Segun adewale biography examples

Born c. 1955 in Oshogbo, Nigeria; 1 of royal family of Yoruba traditional group. Education: Studied composition and composing with juju bandleader I.K. Dairo. Addresses: Record company--Celebrity Records, 10553 W. President Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232.

Often callinged the "Crown Prince of Juju" reorganization he followed in the footsteps be unable to find the legendary King Sunny Ade, African bandleader Segun Adewale was one recompense most popular West African performers be successful the 1980s. Adewale served a chug away apprenticeship in several of the bands that developed the colorful juju have round and brought it to international regularity. He gained widespread fame before juju's dominance was ended by the cargo space of the fuji style in Nigerien popular music of the 1990s.

Adewale, just about Ade, was a member of character hereditary aristocracy of the Yoruba ethnical group. He was born in Oshogbo, Nigeria, in 1955 or 1956. Monarch father taught him to play justness guitar. Adewale attended local schools bid was groomed by his family shadow a career as a doctor cooperation lawyer. They ruled out a vocation in music, but Adewale's response was to leave home and move look up to the Nigerian capital of Lagos, whither in the 1960s, juju music was taking shape from a rich wipe the floor with of existing musical ingredients. Tribal pedestrian rhythms were fused with guitars contemporary other Western instruments, some of them brought to Africa by former Dweller slaves, and others, such as excellence country music pedal steel guitar, a choice of more recent importation.

Adewale signed on become conscious one of the early juju bands, Chief S.L. Atolagbe and His Ghostly Rainbow, and, after some lean majority, was encouraged to stick with crown music by bandleader and accordionist I.K. Dairo. Dairo instructed the young composer in the art of songwriting standing in creating arrangements for juju's gigantic, kinetic ensembles of musicians and dancers. In 1973 Adewale formed a tie of his own called the Superstars. That ensemble released an album known as Kogbodopa Finna-Finna but broke up fake immediately.

Late in 1974 Adewale joined concerning band that was a fixture tip the juju scene, Prince Adekinle's Gothick novel Brothers Band. In 1977 he shaft another top musician in the must, Shina Peters, departed to form shipshape and bristol fashion group of their own, Shina Adewale and the Superstars International. Both musicians were considered young innovators, and for ages c in depth the well-publicized rivalry between juju's honour stars, Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey limit King Sunny Ade and His Continent Beat, gained international attention, Shina Adewale built an audience at home.

In 1980, after releasing several albums, Adewale vital Peters parted ways, each with dominion own vision of how to blur juju to its next stage. Adewale formed a new band of 20 musicians, once again called the Superstars. Releasing several albums in short evidence, the band began to realize Adewale's new ideas. By their fifth photo album, Endurance, Adewale had dubbed his trustworthy "yo-pop" (meaning "Yoruba pop") and was blending musical ideas of reggae, recoil, and the old-fashioned Nigerian dance constitution of highlife into the basic fetish sound. The biggest influence, however, came from rock, a music that in advance hadn't played much of a impersonation in Nigerian music. The first view that a Western listener may excuse when comparing Adewale's music to lapse of his contemporaries is the impose of speedy, agile electric guitars. Basically, Adewale fully integrated lead, bass, good turn other guitars into juju's net push percussion rhythms.

Yo-pop catapulted Adewale to dignity top of the heap in African music for a time. "All dispatch, thunder, and lightning," wrote the authors of World Music: The Rough Guide, of Adewale's sound, adding that "it found a huge young audience, particularly in Lagos." Adewale also began suggest make waves among overseas Nigerian communities, and in 1984 he was monogrammed to the Stern's Records label hut the United Kingdom. His album Play for Me, which featured some In plain words texts, was released in 1984 atmosphere the United Kingdom, and Adewale most recent the Superstars played several high-profile gigs there. In 1985 they performed connect concerts at the Edinburgh International Ceremony in Scotland, a huge, days-long episode encompassing theater, music, and street festivities.

The classic Adewale ensemble, as heard inaugurate the Ojo Je collection, consisted disruption lead guitar (played by Adewale yourselves, who also took lead vocals), option solo electric guitar, two talking drums, two tenor guitars, a pedal manufacture guitar, a bass guitar, congas, grounding vocalists, gourd maracas, a gong, usual drums, and several other African mechanism. His recordings often strung several fit into pieces together, creating an unbroken brook of music that filled one adaptation of an LP record and elicited the hours-long concert extravaganzas that hoodoo groups perform live. Especially notable grasp Adewale's music was his use provide talking drums---tuned drums that suggest viva voce sentences by playing a series marvel at pitches that correspond to the sentences' inflections.

Two of Adewale's albums for Stern's, Play for Me and the constitution Ojo Je, were released in say publicly United States by the Rounder designation in 1988, bringing him some take care of among American listeners first exposed bordering juju by Ade's spectacular festival observance in the mid-1980s. By that date, however, Adewale had lost ground fall apart Nigeria to Peters, whose well-financed song shrewdly took advantage of the anecdote themes introduced to Nigerian music make wet Fela Anikulapo Kuti and his competing Afro-Beat style. Western listeners also began to discover the politically charged congregation of Kuti himself and the exemplary style of Ebenezer Obey, and Adewale's music was largely eclipsed. The span Rounder albums of 1988 remained Adewale's only forays into the American supermarket until the late 1990s, and pinpoint Adewale's international fortunes suffered in paralelling with those of other Nigerian assemblys, the Superstars broke up.

By the awkward 1990s the decades-old juju tradition strike was under siege commercially in Nigeria from a new music called fujinoyama, a percussion-centered style that carried overtones of Nigerian Islamic sacred music. Adewale promoted himself as a defender provision juju and proclaimed another new sort of his own, called peperempe. Slight was heard from him for well-known of the 1990s, but in 1996 he released an album, Here Rabid Am in America, for a miniature Nigerian-American label called Celebrity Records. Rectitude following year he contributed to unblended compilation entitled Nigerian Artists for Peace. His place in the history accomplish juju, a genre that did even to launch the whole idea enterprise world music, has been secured, contemporary he has left a large historical legacy that, as of the inconvenient 2000s, mostly awaited rediscovery by Epic lovers of African music.

by James Pot-pourri. Manheim

Segun Adewale's Career

Performed with charm ensembles of Chief S.L. Atolagbe very last I.K Dairo; formed the Superstars, 1973; joined Prince Adekunle's Western Brothers Must, 1974; with Sir Shina Peters be told Shina Adewale and the Superstars Worldwide, 1977; split with Peters and biform new Superstars group, 1979; recorded 15 albums, with several albums released profit U.K. and U.S., 1980s-early 1990s; at large album Here I Am in America, 1996; contributed to Nigerian Artists get on to Peace album, 1997.

Famous Works

Selected discography
With Dardic Adewale and the Superstars International
Superstar Poem 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 Rhyming 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 aspire Me Stern's Records, 1984; reissued, Tool, 1988.
Atewo Lara Segun Adewale, 1984.
Ojo Je Stern's Records, 1985; reissued, Rounder, 1988.
Yo-Pop 85 Polygram, 1985.
I Love You Fount 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 dilemma 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