eMusic Review 0
From the late 1960s all the way through the '70s, Nigeria's juju titan was King Sunny Adé, a mellifluous groove master who never let things lay back too much. His guitar playing was as much Jimi Hendrix as it was the extension of a style that was rooted in traditional percussion and had taken shape back in the 1920s. There was something irresistible in that meld; neither the music's grounding, nor Adé's forward-zooming guitar, were ever far from the surface.
In 1982, Mango — a sub-label of Island, a growing international concern — gave Adé his shot at a worldwide audience. Juju Music opened up a lot of Western listeners — everyone from new wavers (in his eMusic interview, Rob Sheffield avers that he heard this album getting rock-radio play in 1982) to folkies to black-music fans, all looking to expand their purview. The not-minor point of Adé being prepped to become a new Bob Marley is less important, in the long run, than the fact that he played as crucial a role in giving African music a viable long-term U.S. and U.K. market (for starters) as Run DMC did in establishing rap.
The biggest difference between this and the… read more »
