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Global Hit
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PRI's The World, Global Hit >>
King Sunny Ade is the "chairman" of juju. That's the music born of Nigeria's Yoruba tribe nearly a century ago. King Sunny shook it up in the early 1980s. His albums placed traditional instrumentation, such as talking drums and congas, alongside lap steel and synthesizers.
King Sunny Ade has been recording and touring ever since. He's now back in the United States. He'll be performing here for the next three weeks. But this tour is a little different...as we learn in this report from Lisa Nurnberger of WAMU in Washington.
King Sunny Ade has played in the US before, but this is the first time he's performing here in his traditional style.
The tradition involves two parts. The singer does what's called "praise singing" and the listeners spray or throw money in appreciation.
King Sunny says this is usually done at small events, like naming ceremonies and weddings, to honor special guests by singing their name and perhaps a compliment.
King Sunny Ade: "In the traditional praise-singing, it's whoever contributed a lot to the community, or the town or village or country."
But in the case of this U.S. tour it involves hundreds of anonymous fans tucking money into King Sunny's clothing, tossing it as his chest, or sprinkling it over his head.
King Sunny says the tour is an experiment that has so far gone well. The idea for praise singing his way across the US came from three Nigerian siblings. They are triplets, in fact, who live in American and a month ago they flew King Sunny from Nigeria to the US to perform at their 40th birthday party.
The tour began a week later.
While praise singing is usually functional -- to mark a ritual -- King Sunny says he's not really trying to replicate it in a concert hall. The bottom line is he wants his audience to have fun.
KSA: "We are here to play the music. Let the music speak for itself and at the same time let's enjoy ourselves. People like it, so since they like it, let's try it in Washington too. So tonight, we see what it's going to look like."
What it looks like is a big, Nigerian party.
The band members are dressed in traditional African attire -- bright tourquoise and yellow billowy shirts and pants, called sokoto and buba. King Sunny Ade wears black pants accented with red and gold cuffs. In his late 50's, King Sunny moves like a 20-year-old, dipping his guitar and swaying his hips to the beat of the music.
About an hour into the show the security guards start letting people onto the stage to spray King Sunny with money. Audience members are dazzling in colorful dresses and shimmering head wraps. One man climbs onto the stage claiming that he will spray King Sunny Ade with five-thousand dollars. After that, two men gather around King Sunny and rhythmically unfold bills which they toss at him. As the bills hit the floor, they pick them up and spray him again.
King Sunny calls out their names and the Nigerian towns they're from -- information that tells other Nigerians a lot about who they are.
But it's a little boy, dressed in a suit and tie, who gets the most attention. King Sunny praises him for being a fine and handsome boy...
King Sunny Ade: (sings) "Fine Boy! Fine Boy, Handsome Boy, Mongebme."
Taking his cue from the adults on stage young Mongebme dances with King Sunny, who points out that the little boy gains confidence when he hears his name.....
KSA: "That's the style to collect money from a young child with love. Whenever you hear fine boy, handsome boy. His name -- Mongebme. He can feel that his name is being mentioned and into the music himself. Before he was kind of afraid, or scared. But now, he's into the music. One more time -- I say fine boy, handsome boy. Mongebme."
The line to get up on stage to spray King Sunny Ade is long. Some who have already been on stage head to the lobby to eat Nigerian food and get a breath of fresh air. Nigerian Henry Akinyemi, who now lives in Maryland, says the performance has the familiar feel of home.
Henry Akinyemi: "It feels good to be on stage because it's like a tradition when somebody singing like that. They will call your name, call where you're from, your town. It's like your head swells up. You try to spend money to appreciate what he's doing."
Most of the Washington audience is Nigerian. That's changed from the days when King Sunny first started touring the U.S.a couple of decades ago, when he performed to mainly white audiences. Aio Acreola is a med student from Nigeria. While he was growing up, his dad played King Sunny every Sunday. He says the juju legend is simply carrying out a long-held tradition.
Aio Acreola: "Any Nigerian parties around here, you'll find a lot of people just going up and spraying money for the performers so it's part of who we are. Nigeria, United States -- as long as you have a performer and people are happy they will spray money."
King Sunny Ade is clearly aware that when people gather around him to spray money they're blocking the view of the audience. So, he tries to move around and only lets people on stage at intervals. No one seems to mind though, but one man says he doesn't feel the need to spray since he already paid for a ticket to the show.
King Sunny keeps the money. He has an agreement with the band how to divide it up.
Whether King Sunny -- and other performers -- try traditional "African-style" touring again remains to be seen. Based on the response in Washington, Philadelphia, and Atlanta praise singing and spraying may be here to stay. The band will have a better sense when the tour wraps up at the end of the month.
For the World, I'm Lisa Nurnberger. 04/01/05
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