A few days ago I posted an album by King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal 1, one of the reigning triumvirate of fújì music in the 1980s. The other two were Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and Kollington Ayinla, whom I present today. Kollington is said to have been born as Kolawole Ayinla Ilori in Ibadan in 1953 and started recording when he was in the Nigerian Army in the '70s. By the early '80s he was giving Barrister, fújì's acknowledged king at the time, a run for his money. Until Barrister's death in 2010, the rivalry between the two was fierce and acrimonious, although it's an open question how much of this was real and how much was a marketing ploy. Today Kollington swears his undying love of the late, great maestro.
Kollington Live in America 1997 (Oracle Records AFRO 013. 1997) is truly an odd artifact: Fújì music stripped down to its bare, funky essence - organ, basic percussion and wailing Islamic vocals, uninterrupted for 73 minutes! It's very compelling. Here it is:
General Kollington Ayinla & his Fuji Eaglets - Kollington Live in America
Download Kollington Ayinla Live in America 1997 as a zipped file here, complete
with album artwork.
2 comments:
Thanks!!!
There are some very interesting similarities between Fuji music and Jaipong music from West-Java... Both are super swinging percussion driven genres and both are steeped in huge discussions about the origins of the genres, I was reading a bit about how King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal made some remarks not that long ago, about how the genre came to be, where the name Fuji came from and there were loads of (often angry) reactions to that..... Like Barrister is seen as the one who developed the Fuji genre so is Gugum Gumbira looked upon as the one who developed the Jaipong genre and there are also big discussions going on about this here in West-Java....
I first heared Fuji music around 1982 on a radio program called Moondogs in Holland. Kollington and his Fuji '87 Organistion... I started searching for it but where ever I went nobody had heard about it, "Fuji??" "Is that from Japan???". Even the best record shops in Rotterdam and beyond in Holland couldn't help me and in all those years of searching all I ever found was a cd from Barrister, Fuji Garbage recorded in London and one vinyl record from Barrister that got lost in a fire....
It's only now, thanks to guys like you and Moos and a few others that I finally, after 35 years, can get my hands on this amazing music....
Thanks again!!!
Many thanks for sharing this John. I've been a Kollington fan for many a year but this is the first time I've come across this remarkable release. Keep up the fantastic work, it really is good to have you back
Post a Comment