The multicultural threads that eventually wove together to give rise to this album are fairly mind-boggling. Adé Bantu is a British national who was born to a German mother and a Nigerian father. Adewale Ayuba is a Nigerian musician who plies his trade internationally as something of an ambassador for the regional pop music known as fuji, a dance music style that incorporates elements of hip-hop, reggae, Afrobeat, Islamic singing, Yoruba drumming, and more. Bantu and Ayuba brought all of their collective influences together to make this album, which is a heady (though not always completely successful) stew of European and pan-African sounds. The title track is rhythmically brilliant, but suffers from sloppily out-of-tune singing. "Oya" fares better, and brings to mind the juju music that King Sunny Ade was making in the late '70s. "Where di Water, Where di Lighter" is a clever indictment of both dancehall violence and of Western hypersensitivity, and "Many Lessons" effectively leavens trite and earnest lyrics with some of the funkiest baritone sax playing you're likely to hear in any given year. "How Real (Can a Real, Real Be)" is as musically directionless as its title is rhetorically directionless, however, and "Mt. Fuji" is only brilliant until the male singer comes in. Overall, this album is something of a mixed bag, but definitely worth a listen.
© Rick Anderson /TiVo