★★★★★
This is a rare gem for fans of Nigerian juju music. The genre's most enduring and prolific artist is revealed in his giddy youth, through tracks recorded with his band the African Beats between 1969 and 74, some ten years before American audiences got their first live taste of KSA's incomparable sound--and how sweet it is. The opener, "Sunny Ti De," is an 18-minute extravaganza, actually five songs run together in the "non-stop" mode Adé favored at that time...
- www.afropop.org
2010-12-19
★★★★★
Just in time for the 50th anniversary of Nigeria's independence (October 5, 2010), the country's greatest living music star, King Sunny Adé, unveils a spectacular double CD, proving that juju remains a driving force in African music. This is Adé's first international release of new music in 10 years, and it is a doozy! There are some new colors in the sound, but fundamentally this is a return to form...
- www.afropop.org
2010-12-19
★★★★★
If the Ade you know is, like most North Americans, from his early '80s trio of albums on Island Records, this release will come as a major surprise. This is his first American album in many years and sounds like his characteristic juju on steroids. Baba Mo Tunde leans towards juju's speedy stepson, fuji music, which hovers around 150 BPMs. This torrid pace is no problem for the band, which recorded this album at a point of maximum cohesion at the end of a tour...
- www.exclaim.ca
2010-12-06
★★★★★
Legend King Sunny Ade (a.k.a. Sunday Adeniyi) and his 23-piece band are the living embodiment of Nigeria's party-time juju music. This 10-track album - the title of which refers to the equatorial position of Lagos, Nigeria - is a re-release of the juju icon's 2000 album, just in time for his current North American tour. If this recording of classic groove-laden jams makes you want to buy a King Sunny Ade concert ticket, then it will have done its job.
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
King Sunny Ade's sleek and streamlined juju of the early 1980s marked a peak for both Sunny's career and for juju itself. While it's always a pleasure to explore the Nigerian vinyl releases from those years, with their medleys and long, unfolding grooves, it's also satisfying to find that King Sunny's first studio album in a decade marks a return, with a young and energetic band, to some of the ethos and aesthetic of that previous era...
- dustedmagazine.com
2010-10-25
★★★★★
When Nigerian music of the 1970s is mentioned outside of Africa these days, the words "Fela Kuti" are never far away. The amount of Fela-love over the last few years has been inspiring, as have the accompanying forays into African popular music of the 60s and 70s undertaken by vinyl archeology labels such as Analog Africa, Soundway, and Strut...
- tinymixtapes.com
2010-10-18
★★★★★
In the early 80s, Nigerian guitarist King Sunny Ade was primed for international superstardom ? Island Records gave him a big push, critics raved and fans (both casual and devoted varieties) of African music responded with gusto. It didn't quite work out ? hey, it was the 80s after all, where bad music, Reagan/Bush politics, shaky economics and stylized self-absorption ruled...
- www.jazzreview.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
Seven Degrees North, a recently reissued series of unfortunately truncated jams by King Sunny Ade from 2000, refers to the latitudinal location of Lagos, Nigeria, that impossibly populous font of garbage and pollution and joy and awe that has birthed so much African musical royalty, namely the Fela dynasty as well as Ade (at least for the better part of his professional career)...
- dustedmagazine.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
King Sunny Adé comes by his title fairly: a royal scion in his native Nigeria, he's been a beneficient ruler on the world music scene for decades at this point. His infectious juju rhythms have captivated audiences across the globe, and while only a small fraction of his output is widely available outside Africa, just about everything he's released is worth hearing...
- www.globalrhythm.net
2009-10-30
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