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• CD Title: Routes to Roots - Yoruba Drums from Nigeria
• Artist(s): Solá, Akingbolá
• CD Code: EUCD2114
• Tracks: 11
• Playing Time: 47:59 min
• Booklet Info in: English, Spanish, French, German
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“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.
Original Yoruba poetry in the booklet, with English translations, and info to each song in English, German, French and Spanish.
Click here for media reveiws on this album >>
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.
What’s been said about Solá Akingbolá
“Solá Akingbolá has to be one of the best percussion players I’ve ever worked with – tremendous feel and power.”
Al Stone, Producer of Jamiroquai and Björk
“With Jamiroquai’s Solá Akingbolá beating a funk-infused rhythm on percussion throughout, he truly and masterfully brought the congas to life with an intense passion.”
Rebecca Taylor, Drunken Werewolf Magazine
“Watching Solá solo, the deep rooted connection between his language and drumming, is clear to see. As he progresses through the solo, it’s obvious that Kay himself is driven by the infectious grooves laid down by the percussionist.”
Louise King, Rhythm Magazine
Yoruba Music and Culture
Yoruba folk music is renowned for its advanced drumming. Although there are a plethora of drums the music is based mainly around the use of hourglass-shaped tension drums or dundun. It is this music that forms the basis of the West-African influence in diasporic musical styles typical of Latin America, the Caribbean and especially Cuba. The iyaalu is the lead drum used in a drumming ensemble; it is made to ‘talk’ in such a way that the sound of Yoruba, which is a tonal language, is skillfully imitated.
The music is largely devotional in that spirituality and ancestor worship lies at the core of Yoruba musical expression. The complex religious and philosophical system of the Yorubas date back thousands of years and, as a result of diaspora, has become influential throughout the Caribbean, many areas of Latin America and increasingly in North America and Europe. Believers consult divination specialists or ‘keepers of the secrets’, known as babalawo in order to commune with the spirit world. This practice and the philosophy associated with it, is known as Ifa.
As well as being inseparable from traditional spirituality, Yoruba folk music in its various forms is inseparable from regional distinctions within Yoruba land. In metropolitan cities European as well as Islamic and other Christian influences have been brought to bear in distinctive ways leading to the formation of more popular genres such as highlife, juju, Fuji and Afro-beat.
1. Ninu Opon Ori Tiwa - 4:24 
2. Olukumi - 3:40
3. Enia Lasoo Mi - 3:54
4. Ifanla - 2:13
5. Ori Ni Kan - 6:25
6. Witch Dance - 3:45
7. Seegesi Olooya - 4:54
8. Boya Iro Ni - 6:58
9. Kulumbu Yeye - 3:08
10. Ojo To Wa Ninu Ose - 1:30
11. Aro Orunmila - 6:34
Asia
