Routes to Roots -
Yoruba Drums from Nigeria
Solá Akingbolá
“I’ve
worked with Solá for ten years on six albums and have found his
technical skill unsurpassed. He is truly a master of his field
and I look forward to his contribution on the next Jamiroquai
project.”
Jay Kay from Jamiroquai |
Solá Akingbolá,
long-standing percussionist with the international, chart-topping band
Jamiroquai, presents a superb album of Yoruba (Nigeria) percussion. He
finds his way back to his roots exploring the unique melodies, rhythmic
structures and philosophical poetry of the Yoruba people.
Solá Akingbolá has spent most of his life in London, UK, but his roots
are in Oregun, Nigeria, where he was born to Yoruba parents. Describing
his relationship to Nigeria as a musical odyssey in which he finds his
way home via exploration of the unique melodies, rhythmic structures and
philosophical poetry of the Yoruba people, Solá reveals his passion for
the language of music:
“I was always seduced by the sound of the Yoruba language and the way it
was expressed within the drumming. When a Yoruba drummer plays, it’s not
just music: he’s talking, reciting, teasing, invoking and praising.
These qualities open up other worlds of interest for me that go beyond
music; worlds that lead me to history, to the essence of my people.”
Inspired early on by Afro-fusion bands like Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango,
Solá’s first journey into Yoruba music was playing percussion and then
kit-drum for fellow Nigerian percussionist Gasper Lawal of the Oro Band,
who was also based in the UK:
“Gasper opened my ears and eyes to a rhythmic perspective that I always
felt, but due to a lack of knowledge and technique was unable to
realize. The first music I heard was Yoruba. It was inside the language
I heard my parents speaking and pulsing through the drumming I soaked up
as a child, listening to my dad’s favourite Yoruba artists: King Sunny
Adé, Ebenezer Obey, Ayinla Kollington, Yusuf Olatunji and Haruna Isola.”
Entering the jazz scene in the early 90s with the Ronny Jordan band and
then finding his feet for the last decade in the jazz-funk of
Jamiroquai, Solá has toured the world and played innumerable major
international venues. But no matter which route he takes as a musician
he always returns to the same place - the tradition and culture that
brings him home - Yoruba rhythm, language and poetry.
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Track listing
1. NINU OPON ORI TIWA (Our destiny is in the Tray [of divination] )
2. OLUKUMI (My Friend)
3. ENIA LASOO MI (People Are My Clothes)
4. IFANLA (Ifa is Infinite)
5. ORI NI KAN (Ori is the One)
6. WITCH DANCE
7. SEEGESI OLOOYA IYUN
(A Praise Name for Osun - Yoruba Goddess of fertility)
8. BOYA IRO NI (Did They Tell a Lie?)
9. KULUMBU YEYE (Praise Song to Osun)
10. OJO TO WA NINU OSE (Days of the Week)
11. ARO ORUNMILA (Orunmila’s Puzzle)
