Jùjú music

Jùjú is a style of Nigerian popular music, derived from traditional Yoruba percussion. The name comes from a Yoruba word "juju" or "jiju" meaning "throwing" or "something being thrown." Juju music did not derive its name from juju, which "is a form of magic and the use of magic objects or witchcraft common in West Africa, Haiti, Cuba and other South American nations." It evolved in the 1920s in urban clubs across the countries, and was believed to have been created by AbdulRafiu Babatunde King, popularly known as Tunde King. The first jùjú recordings were by Tunde King and Ojoge Daniel from the same era of the 1920s when Tunde King pioneered it. The lead and predominant instrument of Jùjú is the Iya Ilu,"' talking drum.

Some Jùjú musicians were itinerant, including early pioneers Ojoge Daniel, Irewole Denge and the "blind minstrel" Kokoro.

Afro-juju is a style of Nigerian popular music, a mixture of Jùjú music and Afrobeat. Its most famous exponent was Shina Peters, who was so popular that the press called the phenomenon "Shinamania". Afro-juju's peak of popularity came in the early 1990s.

Juju Music

Juju Music is the 1982 major label debut of Nigerian jùjú band King Sunny Adé and His African Beats. It represented the first worldwide release for Adé, who was already established in his native Nigeria as its "biggest musical draw and juju music's reigning monarch". The album was a critical and commercial success, peaking at #111 on Billboard's "Pop Albums" chart.The New York Times, which described the album in 1982 as "the year's freshest dance-music album", credited it in 1990 with having launched the "World Beat movement in the United States". In its review, Allmusic indicates that the album gave Adé "unprecedented exposure on the Western market and introduced a slew of music lovers to the sounds of Afro-pop", concluding that it "should not only be the first-disc choice for Ade newcomers, but for the Afro-pop curious as well.

Background

In the early 1980s, when Island Records approached Adé about releasing his material internationally under its Mango Records imprint, the musician was already a star in his native Nigeria, with his own record label, his own nightclub to host his performances and a track record of releasing three or four albums a year. When Adé agreed, he was teamed with Martin Meissonnier, a French record producer who advised that the typical long song structures of Nigerian music would not work for Western audiences. Accordingly, Adé divided a number of his Nigerian hits for international release, a task he found unchallenging. He later explained that "In Nigeria, we got used to non-stop recording, about 18 to 20 minutes of music. But over here, the music should be track-by-track for the radio and the dance floor. It's like making a dress. One by one, the different pieces are joined together, but you can still see the lines where they meet".