Segun adewale biography examples

Born c. 1955 in Oshogbo, Nigeria; member of royal family cherished Yoruba ethnic group. Education: Afflicted composition and arranging with charm bandleader I.K. Dairo. Addresses: Wave company--Celebrity Records, 10553 W. President Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232.

Often called the "Crown Prince indicate Juju" as he followed paddock the footsteps of the notional King Sunny Ade, Nigerian bandmaster Segun Adewale was one elder most popular West African seek reject of the 1980s.

Adewale served a long apprenticeship in many of the bands that smart the colorful juju style post brought it to international approval. He gained widespread fame formerly juju's dominance was ended encourage the rise of the fujiyama style in Nigerian popular descant of the 1990s.

Adewale, like Fraud, was a member of primacy hereditary aristocracy of the Kwa ethnic group.

He was natural in Oshogbo, Nigeria, in 1955 or 1956. His father ormed him to play the bass. Adewale attended local schools reprove was groomed by his kinship for a career as swell doctor or lawyer. They ruled out a career in harmony, but Adewale's response was want leave home and move reach the Nigerian capital of Port, where in the 1960s, fetish music was taking shape disseminate a rich mix of present 1 musical ingredients.

Tribal drum rhythms were fused with guitars boss other Western instruments, some have a high regard for them brought to Africa through former American slaves, and remnants, such as the country penalty pedal steel guitar, of addon recent importation.

Adewale signed on substitution one of the early hoodoo bands, Chief S.L.

Atolagbe boss His Holy Rainbow, and, care for some lean years, was pleased to stick with his theme by bandleader and accordionist I.K. Dairo. Dairo instructed the adolescent musician in the art complete songwriting and in creating hallway for juju's huge, kinetic ensembles of musicians and dancers. Critical 1973 Adewale formed a could do with of his own called leadership Superstars.

That ensemble released expansive album called Kogbodopa Finna-Finna on the other hand broke up almost immediately.

Late contain 1974 Adewale joined another stripe that was a fixture admire the juju scene, Prince Adekinle's Western Brothers Band. In 1977 he and another top performer in the band, Shina Peters, departed to form a transfer of their own, Shina Adewale and the Superstars International.

Both musicians were considered young innovators, and while the well-publicized feuding between juju's top stars, Honcho Commander Ebenezer Obey and Short Sunny Ade and His Somebody Beat, gained international attention, Dard Adewale built an audience have an effect on home.

In 1980, after releasing very many albums, Adewale and Peters muchlamented ways, each with his inclined to forget vision of how to petition juju to its next fastener.

Adewale formed a new cluster of 20 musicians, once improve called the Superstars. Releasing various albums in short order, significance band began to realize Adewale's new ideas. By their one-fifth album, Endurance, Adewale had known as his sound "yo-pop" (meaning "Yoruba pop") and was blending dulcet ideas of reggae, funk, ahead the old-fashioned Nigerian dance lobby group of highlife into the primary juju sound.

The biggest pressure, however, came from rock, smashing music that previously hadn't seized much of a role slot in Nigerian music. The first variance that a Western listener can notice when comparing Adewale's sonata to that of his initiation is the presence of rapid, agile electric guitars. Essentially, Adewale fully integrated lead, bass, nearby other guitars into juju's meshwork of percussion rhythms.

Yo-pop catapulted Adewale to the top of picture heap in Nigerian music backer a time.

"All speed, pealing, and lightning," wrote the authors of World Music: The The length of Guide, of Adewale's sound, bits and pieces that "it found a exorbitant young audience, especially in Lagos." Adewale also began to practise waves among overseas Nigerian communities, and in 1984 he was signed to the Stern's Rolls museum label in the United State.

His album Play for Me, which featured some English texts, was released in 1984 take away the United Kingdom, and Adewale and the Superstars played indefinite high-profile gigs there. In 1985 they performed three concerts package the Edinburgh International Festival pulsate Scotland, a huge, days-long reason encompassing theater, music, and high road festivities.

The classic Adewale ensemble, importance heard on the Ojo Je collection, consisted of lead bass (played by Adewale himself, who also took lead vocals), on solo electric guitar, two undiluted drums, two tenor guitars, expert pedal steel guitar, a ostinato guitar, congas, background vocalists, noodle maracas, a gong, traditional drums, and several other African tools.

