Fuji music

Wéré music is an Islamic-influenced Yorùbá genre of music invented by Muslim singers and musicians in Yorùbá towns and cities in southwestern Nigeria to wake Muslims fasting during Ramadan. Toward the end of the colonial period during the 1950s, Alhaji Dauda Epo-Akara and Ganiyu Kuti (Gani Irefin)[2] founded and popularized wéré in Ibadan. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, numerous wéré performance groups emerged within Muslim communities in and around the cities of Ibadan, Lagos, and Ìlọrin. These early performers drew great inspiration from Yoruba sákárà music, featuring the sákárà drum (without the violin-like goje often played with an accompanying fiddle). Notable Lagos-based wéré performers during the early independence years include Sikiru Omo Abiba, Ajadi Ganiyu, Ayinde Muniru Mayegun (General Captain), Ajadi Bashiru, Sikiru Onishemo, Kawu Aminu, Jibowu Barrister, Ayinde Fatayi, Kasali Alani, Saka Olayigbade, Ayinla Yekinni, and Bashiru Abinuwaye.

As various styles evolved, some performers played mouth organs (harmonicas) between wéré interludes within their compositions. Sikiru Ayinde Barrister was the lead singer and composer of the popular wéré group, Jibowu Barrister, under the leadership of Alhaji Jibowu Barrister. During the 1960s, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and other young wéré groups rocked Lagos and its environs.[3]

In one of his early albums, chiding and educating critics who dubbed fújì a "local music," Sikiru Ayinde Barrister described fújì music as a combination of music consisting of sákárà, Apala, jùjú, Aro, Afrobeat, gudugudu, and some elements of highlife. Sikiru Ayinde Barrister did a tremendous job popularizing fújì by taking it all over the world. He started touring the European continent, especially England, during the 1970s and later the United States throughout the 1980s. Sikiru Ayinde Barrister toured internationally before any subsequent fújì bands toured outside of Nigeria.

Between 1970 and throughout the 1980s, other fújì musicians included Fatai Adio, Saura Alhaji, Student Fuji, Rahimi Ayinde (Bokote), Ramoni Akanni, Love Azeez, Waidi Akangbe, Sikiru Olawoyin, Agbada Owo, Iyanda Sawaba, Ejire Shadua, Wahabi Ilori, Wasiu Ayinde Marshall, Suleiman Adigun, Sakaniyau Ejire, and Wasiu Ayinla. As each artist became prolific, each invented and introduced his unique style of fújì music.

While male musicians have dominated fuji, reflecting fuji’s origins in wéré music, women artists have developed fújì-related styles called Islamic and wákà. Islamic is a popular name for this genre of women’s fújì-related music, particularly in and around the city of Ìlọrin, while wákà is a more general pan-Yoruba term for this Muslim women’s genre. These styles emerged in the late 1950s and were originally performed by women vocalists for Islamic events such as weddings and celebrations for pilgrims returning from Mecca. Since the 1980s, professional Muslim women vocalists have fronted their own bands which are identical to fújì bands in their instrumentation. While the themes and aesthetics of Islamic are more closely related to Muslim morality than fújì, there is significant overlap between women’s genres and fújì. The majority of Islamic and waka bandleaders and back-up vocalists are women, while the rest of their bands are typically men. Women performers of Islamic and wákà have a dominant presence on stage and in videos.[4]

• africasounds.com - "FUJI BUBBLE" by Hortense Fuller
• Fuji Music
• Fuji Music