King Sunny Adé: Baba mo Tunde (2010)

King Sunny Adé has been recording great juju music for a long time; the earliest recordings in my collection were released in 1967. Online discographies list some 200 releases over the last forty-plus years, most of them available only in or near Adé’s home in Nigeria. Baba mo Tunde is his first release available to a wider audience since Seven Degrees North came out in 2000.

The record kicks off with off-the-charts good talking drums. These tuned percussion instruments have been used by Yoruba musicians for centuries, and they are at the center of the juju musical style. Then the complex layering begins. Drums are joined by Hammond organ, then by Adé’s guitar, and then by call and response vocals. Various percussion instruments keep the groove going, with other layers moving in and out of the mix. Vocal harmonies give way to polyphonic drum solos, electric and pedal-steel guitars trade melodies, and organ stab chords are accented by ringing cymbals, all coming to the forefront, moving into the background, and fading away with impressive choreography.

These compositions are especially long by today’s standards. The shortest track on this two-CD set logs in at 8:53; the longest 31:00. Many are medleys tightly intertwined, with musicians moving effortlessly from one tune to another. Some of the songs will be familiar to long-time listeners such as the new take on “365 Is My Number,” part of the medley on the track “Oro Yi Bale.”

For listeners unfamiliar with Adé, this is a great place to start. Follow up by digging into the back catalog with Seven Degrees North and then Juju Music, his debut for Island records from 1982. As King Sunny says when he kicks off “Emi Wo N’ile yi O”: Let’s Go!

Here’s a video from a 2009 performance in Seattle of “Me Le Se.”