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How to Win Friends and Influence People
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Embassy, How to Win Friends and Influence People >>
It's called juju, the music of Nigeria's Yoruba tribe. A spirited, celebratory form of dance music, it dates back to the early part of the 20th century, but hit its stride only after the end of the Second World War, when Western instruments such as the electric guitar became widely available in Nigeria. For 30 years it has been synonymous with one man. He was born Sunday Adeniyi. He is known in his homeland as the Chairman, the Minister of Enjoyment, the King. Sunny Adé.
It's been over 40 years since the son of Nigerian royalty left school to pursue a career in music - first as a guitarist with Moses Alaiya's highlife band; then with his own Green Spots, the band that ultimately became the African Beats. Through four decades of political and social change, nothing has united the people of Nigeria like the music of King Sunny Adé.
The rewards for his efforts to replace tension with dancing have been many. Adé has for 30 years operated a successful record label, Sunny Alade, that has released over 100 African Beats albums in addition to works by dozens of other African musicians and performers. He has controlled oil, mining and film production companies, employing hundreds of people in his native land.
Moreover, through many a tour with his massive band Adé has earned the adulation of people the world over. On March 30, he will return to Ottawa accompanied by a group of 52 singers, musicians and dancers that will fairly swarm the stage of the Capital Music Hall. For locals, it will be an opportunity to catch up with an old friend.
"There is no place in the world where I don't have friends," Mr. Adé said in a recent interview. "I have been all over the world except for Russia. But one day I hope to go, and I will have friends there as well."
The guitarist and bandleader's friendship with this continent dates back only two decades, as a brief affiliation with the Island Records label internationally increased the African Beats' profile sufficiently to warrant tours of North America. He has returned regularly since 1983; though, he at first found this continent to be a strange and exotic place.
"It was like coming to another planet where you see a lot more white people than blacks," he recalled. "But there's no difference between a man and a man, and a woman and a woman. So I tried to put my music across and they loved it. Eventually, I was a friend to everybody, is the way I look at it. I came out and I had more friends in another part of the world."
Travelling with 52 people ("We were a band; now we're an orchestra") means never being short of friends anyway. But the music of King Sunny Adé, a groove-oriented mixture that houses traditional talking drums as well as innovative additions such as Hawaiian steel guitar, never fails to bring a smile to the listener.
Well, almost never.
"A few years ago I recorded a track on which I introduced a drum-machine," Mr. Adé remembered with a laugh. "That was my first criticism. They'd say, 'What is this? How do you explain this?' But I have more than 112 albums and it was only that particular one that had criticism. Apart from that, they've always liked my music."
An admirable track record, to be sure. Made all the more impressive when placed in the context of an ever-evolving sound that has altered its course (by degrees) on a regular basis. Adé's keen ear for changes in contemporary music may have failed him when it came to drum-machines, but it has also led him to draw inspiration from the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti (even to the point of poaching Fela's guitarist in the mid-'70s) and from dub reggae.
"I don't know how God made it for us to have it," Mr. Adé said with a shrug when asked about his sound. "There's every sound of the world in my music. It's still my particular brand of juju music. I don't change it, but I will modify it; I will phase in new instruments, new musicians, new songs...."
What he won't do, according to Mr. Adé, is use his undeniable power at home for political gain. Fela, as he noted, had his own political party. But when King Sunny Adé gathered African musicians together a decade ago during a period of Nigerian military rule to record The Way Forward, it was not to preach unity, not partisanship.
"The message," he said, "was: Why are we doing this when we know this country belongs to us? There's nowhere we can go; nobody will accept us except our own people. This is your home; this is your country. Let us just sit down and see what exactly we need, and find it.
"What we preach is peace and friendship. No matter where you are, as long as you believe that you want to be friendly eventually people will be friendly with you. When you stretch out your hand in friendship they will shake your hand. That's the way I look at the whole world." 03/23/05
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