King Sunny Ade and his Afrobeat orchestra on tour (and on disc)

i agree aura > synchro system, tho it was received poorly at the time in the uk and sold poorly, hence island's quitting the project iirc

the uk constituency for "world pop" in the mid-80s (not that it was called this yet) was often shamingly authenticist and often actually quite patronising in its attitudes -- and i think KSA's filt-tilt exploration of the potential of the most up-to-date new-pop studio tech distressed this crowd w/o finding crossover support elsewhere. it's a pity bcz i think there was a fruitful tension between the collective rhythm-base of juju and the digital clocktime precision of how the studio tech tended to understand its cuts and edits -- i wish he'd been able to explore it more deeply

have been trying to fill out my KSA collection and ordered one of the earlier LPs on discogs. seller sent the wrong disc by accident. so i got this instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt5aKIhzgfo&feature=emb_title

it's ... so fucking awesome.

sry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt5aKIhzgfo

uncle toye ajagun "vol. 3" 1976

a lot more low end on the LP than here btw

Don't know that name but like his juju in the video

Total newbie here. Picked up "Bobby" on a chance and it's really hitting the spot for a mellow yet uplifting listen. Feel like I could leave it on loop forever and not get tired of it. Where should I go next?

Perhaps try some of the other albums from around that era. I’m particularly partial to ‘Explosion’ (that and ‘Bobby’ are my go-to picks) but ‘Iyinle Odu’, ‘Ajoo’ and ‘Togetherness’ are also great albums from that time. The only issue is that it can be difficult to keep them separate in yr head.

Thanks Tim F - I'll seek out "Explosion" once "Bobby" runs its course (that could be a while yet!).

Fela documentary on BBC2 today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pr2n

folks: vols. 9 & 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7vZ5yzYboA&

meant to post here the other day and forgot. haven't read the thread (will do so eventually) but wanted to chime in with my preference for the "african beats" records, vols. 7 and 9 & 10 (released i think as a 2xLP). those and the green spot band "master guitarist" series 1-6 are my favorite KSA. reverb-drenched guitars, hypnotic unison vocal lines, and dense percussion grooves that link multiple tunes over a side-long track: that to me is the essential king sunny. i do like the stuff on island / mango, of course

these sides just seem to go on forever. and the chiming, cascading guitar lines ... just straight into my veins please, yes, don't care if the guitars are out of tune tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLDSHSjfTas

I feel like the sunny ade thread should have a “NO FELA” sign like the “no stairway” sign in Wayne’s World.

I for one I’m happy I was alerted to this doc this way - in which KSA was namechecked btw, so full circle

fwiw, I never heard the guitars as "out of tune," I just kinda assumed they were not in just temperament and probably tuned by ear closer to the way the instruments in the precursors of juju music were

I'll forever praise the wonderful bout of enthusiast record collectors' Blogspot-site vinyl rips in '08 or so - I discovered Adé's African-made records that way. I was not bowled over by 'Juju Music' but these side-long jams I totally got down with it. 'Bobby' is my go-to album too, closely followed by this one: https://groovemonzter.blogspot.com/2009/01/king-sunny-ade-private-line-side-one.html

One of these days I'm finally going to check out 'Aura'. I've heard good things about that one.

xp to man alive, i'm talking specifically about the guitars on vol. 7 and in a few other select spots. to my ears there's definitely something going on that isn't sitting right, but that's not something i hear in all of KSA by any means

otm re: blogspot era

I was at the Musical Instruments Museum in Phoenix (highly recommended) a couple years ago with my parents and it has a display of one of KSA's outfits and a blurb about him. My mom is a total square and not into music more than the average person so I was pretty surprised she knew who he was. I guess then he did have a brief moment in the international spotlight before my time.

another favorite that i first came across in the blogspot years:

Vol 4 Late General Ramat Muritala Mohammed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iON5zP-wnAY

great fuzz @ 22:47 !

whoa yeah! and the wah-wah before that likewise!

i'm here to ask ilxors if they would be interested in / post in a thread devoted to juju / yoruba music.

or whether there's already a suitable thread for the purpose of posting youtube rips of uncle toye ajagun, admiral dele abiodun, prince adekunle, choice KSA deep cuts, etc

Um yeah, I totally would

Chief Ebeneezer Obey, chief stephen osita osadebe etc.

One of the stupidest things among many stupid things I did in college was to take an Africa in WWII class, do badly in it, and then, for my final paper, try to write about juju roots and palmwine music in wwii, a subject for which there were almost no sources available whatsoever, even from ILL. I think I walked away with a D in that class. I was really not in my right mind at times.

Sorry about the grade, and you not thinking about how hard it would be, but I like the idea.

But yeah a juju thread would be ok

Did the juju/yoruba thread ever get off the ground? No results from my searches. I'd be very happy to get some 'if you like KSA you'll like this' recommendations.

no idea. the highlife/igbo (but not just that) thread has seen a significant revival in the past 24 hours however!

https://www.elderscornermovie.com/

I liked this Elders Corner film doc on old school Nigerian musicians (which I have touted on other threads)

It has juju and afrobeat and highlife

Thanks. Will dig in. How would you define Sunny Ade's sound (and Chief Ebeneezer...)?

Is it juju?

both juju, yes, though I find distinguishing between juju, highlife, and palm-wine fairly difficult, even more so once western/afrobeat influences start showing up. people with a better ear for rhythm & percussion patterns might be better at it than I am

Thanks. I feel the same - I don't really have the vocabulary, which is why I asked. I associate highlife with The Bhundu Boys. Back in the 80s I found much more to enjoy in the complex rhythms of Sunny Ade. I didn't know that palm-wine was a genre.

never started it, will think about doing that this week, or go ahead and make one yourself!

The Bhundu Boys ? That's an interesting confusion. The rhythms are very different. I guess it shows how unknown the Zimbabwean body of music remains.
Palm wine music is more traditional. Juju is more hypnotic and celebratory. Highlife is more funky and melancholic and has rumba-style guitar.

I mentioned the Bhundu Boys only because we were talking about different threads on ILM and how some juju had somehow made it onto the highlife thread. I then noticed there was some discussion above about having a devoted thread, which I've since started.