Shango (Chant To The God Of Thunder)
Drums Of Passion
Olatunji!
Columbia CS 8210
1960
PERSONNEL
Drummers: Baba Hawthorne Bey, Montigo Joe (Roger Sanders), Taiwo Duval
Singers: Ida Beebee Capps, Afuavi Derby, Akwasiba Derby, Helen Haynes, Dolores Oyinka Parker, Ruby Wuraola Pryor, Barbara Gordon, Helena Walker, Louise Young
From the back cover: Ajido is a small town in the vicinity of Badagry in Nigeria, West Africa. It is both a fishing and trading town. When the rains are over and the market women have returned from the monthly markets at Epe, Badagry, and Lagos, the nets lie idle in the sun to dry and the voices of women may be heard singing at the weaving frames. This is the season when the Zangbetos, the raffiaed masqueraders who are the guardians of public morals and safety, are out. The big drums and the little drums, made from hollowed trees and the skins of rams, resound through the nights in circles of townspeople, and the burning lamps of clay and palm oil.
This was the Ajido of Babatunde Olatunji's childhood days. Many a night, Babatunde went with Tanyin, his great-aunt, to hear the drummers proclaim the coming of a local poli ician, Alose, as they strutted along the streets of Ajido, singing:
Ago, O, mi ja ye / Hail! I am comingPonpongba, ponpongba / drum beats
Ago, O, mi ja ye! / Hail! I am coming
Ponpongba, ponpongba / drum beats
Ago Alose ja e / Hail! Alose comes
Arun ma yi Powhe / What dog dare cross the path of the lion!
Bo no ago ma tho / Without announcing his intentions
Ago, O, mi ja ye! / Hail! I am coming!
It was in this way that drum rhythms became part of Babatunde. In many places he has traveled in Africa; how often he must have heard the continuous beats of gangan, dundun, omele, bembe, kiriboto, agidigbo, sakara, go je konnongo, gbedu, igba to name a few types of talking drums that are common in West Africa, and beyond, even today.
In this recording, Drums of Passion, Babatunde Olatunji has recaptured some of his early impressions in his drum beats and has given them new zest and power in order to preserve the remnants of "primitive" folk music before its gradual disappearance from a fast-changing culture and continent, where these things can be so easily lost or forgotten.
The drum, like many exotic articles, is charged with evocative power. The drum is not only a musical instrument, it is also a sacred object and even the tangible form of divinity. It is endowed with a mysterious power, a sort of life-force which, however, has been incomprehensible to many missionaries and early travelers, who ordered its suppression and influence by forbidding its use.
Today, the oldest of musical instruments, the drum, serves the anthropologist and sociologist as a very useful and valuable cultural artifact; and, surprisingly, provides the physiologist with an immense tool for probing the human nervous system. As one listens, the mind is swayed by a strong feeling; by emo- tions of gladness and joy, grief, fear and hope.
Through the folk-songs in this album, with the fluidity and complexity of African rhythms, several epochs of music history are telescoped. As one musicologist once remarked, "Whether or not we fancy the radical trends in ultra – modern music – its unusual rhythms, its atonal scales we owe to it one debt of gratitude: it enables us much better to appreciate the music of other ages and other lands." Babatunde has lit the floodlight upon the universally human significance of primitive mores and customs, of which drumming, singing, and dancing are significant parts.
The selection of songs and African rhythmic renditions in this album definitely belong to a repertoire of the long ago and present day Nigeria. Contemporary incidents, whether religious, social, political, or economic, have always inspired compositions full of allusions to the circumstances which gave birth to them. Olatunji has brought back to remembrance certain songs,and cult rhythms of traditional significance in his boyhood days and generations ago in West Africa, recorded with musical instruments indigenous to Africa.
Drums of Passion is a danceable album. From all indications, it is probably the first African album recorded in stereophonic sound in the United States.
AKIWOWO "Chant to the Trainman"
One of the train conductors, whose name. became a household word at the stations from Lagos to Idogo, from Ibadan to Kano, was that man called "Guard Akiwowo." When he was on duty on a freight train, his humorous cry, "Eyi lo poro! (Do you call this having an easy time?)" could be heard against the fading rhythmic beat of the train. In this piece, Olatunji has captured the power and the rhyth- mic beat of the freight train. One is reminded of the new-born nation of Nigeria along the path of social reconstruction.
