The Nigerian bandleader King Sunny Adé doesn’t play in North America often — the last time was in 2009 — but the spaces between live exposures to his music are long enough for you to recover your hunger for it. Hunger helps: His music comes in big servings. There tends to be over a dozen members in his African Beats band: harmonizing chorus singers; percussionists building multitiered, melodic rhythm on talking drums and shakers; sometimes a pedal-steel guitarist; and King sunny Adé himself, singing Yoruba oral literature in a soft voice and playing sweet, consonant bursts on his electric guitar.
The band deals in short riffs and changeable form, call-and-response, flex-and-release, teasing and payoff. He’s been at this since the late 1960s, and the tempos have increased over the years, but the level of immersion available for the listener is still high.
FRENCH VERSION
