"Oh, jungle music? A lot of loud drums?"

"Some of it has that, but you'd be surprised at the variety."

"All I've ever heard of African music is stuff that gives me a headache."

The man is probably like a lot of Americans who still associate African music with primitive "King Kong" style rituals.

King Sunny Ade might be a revelation to this fellow. His richly sophisticated Nigerian music brilliantly layers fluid percussion, rhythm guitars and harmonious call-and-response singers with Ade's melodic guitar figures and achingly sweet tenor voice. The 10-musician ensemble sounds as orchestrated as it is improvisational.

Madison's uninitiated and African music lovers will have a rare opportunity to hear the real thing when King Sunny Ade performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Luther's Blues, 1401 University Ave. Admission is $15.

Aaron Straight, Ade's road manager, isn't surprised at apprehension about African music, even though juju and highlife music have been available on American labels since the late 1970s.

"Often it's about cultural perspective and perception," Straight says in a phone interview. "When we say something is primitive, we're often projecting onto another culture something that we don't understand. We don't hear the genius and complexity because our minds aren't open."

African percussion is also used to literally communicate language, rather than metaphorically as most instrumental music does, Straight says.

"Most Americans don't know the language or the nature of its tremendous complexity," he says. "The drums and the language are tonal, so they are creating melodic and rhythmic stories. Each talking drum plays one word or part of a sentence."

Musicians from Ade's Yoruba tribe first used the musical language to tell religious stories and later began transmitting an oral history of their people.

Although Ade is influenced by the intensely political Nigerian saxophonist and singer Fela Anikulapo Kuti, his social commentary is more celebratory of nature and humanity.

Ade has toured the United States in the past, but this is the first tour to incorporate the full social and cultural tradition of an African-style concert. The concert will feature "praise singing" and "spraying," which is a form of arts patronage. Audience members offer money to the performer while receiving recognition as the singer thanks and praises them in his singing.

Audience members "spray" or shower the performer with money, by tucking it in a pocket or sticking dollar bills to the singer's sweaty forehead.

"People pay their respects literally and personally to the artist," Straight explains. "It's a form of tipping. In Africa, there's an elaborate form of dancing on the stage with the money. They anoint him with their gifts."

Former President Bill Clinton is one Westerner who has as well. The world's most famous amateur saxophonist has called Ade a "musical genius."

"Once at a concert for dignitaries in Nigeria, Clinton jumped onstage because he was having such a good time, and the moment was captured on CNN," says Dmitri Vietze, Ade's tour promoter.

Those who may balk at the notion of paying more than the admission charge might consider that the $15 cover at Luther's is the least expensive of any on the North American tour. "Spraying" is strictly optional.

"I think people will recognize a rare opportunity to experience something like this and to be part of the music," Straight says. "It's really an electrifying feeling. People are having a wonderful time dancing with everyone, and when you break through to the point of participating by moving on stage with these tremendous musicians, it's an overwhelming experience.

"It's like seeing a great jazz performer after hearing him on a record," Straight adds. "The live performance completely transcends the intellectual. It's not something you can necessarily articulate clearly, but it's something that's moved you."

Like other non-Western music traditions from India and China, Ade's music lacks harmonic progressions. But it brims with modal improvisation and nuanced rhythms. Ade is strongly influenced by jazz and blues, and his guitar-based juju music has influenced contemporary American jam band masters like Phish's leader and guitarist Trey Anastasio.

"If you go see King Sunny, you know you're going to dance all night long," Anastasio has said.

Deadheads may also hear the late Jerry Garcia's style in Ade's supple guitar variations and streaming melodies.

By 1983, when Island Records signed him, Ade had begun to adapt the traditional juju style to contemporary Western styles. He added electronic jazz drum and synthesizer to give the band a more modern techno music feel.

That's quite evident on Ade's recently reissued CD "Synchro Series," which combines recordings from 1982 and 1983. You can hear the transition from Ade's more traditional folk sound to the electronic groove mode.

Ade's innovative style eventually blended Afro beat, jazz, samba, salsa, reggae, R&B and the swooping sound of the lap steel guitar from Hawaii.

Juju music arose from the Yoruba tradition in which men would gather and drink palm wine and tell stories about the culture and sing about the day.

"The most successful ones combined interesting stories with clever harmonies and rhythms that would reference things that people in the community were aware of," Straight says.

Chief Osita Osande, who will open for Ade, plays highlife, a more laid-back type of music that grew out of 1950s British police brass bands and Cuban rumba music.

-Kevin Lynch