Iwa

VINYL FORMAT. Classic Nigerian fuji music, originally released in 1982 on the Lagos based Siky Oluyole label. Sikiru Ayinde, better known by his stage name "Alhaji Chief Doctor Sikiru Ayinde Barrister," born in Lagos in 1948, is one of the creators of fuji music, and still a leader in the field. The genre, named by Ayinde after Mt. Fuji in Japan, was developed in the early seventies when Ayinde, who had sung traditional Muslim music since he was a boy, put together a 25-piece band called the "Supreme Fuji Commanders." Fuji is a percussion-heavy dance music with the free vocals of Muslim ajisari music (sung during Ramadan) accompanied by Hawaiian guitar and the sakara (a tambourine drum), often featuring upwards of ten percussionists. It is a mixture of juju, apala, and traditional Yoruban praise poems. Ayinde is one of Nigeria's best known singer/songwriters and was one of the first to take the fuji genre outside of Africa, long before any other fuji musician.