately, by the turn of the new Millennium, Ayinde Barrister had started exhibiting clear signs of ill health, Ayinla Killington was becoming inconsistent, Wasiu Ayinde too was becoming complacent, then to worsen the issue all, the downturn in the economy of the fans and patrons started taken a hit. A lot of patrons started cutting social outings as the purchasing power of the fans too became weak. These affected release of LP albums. Sales became commercially uncomfortable.
Currently in the country, aside few tits and tats from few Fuji artists, there is no other traditional musician holding his or her own in the field today. They have gone into limbo. Not even Waka, that can be taken as the wife of Fuji. Both Salawa Abeni and few other distant voices of old have gone cold, either due to reason of old age, poor health or out of outright poor patronage.
The artisans were affected, so also were marketers. But by and large, the public seemed to be the worst for the collapsed of the traditional music genres.
Few marketers spoken lamented the collapsed and blamed it on lack of inventiveness and creativity on the part of the artists, the poor state of the nation’s economy and the sudden boom of information technology. The boom of internet facilities kill sales of recorded LPs, they alleged
Sone prominent record marketing companies had closed shops. Ogo Oluwa Kiitan Trading Stores, Mut-Muksons Records, Sony Records, and several others have folded up due to poor returns of sales.
A marketer told our Correspondent in Lagos that the arrival of various online application programmes where you can download songs free of charge has totally disyroyed the business. He lamented that fans now prefer to go online to download songs rather than buy genuine CDs
He said in the eighties, when an artist released an LP, you can sell 50,000 within the first week of release. But now, the print run is hardly 15,000.
All attempt to speak with the President of the Fuji Musicians Association of Nigeria (FUMAN) were futile. A call to KWAM1 was not responded to. But one of his boys confirmed to out Correspondent that K1 now rely on political campaign to eke out living. He said going through the pains of recording an LP and then made nothing from it had discouraged his boss.
Focusmagazineonline learnt from K1 authoritatively that agogo drummers are no longer available, hence its removal from the percussion base of his music: a critical rhymitic base of the genre being lost.
From Ijesaland, the death of Chief Adedara Arunralojooba had taken out the fire in Adamo genre in the area. Most young folks engaging in the genre are not taken it seriously.
The deaths of many of these prominent artists were the main causes of their loss of prominence. Adedara died and Adamo became a fill-gap for fun makers. So also, was the death of Elemure Ogunyemi, Odolaye Aremu, Batile Alake, Tatalo Alamu and some others. Also, the poor health of Salawa Abeni slowed her down badly at some time. This affected her output both on and off stage. Now the once vivacious a d ebullient songs bird is a caricature of her old self.
Alhaji Kolawole Ayinla is also not enjoying the best of health presently. He has taken a back foot in the trade since 2014. Even before the death of Ayinde Barrister, he too had taken his foot off the cylinder. He rescheduled his social outings to maximum of 4 hours and limited himself to one LP album per year.
K1 too had taken things easy since relocating to his Ijebu-Ode countryside home in Ogun State, Southwest, Nigeria. His last best seller, “Ade Ori Okin” sold impressively, but nothing compared to Fuji Fusion of 1991.
Things took a sour turn with the untimely death of the man who used to set the tone and agenda for the genre in 2010. The death of Ayinde Barrister almost killed the genre. Barrister was a cult hero with huge fans in the social circles. The many unresolved
Fuji genre that swallowed the other traditional genres is on the low gravitas currently. The artists now either mix hip-hop with the genre or go outrightly doing hip-hop songs.
The rush to sing Fuji is no longer there. Rather youngsters wanted to sing hip-hop. Agreed, as a marketer pointed out, there was a time when reggae genre was making serious incursion into our traditional music genres, but with time it melted off.
He was of the opinion that the threat posed by hip-hop was not as stiff as that of reggae back then.
An upcoming Fuji artist in Agege Isiaka Young Barrister affirmed that Fuji genre has come to stay. He agreed that the genre had been facing serious crisis, even before the demise of the father-figure, Ayinde Barrister.
He insisted that hip-hop is a branch of Fuji. He claimed that to sing Fuji, you must be talented. But no talent is needed to sing hip-hop.
A record distributor in Lagos Island told our Correspondent that “save Ayinde Barrister, no one will reckon with Fuji music again. His old LPs are still doing extremely well in the market, he said.
“Life and Death, he remains impactful to his lovers due to his philosophy of life which he preached in all his albums.
