By Tunde Odesola
A musical genre rarely dies on the day its last great musician dies. It dies more quietly, when generations stop hearing themselves in the music. This, most probably, may be the real trouble with Jùjú. Bathwater cascades from the head to the feet, says an ancient proverb from southwestern Nigeria.
For decades, Jùjú was not just music. Jùjú was both a message and movement. It was an archive of Yoruba social life. It carried proverbs, prayers, praise, gossip, stories, morality and memory. It could entertain a coronation crowd, like in Tunde Kelani’s 1999 classic film, Ṣaworo Idẹ, and sermonise at the same time. Jùjú musicians were entertainers, historians and, occasionally, philosophers strapping guitars and clutching microphones.
Then something changed. The music remained, but the audience began moving elsewhere. This was after over 40 years of dominating Nigeria’s traditional music scene. The movement is why the rivalry between Jùjú and Fuji is more complicated than the usual argument about which genre is superior. Engaging in a superiority argument would be utterly pedestrian.
Fuji did not simply arrive with a knife to murder Jùjú. Rather, Jùjú has, in some ways, been surrendering territory since the 2000s by failing to make itself sufficiently interesting to people who did not grow up with it, creating generational gaps.
That failure is an uncomfortable development because Nigerians are sentimental about their cultural inheritance. Like all humans, Nigerians love to declare an old thing immortal merely because they once loved it. But cultural relevance does not work that way. A genre survives not because its elders insist that it is great, but because younger people find something in it worth carrying forward.
This is where Fuji has been clever.
Whatever one thinks of its aesthetics, Fuji has repeatedly demonstrated an appetite for nonstop movement. It absorbs new sounds, new technologies, new fashions and new audiences. Fuji can be noisy, lousy, vulgar, extravagant, devotional, sensual and commercially calculating. It never seems embarrassed by its desire to remain contemporary at all costs.
Jùjú, meanwhile, sometimes behaves as though its greatest achievement was already accomplished. And that is the danger of becoming a heritage. Once a musical genre becomes “heritage,” people begin to preserve it instead of playing it, as it happened to Ìjálá, Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́, and to some extent, Sákárà. They put such a genre’s great musicians in documentaries, celebrate their milestones, sample their songs and tell younger people that they ought to appreciate what they are hearing. So, the music gradually becomes an exhibit.
To kill a museum, nobody needs a knife. The museum merely needs to stop attracting visitors. This is gradually becoming the plight of Jùjú. Bathwater cascades from the head to the feet.
So, after Ebenezer Obey and King Sunny Adé, the question is not simply whether Fuji will bury Jùjú. The more disturbing question is whether Jùjú has produced enough reasons for the next generation to refuse the burial.
Speaking in telephone interviews with old and young generations of Jùjú maestros, producers and great instrumentalists, I discovered that the aggregation of opinions was in concordance on why the flame of jùjú is dimming, even as there were a few areas of discordance on the reasons for the decline.
Jùjú legend, Evangelist Idowu Animasawun, explained to me that Jùjú had undergone tremendous transformation since the days of early pioneers such as Tunde King, Irewole Denge, Ayinde Bakare, J. O. Araba, Ambrose Campbell, Tunde Nightingale, etc, noting that Jùjú’s mid-century transformers such as Adeolu Akinsanya, I.K. Dairo, Ojoge Daniel, Dele Ojo, and Fatai Rolling Dollar, etc, gave the music new verve and flavour, while the stars of Jùjú’s golden age – King Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, General Prince Adekunle, Kayode Fashola, Expensive Olubi, Emperor Pick Peters, Dele Abiodun, Lady Decency, including Animasawun himself, expanded the influence of Jùjú beyond the South-West and put the music on the global map.
Although Obey and KSA dominated the golden age of Jùjú, up-and-coming talents like Ahuja Bello, Micho Ade, Sir Sina Adewale, Segun Adewale, Dayo Kujore, Fabulous Olu Fajemirokun, Professor Y.K. Ajao, etc, found the shoes of KSA and Obey too large to wear. So, a vacuum in succession was gradually opening up.
When the tradition of a land is not rejuvenated by its youth, such a tradition eventually perishes, observes the Yoruba.
Then came the twilight of the 1980s, in 1989 to be precise, when a star shot out of the blue at noonday, taking the Jùjú scene by storm. That Ìràwọ̀ Ọ̀sán was Sir Shina Peters, the handsome young man, who somewhat went underground from 1980 to 1989, a period when he parted ways with his friend, Segun Adewale, after their duo (1977-1980) ran aground, and he was subsequently mocked for sounding more like a toad than a bird.
SSP, as he is widely known, took the mockery in his stride, went underground to research, reinvent and repackage, exchanging the alleged bitterness in his voice for honey. Thus, Shina Omo Peteru dragged the youth back to Jùjú with his first evergreen hit, Ace, which he waxed after realising that traditional, guitar-heavy Jùjú was losing the youth, so he created a fast-paced, highly percussive fusion of Jújù, Afrobeat, and Fuji rhythm to break through.
However, after Shina belted three more evergreens during the 1990s, the tempo at which he started receded, seeing KSA reclaim the top spot in the mid-1990s, after KSA followed the example of Shina by increasing the tempo of his music and allowing for more percussion in his music.
Some younger talents such as Wale Thompson, Segun Blessing, Yinka Ayefele, the late St Janet, Mega 99, and Dele Taiwo, who came long after Shina, have also contributed their quotas to the evolution of jújù, but none climbed to the highest echelon to close the gap at the top on King Sunny Ade and Commander Ebenezer Obey, though the latter stopped playing secular jùjú in 1992.
