FUJI: A Opera @ The Africa Centre London
Several years ago, Bobo Omotayo began to explore the indigenous music of Nigeria. He was particularly attracted to the genre of music that his Yoruba people call Fuji. Despite the genre’s rich and influential history (it formed a key component of the style that would eventually become Afrobeats), Omotayo found scant information online. So, he dug deeper and deeper through documentary footage and long-forgotten dissertations.
Omotayo’s research of the genre gave him a new lens for analyzing his own creative, familial, and religious identities. He launched Fuji: A Opera as a way to share his findings. Until August 28, Londoners can join Omotayo on his journey to, as he puts it, remember the past and imagine the future of Fuji at his pop-up in the historic Africa Centre.
If you’ve never heard of Fuji music before, no worries; the exhibit guides even the most unfamiliar audience members through decades of the genre’s intricate history. The journey begins on the ground floor inside a typical 1950s Nigerian living room, where an improvisational musical style called Were would have been used to wake muslims during Ramadan. Following the stairs upwards, the exhibit explains how local musicians combined Were with countless other local music styles. The result was what we now call Fuji: a percussive, eclectic, and more secular style of music deeply intertwined with Nigeria’s history.
As the exhibit explains, Fuji became the first “battle” style of music. Rival musicians used their recorded tracks and live performances to proclaim their skill and superiority. These rivalries took on social and even political significance as the genre became more popular. As the director of the Africa Centre states, Fuji has always been its own form of expression, language, and activism.
On the second floor, Omotayo pinpoints a timeline of events that have defined Fuji music and the musical trends that have inspired it. You can also sample the genre, see its most famous characters, and explore the instruments that lend it such a unique sound.
Omotayo has curated a selection of events to run alongside Fuji: A Opera. On the opening night, he hosted an excellent Fuji band. The genre had caught my interest ever since I heard it, but headphones do not do the music justice. They don’t capture the excellent musicianship or the communal spirit that make Fuji music so popular. The music is eclectic: sometimes percussive and raw, other times melodic and warm, and frequently introduced with a solo vocal performance. It takes on a sort of ecstatic tone at times. After all, fuji has always retained many ideas of the Islamic worship music from which it evolved, including the idea that the performers’ voices are divine gifts.
But the music has community at its core. During the performance on the opening night, audience members threw US dollar bills on the band members in a sign of praise. Singers improvised lines showing gratitude to esteemed members of the audience. Even the High Commissioner of Nigeria to the UK got up to dance a bit in front of the band. The experience was so exciting that K1 De Ultimate (a big-time fuji star) shrugged off his jetlag and stepped out of the audience to play an impromptu set.
Spontaneity has always been the driving force of Fuji. Beyond animating the live performances, it provides the endless reserves of creativity that enables each new generation to re-contextualize Fuji within the broader global music landscape, keeping the genre relevant. Fuji has been reborn countless times, constantly incorporating and reinterpreting new ideas. Omotayo’s Fuji: A Opera provides an excellent opportunity to experience the many iterations of fuji as they should be experienced: amongst a community. Learn more about the pop-up and grab your tickets here.