“I as one of his fans live Barry music, eat Barry music and drink Barry music. Without listen to him my daily routine is incomplete”, he concluded.
The story is not too different in other parts of the country. The hip-hop rave had taken over the social circles, leaving the traditional genres in limbo.
But all said, all traditional music genres, including Fuji were presently fast losing prominence and preeminent in the social circles. With low patronage and sales, costs were being made, and agogo happened to be the first to go. As of now, there are neither Apala, nor Adamo, Dadakuada, Dundun nor Ekiti blues again. Even the standing Fuji genre relies mainly on old evergreen glory.
(The reviewed version of this story had earlier appeared in our sister publication, www.feferity.com)
focusmagazineonline (C2022).
First published Adama Munu of Arab News
Before Afrobeat, there was fuji. This local Nigeria’s musical imprint is known worldwide, but less is known about the Yoruba Muslims’ contribution to its success. Fuji music is at the forefront of this sound, with its origins in prayer, devotion, and rhythm.
The first time I heard fuji music was in 2010 at my Nigerian friend’s wedding party in South London.
I still remember the catchy upbeat rhythms from the ensemble of tracks that played which were made up of a unique drumming tradition, specific to her ethnic group.
What I did not know at the time was how Islamic spirituality is central to its story.
“Dating back to colonial times, wéré music was traditionally performed by urban, working-class young people to keep Muslim communities entertained during Ramadan nights or to wake them for the pre-dawn meal before fasting”
A pop-up exhibition, Fuji: A Opera is making its international debut at London’s Africa Centre to introduce this unique musical genre to new and old audiences. It will include never before seen archive footage artefacts and installations and highlight the origins of fuji music, and its rich subculture from the 1960s to the present day.
The exhibition’s founder, Bobo Omotayo told me that now feels like the perfect time to celebrate the phenomenal influence of fuji music, how it began and its lasting impact. “Without fuji, there would be no Afrobeats. With London’s huge Nigerian community and close links with Lagos, I’m proud to be bringing Fuji: A Opera to the Africa Centre this summer.”
The exhibition premiered in 2020 the pandemic in Nigeria, and the organisers say it’s the most extended showcase of the fuji subculture today.
The exhibition will display rare instruments from Nigeria that have been played since the genre emerged over 50 years ago. These have been donated by some iconic fuji artists, and will also pay homage to Yoruba Muslim communities on Lagos Island who invented the musical origins of fuji music in what is known as wéré music or ajisari which means ‘waking up for suhoor’ in the Yoruba language.
The Ramadan roots
Dating back to colonial times, wéré music was traditionally performed by urban, working-class young people to keep Muslim communities entertained during Ramadan nights or to wake them for the pre-dawn meal before fasting. This is a tradition that is in the same spirit as the drumming that is often played on the streets of Istanbul to wake Muslims up for suhoor. Wéré music is heavily set in providing spiritual messages praising Allah or other reminders that are linked with the Islamic faith.
There are two schools of thought on where the name fuji originates from. One says it comes from the Yoruba word which means to party, and then the second school of thought refers to Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister who said he came up with the name after seeing a poster at an airport advertising Mount Fuji, the highest peak in Japan. Like wéré music, fuji music is largely played using percussion instruments like the ‘talking drum’ or gangan.
Socio-political issues, ethics and historical events are key themes that set the tone for traditional fuji music. Nigerian culture consultant, Jídé Taiwo, tells The New Arab that “in the 1960s, fuji music was only just being formed as Barrister himself was still serving in the Nigerian army at that time. His music then was largely religious-inspired with a dose of secularism, such as records Let’s Do God’s Will and Mecca Special.
The Fuji’s dominance
Musical genres are never static. They evolve to reflect the tastes, cultures and preferences of newer generations and other host communities who produce and reinterpret them. The same happened to wéré music. “What fuji did was incorporate some dance. The traditional track would start off with praises to Allah or Qur’anic references. Over time, fuji artists toned down Islamic references for cross-over appeal, but those who were unashamedly Muslim, would create a dance format on side A of the cassette and side B would be more Islamic,” Bobo says.
The genre evolved to include musicians from other communities, different themes and instruments like the piano and the Hawaiian guitar. Towards the end of the colonial period in the 1950s and 1960s, many performance groups emerged in other cities like Ibadan and Ilorin, the most notable of whom include Sikiru Omo Abiba, Kasali Alani, Saka Olayigbade, Ayinla Yekinni.