A people’s tradition not rejuvenated by the youth eventually perishes. Jùjú’s foremost threat is not the lack of stars on the topmost echelon of the genre. Its greatest threat is the dearth of uniqueness, creativity and originality among young practitioners. Every young artist wants to play like KSA or Obey. Kennery King, Dr Orlando Owoh, did not play jùjú. He played Nigerian highlife fused with cultural storytelling, distinct guitar work and traditional percussion. Orlando is a useful example of how one genre can survive beside, influence, and overlap with another without necessarily becoming the other genre. This is the originality and creativity lacking in most jújù artists of today. Despite his death in 2008, many artists earn their livelihood by playing Owoh’s brand of music today.
Eighty-eight-year-old Animasawun says, “Juju cannot die. Today, D. O Araba, Ayinde Bakare, I. K. Dairo, and Tunde Nightingale’s style of jùjú has faded, but their impact on the genre is enduring because we, Obey, Sunny, myself and others improvised. Nightingale’s impact was his Owambe style. Sunny followed it earlier than any of us, and stayed close to it. It is still jùjú that Yoruba musicians who sing gospel play; the difference is only in the lyrics. If you remove their lyrics and listen to their sound, you will see it is jùjú. Ebenezer Obey, my very good friend, plays jùjú gospel today.
“When I came up with Apola style in the late 60s and early 70s, Sunny and Obey were already into popular music. Then, I was training the Nigerian Army band at the battalion in Abeokuta and later at the Ikeja military cantonment. I wasn’t a soldier, but I was training soldiers in music. At one point, our instruments were vandalised, so we had to stop, and I branched out to do Apola after the 1966 coup. I decided to create the Apola brand because I did not want to follow the Obey or Sunny style. My courage and creativity later paid off. Many years later, courage and creativity also paid off for Shina Peters. No venture, no success.
“The problem with most of our young artists appears to be laziness. They want quick money, quick fame. They don’t care about legacy. I was the leading artist on Take Your Choice (TYC) Record Label, while Sunny was the leading artist on African Songs Label. Both recording labels were owned by the late Chief Bolarinwa Abioro. I was always researching. I’ve been friends with Obey for over 60 years. I know how we used to rehearse. I started rehearsals by 10 pm and ended by 4 am, drinking just Bongo tea with my boys. The PMAN Governor in Ibadan, Motunde, a young man, plays good music. He recently told me the boys of today don’t play music out of love and passion, as we did in my own time. The sole reason they play music is money. When money is the sole motivation for an endeavour, the effort won’t come from the heart, and the end-product won’t be enduring. My era sang meaningful songs. I bought books upon books to learn the guitar. I’m currently in the studio remaking “Iyawo Tutun”, my 1967 song, because its themes are still relevant today. I also have a five-track album coming up soon.”
An indigene of Abeokuta, Animasawun explained that fuji is making waves at the expense of jùjú because of its percussion. According to the octogenarian, instrumentation is becoming too much in jùjú, whereas percussion in African music generally is heavy. “I created an identity with Apola; people like change when the change is good. Many of today’s jùjú artists don’t care about identity; they sing all songs like jack of all trades. I’m not against adaptability. It’s a hallmark of musical prowess, but you must sound original.”
Born Seidu Sumonu, the veteran musician who converted to Christianity in 1981, adopted Animasawun as his surname because it connoted the slang – Àsùmọ́ Ọ̀rẹ́ Ẹ̀gbá, Animasawun Ọ̀rẹ́ Ẹ̀gbá, and because it was a more suitable stage name.
But Shina Peters offers a different perspective. He says if care is not taken, “Jùjú will die, fújì will die. Technology and disunity are going to kill us. I am proudly a C&S member. I am highly spiritual. Oga Sunny Ade and Obey were the only leading juju musicians of the day. God told me to remove the influence of the guitar in my music. In those days, you couldn’t form a band without the guitar. But God told me to abandon the guitar. I did as God commanded, and my music became most sought after. God said I should abandon the guitar so as to liberate other stars, so that they could rise and shine too. Other stars did rise along with me, but they lacked continuity. I changed to keyboard and sax.
“There’s a lack of unity among we jùjú artists. Before I stormed the music scene, jùjú was becoming obsolete; it was becoming a genre associated with old people, whereas fuji was making waves. Then, jùjú wasn’t widely accepted by the Hausa and Igbo. Jùjú would have died; I was the one God used to revive jùjú. I prayed to God to give me a song that would unify all Nigerians. God did it and more. Fuji is limited to Yorubaland. I was the first artist to sing hip-hop in Yoruba with “Omoge Lokeloke”. Jùjú came after highlife and added more guitars, and highlife died. Hip-hop is utilising technology to the fullest. Hip-hop artists use technology to search for musicologists, mixers and do so many things.
“Nowadays, when you get to a party, you would see a live band set up instruments; you would also see a DJ set up his gadgets. It wasn’t like that before. That is where technology is driving us to.”
Referencing persistence, perseverance and passion, Shina said nobody taught him how to play the guitar, keyboard or saxophone. Rhetorically, Shina asked, “How can the songs of our young artists be evergreen when many of them don’t have passion for what they are doing, when they are too much into chasing money?”
But does a proverb not advise that today’s dogs are best suited to chase today’s rabbits? Is it correct for the older generation of jùjú musicians to describe the new generation as lazy without taking into consideration the monumental changes in the music economies of both eras? For example, while the older generation operated within a world of record labels, physical albums, live band culture, long rehearsals, vinyl, cassette and CD sales, today’s generation grapples with streaming, social media, short attention spans, digital production, collaborations, and independent distribution.
So the definition of ‘hard work’ has changed. I think the older generation may be right about craft and content, but not entirely right about the circumstances.
To be continued.
Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @Tunde Odesola
X: @Tunde_Odesola
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