Miliki Music
"Society Sounds of 60's Lagos (re-grooved)"
$13.99 | CD | Catalog #MUL016
Release date: January 1, 2008
MP3s:
Omo Lere Aiye by Fatai Rolling Dollar
An Ki Yin by Duro Ikujenyo
Miliki Music captures the same feel as King Sunny Ade's 'Juju Music" (circa 1980) in an‘indie’ future forward way. Though many of the songs here reference the 60’s style Juju-Highlife, they are all in fact recent recordings, with much pared down instrumentation and a modern, groove-enhanced, production. It also includes songs with more than a hint of Afrobeat, Jazz and Big Band Highlife, to the point where some test-listeners have compared its total feel to that of the new Brazilian-Samba fusion of artists like Seu Jorge.
It was in1980 that King Sunny Ade’s ‘Juju Music’ album became the seminal ‘afro-pop’ release that broke the American mainstream market. Its relaxed groove layered with undulating vocal harmonies and cross-rhythmic percussions invoke a spiritual, yet bacchanalian, grace.
Miliki Music captures the same feel in an‘indie’ future forward way. Though many of the songs here reference the 60’s style Juju-Highlife, they are all in fact recent recordings, with much pared down instrumentation and a modern, groove-enhanced, production. It also includes songs with more than a hint of Afrobeat, Jazz and Big Band Highlife, to the point where some test-listeners have compared its total feel to that of the new Brazilian-Samba fusion of artists like Seu Jorge.
The stylistic and aesthetical precedent to both this and the aforementioned ‘Juju Music’ are the popular 60s Yoruba Highlife music. The tempo is borrowed from the colonial big band highlife and the melodies are from the village Palm Wine Guitar songs, which are then reformatted for the stylish denizens of the new metropolis. The percussions are upped for conspicuous body gyrations and the vocal style follows the traditional call and response whilst borrowing harmonics from Yoruba Church hymnals, which possibly accounts for the moralizing in many of its Yoruba lyrics.
Miliki Music also aims to redress the injustice of oblivion that has befallen the proponents of this 60s Yoruba highlife, particularly the two octogenarians, Fatai Rolling Dollars and Kokoro. The four main featured artists are introduced below.
Fatai Rolling Dollars (Fatai Olagunju) is an 80 yr old Guitarist. Singer and Exponent of the Native Thumb Piano (Agidigbo) who in is his 64 year career mentored some of the most successful musicians of the latter generation, the likes of Ebenezer Obey, and whose compositional styles influenced King Sunny Ade and Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Kokoro (Benjamin Aderaunmu) is an 82 year old blind minstrel singer and percussionist who started his musical career in the 40s, on the street of Lagos accompanying himself on the tambourine (samba) and the Tin drum. He is renowned as a solo performer, recognized for his inimitable raw gritty yet mellifluous voice. However his contributions here are in a trio and quartet settings from a rehearsal in his living-room. Duro Ikujenyo, is the veteran keyboardist for Fela Anikulapo Kuti' s Egypt 80's band from mid 70s to mid 80s. He was said to have produced some of Fela's more trenchant songs. The song ‘Unknown Soldier’ was credited to him. Biodun Ayinde Bakare is the scion of the pioneering Yoruba juju and highlife musical icon Ayinde Bakare. He is a master of Yoruba palm-wine guitar and has now taken up the baton to continue his father’s legacy. His repertoire includes some of his father’s most memorable music from the 60s.
All recordings are from the catalogue of JazzHole records, based in Lagos, Nigeria.