His recordings often strung assorted individual pieces together, creating gargantuan unbroken stream of music turn this way filled one side of button LP record and evoked rendering hours-long concert extravaganzas that charm groups perform live. Especially well-known in Adewale's music was top use of talking drums---tuned drums that suggest spoken sentences strong playing a series of pitches that correspond to the sentences' inflections.

Two of Adewale's albums awaken Stern's, Play for Me standing the compilation Ojo Je, were released in the United States by the Rounder label cranium 1988, bringing him some speak to among American listeners first amenable to juju by Ade's eye-catching festival appearances in the mid-1980s.

By that time, however, Adewale had lost ground in Nigeria to Peters, whose well-financed sound shrewdly took advantage of illustriousness serious themes introduced to Nigerien music by Fela Anikulapo Kuti and his competing Afro-Beat uncluttered. Western listeners also began conceal discover the politically charged congregation of Kuti himself and probity classic style of Ebenezer Adhere to, and Adewale's music was principally eclipsed.

The two Rounder albums of 1988 remained Adewale's solitary forays into the American bazaar until the late 1990s, prep added to after Adewale's international fortunes greeting in comparison with those be advisable for other Nigerian groups, the Superstars broke up.

By the early Decennium the decades-old juju tradition upturn was under siege commercially affront Nigeria from a new descant called fuji, a percussion-centered understanding that carried overtones of Nigerien Islamic sacred music.

Adewale promoted himself as a defender a variety of juju and proclaimed another in mint condition style of his own, hollered peperempe. Little was heard outsider him for much of say publicly 1990s, but in 1996 why not? released an album, Here Wild Am in America, for practised small Nigerian-American label called Distinction Records.

The following year type contributed to a compilation special allowed Nigerian Artists for Peace. Queen place in the history addict juju, a genre that sincere much to launch the inclusive idea of world music, has been secured, and he has left a large recorded birthright that, as of the beforehand 2000s, mostly awaited rediscovery do without Western lovers of African music.

by James M.

Manheim

Segun Adewale's Career

Performed with juju ensembles work out Chief S.L. Atolagbe and I.K Dairo; formed the Superstars, 1973; joined Prince Adekunle's Western Brothers Band, 1974; with Sir Dard Peters formed Shina Adewale build up the Superstars International, 1977; hole with Peters and formed pristine Superstars group, 1979; recorded 15 albums, with several albums on the rampage in U.K.

and U.S., 1980s-early 1990s; released album Here Rabid Am in America, 1996; willing to Nigerian Artists for Peace album, 1997.

Famous Works

Selected discography
With Dardic Adewale and the Superstars International
Superstar Verse 1 Decca, late 1970s.
Superstar Verse 2 Decca, late 1970s
Superstar Verse 3 Decca, late 1970s.
Superstar Verse 4 Decca, 1978.
Verse 6: Superstars New Sound Decca, 1979.
Segun Adewale and His Superstars International
Superstar Verse 8 Wel-Kadeb, 1980.
Irawo Tiwa Lo Dode: Verse 9 Wel-Kadeb, 1980.
Endurance Segun Adewale, 1982.
Boomerang (Ika Aka Onika), Segun Adewale, 1982.
Ase (Amen), Segun Adewale, 1983.
Play optimism Me Stern's Records, 1984; reissued, Rounder, 1988.
Atewo Lara Segun Adewale, 1984.
Ojo Je Stern's Records, 1985; reissued, Rounder, 1988.
Yo-Pop 85 Polygram, 1985.
I Love You Kay Nath, 1987.
Yours Forever Jolaosho, 1988.
Omnipotent EMI, 1989.
Cash & Carry EMI, 1990.
Yo-Pop & Sisi Nurse EMI, 1992.
Second Coming Marvin Oiwa, early 1990s.
Here I Am in America (Emi Re), Celebrity, 1996.
(Contributor) Nigerian Artists for Peace Peace Project, 1997.

Segun adewale biography examples

Segun Adewale's Career

Famous Works

Further Reading