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From: gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: NEW MUSIC???
Message-ID: <78@lasspvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Oct-84 10:53:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: lasspvax.78
Posted: Fri Oct 12 10:53:44 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Oct-84 05:01:08 EDT
References:  <>
Reply-To: gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor)
Organization: Theory Center (Cornell University)
Lines: 96
Summary: 



Mr. McCrae, the person you're talking about is the *famous* Fela Ransome-Kuti,
now just Fela, he was Fela Anikulapo-Kuti for awhile, etc. His current band
is Africa '80m which replaced Africa '70. I'd suggest you try out "Original
Sufferhead", which is about his best bit of work in terms of putting his
riffing together with his Politics. And we aren't talking just sloganeering
here...this turkey gets pitched into jail on a regular basis before the
elections because he's perceived as a threat to the government.

Juju, on the other hand, is of a different tribal origin...it's a sort
of Yoruba moon-spoon-june music, with more lilt and less bite. I'm
tailing this article out with a recent review I penned for a regional
University newsmagazine here. I hope that it encourages you to go and
find the stuff. Note: the more distinctly African stuff is found on Ade's
"juju music" lp. The new, hybrid stuff might be of more interest to you right
off.

     The market system that puts much of the music you  hear
(and  _s_o_m_e  of  the music we review here) in your ears is by
nature acquisitive. In much the same sense that  "the  music
business" needs a record--buying public as a source of capi-
tal, they also need a stock of "new ideas" every so often to
keep the aforementioned public coming back to the well.

Contained in this regular transaction is one  of  the  great
paradoxes  of  what  we  call  "style"--for  the  artist  or
artists, style is a collection of  choices  made:  decisions
about  _w_h_a_t it is that you do best, and the commitment to _d_o
it. To the system, "style" is  convenient  way  of  defining
groups of similar products or objects--it's a sort of utili-
tarian way of figuring out what something is,  so  that  you
can tell who will buy it.

And you'd better believe that anyone who sits down to  write
a review runs headlong into the same paradox. It's a reason-
ably rare occurrence to come upon an album that is continues
an  artist's  personal concerns and still manages to be suc-
cessful in terms of a well-defined genre:  That  is  a  _v_e_r_y
delicate balancing act.

In a way, that search for "new ideas" isn't  all  bad...some
major  record  company _i_s responsible for putting King Sunny
Ade and His African Beats' _A_u_r_a on the turntables  of  Amer-
ica.  His  exuberant  potpourri  of  African percussion, dub
technology, and pedal steel guitar (yes, that's  right--your
favorite  country and western weeper instrument in the hands
of the Nigerians) has made his own "juju" music tremendously
successful  in  Africa, and in turn he has become one of the
major figures in the  recent  interest  in  African  popular
music, along with Fela Kuti, Chief Ebeneezer Obey, and Sonny
Okusun.

_A_u_r_a does a marvelous job of solidifying Sunny  Ade's  posi-
tion  as the most commercially viable of the crossover Afri-
can stars: he's even got Stevie Wonder riffing  frenetically
away  on  the  album's  opening  cut. What makes the album a
slightly  more  subversive  success  involves  King  Sunny's
talent  at  a  sort  of  "reverse colonialism"--he's made an
interesting African album by judiciously plundering the day-
lights  out  of  current  musical fashions, and mixing it in
with his own work in a way that compromises neither  source:
this  album  manages  to  be  interesting _m_u_s_i_c, without the
modifying adjectives that denote source.

As a case in point, take the opening cut  "Ase":  the  track
opens  like the 1 millionth generic breakancing single--with
an opening flurry of drumbox.  But something is  afoot.  The
drum  machine  picks  a  fight with a bongo drum. King Sunny
separates the combatants with a Guitar lick stolen from B.B.
King,  Stevie  Wonder  drops  into  the mix on harp (at this
point, it sounds a little like the old War stuff,  with  Lee
Oskar on harp). In comes the talking drum, a bunch of people
start singing away in Yoruba, and all bets are off as  to  _w_h_a_t
comes  from  where.  In any case, the agreeable percolations
tumbling out of your speakers render it a  moot  point.  You
don't  need  Italian  to  cry  when  Mimi  kicks  off in "La
Boheme", and you don't need a dictionary for this.

I've also noted an unusual side effect of  this  album  that
may be of interest to the hardened partygoer, partygiver, or
dancer. In a way, it's not surprising in any situation where
the  drummers  in  the  band  outnumber the guitars by about
three to one. Nearly every cut on  this  record  comes  with
about  three  or four radically different dance tempos built
in. The discriminating terpsichorean can choose  among  them
depending on the state of fatigue or excitement at any given
moment. In addition, this album also  sounds  very  nice  at
lower  volumes  and more intimate surroundings. That ability
to be listenable _a_n_d danceable is no mean feat in  _a_n_y  cul-
ture.
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