Typically, when the big-name music and instrument mags publish annual lists of top players, musicians not based in the West are rarely included. Such oversight seems particularly unusual given the number of brilliant trumpeters and pianists coming out of Cuba, or the supremely gifted guitarists all over West Africa. Could a list of ax technicians be truly world-class without, say, Mali’s Ali Farka Toure or Djelimady Tounkara, Senegal’s Jimi M’Baye or Nigeria’s King Sunny Ade? It’s enough to make you think the old xenophobia debate is stalled somewhere in the early ‘80’s, well before world music became a viable force in the recording industry.

Fortunately for us, Ade – the veteran bandleader who made an international splash with a Yoruban highlife offshoot called juju music two decades ago – has enough name recognition to tour the States. Word ha it that we owe this trip to a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence: Some Nigerian-born doctors brought the African Beats to the U.S. earlier this month to party in Atlanta. This weekend, Ade is throwing a Nigerian version of Youssou N’Dour’s annual late-night Great African Ball and then paring his hypnotic funk brew down for an acoustic show. Instead of devoting the Ball exclusively to Yoruban flavor, the funk of Nigeria’s Igbo people will be represented by highlife progeny Prince Obi Osadebe, whose dad, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, recorded hits in his homeland that actually outshone Ade’s back in the day.

-K. Leander Williams