Musicians like the London Special, Fuji Reggae and Kollington Ayinla broke through in the 1970s with an eclectic feel while fuji musicians in the 1980s (which is noted as fuji music’s golden era) began using synthesisers with hits like Fuji Garbage and American Special. During the 1990s, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall who worked closely with Barrister became a trailblazer with records like American Tips and Consolidation.
Nigerian songwriter, Beautiful Nubia says: “At the beginning, it was the music of the Muslims…. and then it changed and became a bit faster, at some point, it earned fans from across the country. But it also used also be the music of the poor. The more elitist Yorubas would listen to foreign music or juju music or highlife. And the poor people listened to fuji. But now I think it’s gone beyond that. It cuts across all classes.”
While fuji music’s popularity can be traced to its ‘party appeal’, its emergence as Nigeria’s post-colonial era progressed invited scores of political and social commentaries, not quite unlike what Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat movement was doing around the same time.
“Fela Kuti’s music was only a part of his larger-than-life life (apologies for the pun) because of his never-ending run-ins with Nigeria’s military governments. But fuji did reflect the times as well, perhaps more than Afrobeat because of its reach among the Yoruba people. Each musician made it a point to have a socio-political theme in each of their records. For example, both Barrister and Kollington had albums that discussed Nigeria’s 1983 election and transition, which was eventually truncated by yet another coup only three months later. KWAM1 too released Adieu Awolowo in 1987 to mark the passing of the country’s political leader Obafemi Awolowo,” Jídé explains.
Fuji’s future
Fuji music is still popular among Yoruba Muslims and an overwhelming majority of performers come from that community. Due to the secular nature of the genre, it is often not played among religious circles but “it’s a generally accepted fact that fuji music came from a Muslim background despite its cross-religious appeal. Also, because it’s been successful for five decades, upcoming musicians do not necessarily have to start from the mosque because the skills can be acquired from older performers and as such, that mosque-to-stage pipeline is no longer as important as it used to be,” Jídé tells The New Arab.
This mirrors how American gospel music was the training ground from which r&b and pop artists with Black American heritage emerged, such as the late Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross and Whitney Houston, Faith Evans, Ledisi and John Legend. But today, a foothold in the Black Church’s musical tradition is no longer an expectation or backstory for today’s singers in the mainstream, and this speaks to the changing articulation of what counts as a ‘guarantor’ for one’s musical talent and prospective success.
Today there is very little tension in the articulation of genres like Afrobeats music (which is not to be confused with Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat movement). It is a primarily secular musical enterprise from West African countries like Nigeria with a host of popular artists like Wizkid, Burna Boy, Yemi Alade and Tems. The genre’s pioneers have accrued millions of streams on platforms like Spotify and are selling out some of the world’s largest stadiums. For instance, Tiwa Savage will make history as the first female Afrobeats star to headline London’s iconic Wembley Arena in November.
Earlier in June, Spotify launched Afrobeats: Journey of a Billion Streams, a dedicated site tracking all things related to the genre. Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, Spotify’s Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa said, “There is no doubt that Afrobeats as a genre is here to stay and will only continue to shatter more ceilings. In 2023 alone, the genre will have been played for more than 223 million hours, with streams exceeding 7.1 billion on Spotify. We created this site for both new and longtime fans of the genre who would like to have a better understanding of how and where this explosive sound came to be.”
Fuji music has not made the same inroads as Afrobeats primarily due to its music composition and stage aesthetic.
The typical traditional fuji record is meant for live performances and weddings which is why it’s extensive averaging about 18 minutes per song which is why, as Bobo tells me, “Fuji musicians have never been able to present themselves the way Afrobeat artists do, because the formula is that you record a hit single, you make a video for it, and then you promote it on radio, but it’s hard for radio stations to play an 18 minute single.
“I am really interested to see how the next generation of fuji artists adapt to this cookie-cutter template. If you think about the Afrobeats artists who are sampling references from this genre, fuji music is clearly a blueprint. I think it is a wonderful way of reimagining our past and imagining our future,” Bobo concludes.
The exhibition runs for several days from 18 to 28 August 2023. You can get tickets here: fujiopera.com
Adama Juldeh Munu is an award-winning journalist that’s worked with TRT World, Al-Jazeera, the Huffington Post, Middle East Eye and Black Ballad. She writes about race, Black heritage and issues connecting Islam and the African diaspora
Follow her on Twitter: @adamajmunu
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