Juju Music is the 1982 major label debut of Nigerian jùjú band King Sunny Adé and His African Beats.
It was produced by keyboard player Martin Meissonnier, who introduced synthesizers and Linn drums into Adé's established juju sound.
[6] In its review, Allmusic indicates that the album gave Adé "unprecedented exposure on the Western market and introduced a slew of music lovers to the sounds of Afro-pop.
[7] When Adé agreed, he was teamed with Martin Meissonnier, a French record producer who advised that the typical long song structures of Nigerian music would not work for Western audiences.
[8] The album Juju Music was coupled with an international tour, with Island Records ambitiously hoping to position Adé as a new Bob Marley.
[10][11] The tour setlist drew little from the album it was meant to support; at a three-hour show in New York City, the band played only two songs from Juju Music, "Ja Funmi" and "Eje Nlo Gba Ara Mi".
[7] Rather than catalog those represented types, Palmer described Adé's style as a "fusion of traditional Yoruba drumming with a pop instrumentation that includes pedal steel guitar and synthesizer".
[14] The artist offered as an example of this an explication of the popular anthem "Ja Funmi" from Juju Music, an "instant classic" according to Afropop Worldwide which he plays at every show in spite of the vast body of work from which he might choose.
[7] In his review, Palmer describes the beginning of the song "Mo Beru Agba" in detail, concluding that the music shifts "textures as mercurially as an African breeze, but with three talking drums and a section of congas, bongos, and other percussion instruments continuing to lay down a densely woven fabric of propulsive rhythms".