OYA "Primitive Fire"
In the beginning of time man discovered that he could make fire by striking together two flints. He gathered dry leaves and kindled them. The flames rose slowly, mounting higher and higher into a huge, dancing, writhing body of burning energy spreading beyond the horizon. Slowly it began to burn out-slowly losing life- slowly – then out. This is the idea Mr. Olatunji has created and interpreted so eloquently on the drums. This number is dedicated to the idea of freedom. Next to Shango it is the most powerful drumming in the collection. No electronic devices are used and what you hear is the true percussion sound, expertly played by Mr. Olatunji and his assisting artists.
ODUN DE! ODUN DE! "Happy New Year!"
This is Batatunde's own original composition representing the first bar of the hymns, "Ikore de," of the United African Methodist Church, an orthodox African separatist church in which Mr. Olatunji was a member of the choir in his teen-age years. The festival may mark the celebration of the harvesting of Yam, of the New Year, or the Easter, or Shango.
JIN-GO-LO-BA "Drums of Passion"
When there is a duet between the mother drum and the omele drum, what a match! The pattern sounds like this:
Mother-drum: Jin
Omele: golo
Mother-drum: Ba
In this piece, Olatunji attempts what may be called a symphonic drum drama. Each drum speaks a part.
KIYAKIKA "Why Do You Run Away?"
In this piece, the drummer asks of a friend: "My friend, what's the matter with you, that you are in such a big rush?" With the chang- ing tempo of life in Africa today, many are in a hurry to get somewhere. People are in a hurry to get rich quick; to travel by fast- moving vehicles; and to develop the country speedily. Friends no longer have time to stop, salute, and gossip as before. Instead they wave to one another at a distance, and say "gudubai" – goodby! The drum artist is surprised at these things, and is particularly disturbed at the thinning cord of friendship. So he resorts to the drum. Hear the beats simulating the hasty pace, as he sings "salo e; salo e; salo e..." But time does not heed the artist as it bears in new fads and foibles.
BABA JINDE "Flirtation Dance"
This is a number which does not need much explanation because of its title, Flirtation Dance. It is a play dance made famous by the first great teacher of African dance in this country, Asadata Dafora. In this dance a young man is faced with the difficult task of selecting the dancer who has responded best to the compelling rhythms. Aquasiba Derby is featured in the number with Olatunji.
OYIN MOMO ADO "Sweet as Honey"
This number reminds one of a common prac- tice throughout Africa of advertising a commodity through songs. Also, when the ancient Hebrews wanted to express their joy at the receipt of some good news, they praised the bringer of the news with these words. "How beautiful are the feet of him who bears good tidings!" Like other Africans, Yorubas express the same idea with a different idiom: "Onireki, o gboyin de, Oyin momo ado!" (the owner of the sugar, he brings news, sweet as honey). One of the indigenous instruments of Africa, known there by many interesting names and to the Western world as "the thumb piano," is featured in this song by Olatunji, with drums and voices blending in harmony.
SHANGO "Chant to the God of Thunder"
With thunder and lightning, Shango, the God of Thunder and the deified King of Old Oyo, revisits the earth, as his devotees chant his invocationary praise. Listen, as Babatunde invokes him:
"Shango, protect me! gatekeeper of the passenger train. Today belongs to the passengers;
tomorrow belongs to the
gatekeeper.
Shango, you lap blood
Like the cat that laps palm oil
Costumed like the acrobatic masquerade,
labala,
With the cloth of death,
Shango, you are the death that drips,
drips, drips
Like indigo dye dripping from an adire
cloth."
Notes by AKIN AKIWOWO and BABATUNDE OLATUNJI
Akiwowo (Chant To The Trainman)
Oya (Primitive Fire)
Odun de! Odun de! (Happy New Year)
Jin-Go-Lo-Ba (Drums Of Passion)
Kiyakiya (Why Do You Run Away?)
Bada Jinde (Flirtation Dance)
Oyin Momo Ado (Sweet As HoneyBee)
Shango (Chant To The God Of Thunder)
