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about |
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Sikiru
Adepoju |

Sikiru
with Babatunde Olatunji |

Sikiru
Adepoju - LIVE |
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(born May 15, 1956 Eruwa, Nigeria)
Sikiru Adepoju (pronounced Seek-ee-roo Ah-deh-po-joo) is a master of the talking drum and many other Yoruba percussion instruments. Born in Eruwa, Nigeria, Sikiru hails from the traditional lineage of Yoruba talking drummers culturally referred to as Ayan which means “one who has descended from drummers lineage,” and began playing under the tutelage of his father Chief Ayanleke Adepoju at the age of six. Along with his brothers Saminu and Lasisi, Sikiru accompanied the family’s talking drum ensemble for several years.
Sikiru later went on to tour and record several albums with the renowned Nigerian Juju artist Chief Ebenezer Obey and his Inter-Reformers Band and won professional acclaim and appreciation in his homeland as a leading force on the talking drum onstage and in the studio. He would later tour the United States with legendary Afro Beat master O.J. Ekemode in the Nigerian All Stars.
After moving to the San Fransico Bay Area in 1985, Sikiru joined the influential and pioneering Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olantunji and his Drums of Passion. This marked a lengthy period of high productivity from Sikiru which saw him recording and performing throughout the world until a year before Olantunji’s death in 2003. During this period he was introduced to Grateful Dead drummer, Mickey Hart, who has called Sikiru “The Mozart of the talking drum,” and employed him on many of his personal projects including the Grammy award winning albums Planet Drum (1991) and Global Drum Project (2008). He is currently performing with the Mickey Hart Band in support of their album Mysterium Tremendum which features Sikiru’s vocals on the track “Who Stole The Show.”
Sikiru is also the leader of his own group, Africa Heartbeat, whose 2003 recording debut Ijinle Ilu captured the attention of world music listeners and DJs with the groups’ ability to draw from the hypnotic rhythms originating in the Juju and Highlife music of the Yoruba region of Nigeria. Currently he is producing the upcoming debut recording of the African Showboyz and continuing work on the Heartbeat Africa and Limbo Rhythm projects.
Sikiru has shared the stage or recorded with many of music’s finest including The Grateful Dead, Stevie Wonder, Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Ornette Coleman, Airto Moreira, Zakir Hussein, Pharaoh Sanders, Dave Schools, George Porter Jr., and many more. It is his versatility, skill, good humor, and willingness to push the limits of his drumming and his music which has gained Sikiru acceptance and respect among his peers and music listeners of all tastes.
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SIKIRU
ADEPOJU
DISCOGRAPHY
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Afrika
Heartbeat Logo |

Sikiru
Adepoju & Afrika Heartbeat |

Sikiru
Adepoju & Afrika Heartbeat - LIVE |
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Discography
- The Apocalypse Now Sessions (1989) –
Rhythm Devils
- Juju Jubilee (1985) – Ebenezer Obey
- Drums of Passion: The Invocation (1988) –
Babatunde Olatunji
- Drums of Passion: The Beat (1989) –
Babatunde Olatunji
- At the Edge (1990) – Mickey Hart
- Planet Drum (1991) – Mickey Hart
- Jungle Fever (1991) – Stevie Wonder
- Drums of Passion: Celebrate Freedom, Justice
& Peace (1993) – Babatunde Olatunji
- Big Bang (1995) – various artists
- Mickey Hart's Mystery Box (1996) – Mickey Hart
- Watchfire (1996) – Pete Sears & Friends
- Best of Ellipsis Arts (1997) – various artists
- Supralingua (1998) – Mickey Hart
- The Rose that Grew from Concrete – (2000)
- Honour Simplicity, Respect the Flow (2000) –
Kai Eckhardt
- Best of Mickey Hart: Over the Edge and Back
(2002) – Mickey Hart
- Ijinle Ilu – Afrika Heartbeat (2003)
- Life After That (2003) – Airto Moreira
- Soup's On Fire (2003) – Jana Herzen
- Circle of Drums (2005) – Babatunde Olatunji
- Ara Kenge (2005) – Bola Abimbola
- Global Drum Project (2008) - Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju, Giovanni Hidalgo
- Rhythm Devils Concert Experience (2009) – Star City
- Mysterium Tremendum (2012) – Mickey Hart Band
Filmography
- The Rhythm Devils Concert Experience (2008 two-disc DVD)
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MICKEY
HART
&
BEMBE ORISHA |

Mickey
Hart |

Bembe
Orisha |
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"World music is culture specific," says Mickey
Hart, the former Grateful Dead drummer, ongoing
ethnomusicologist and leader of Bembe
Orisha. "If you were in the Philippines
and you heard music of Appalachia, you would consider
that world music, or vice versa. So 'world music' really
isn't a good term to describe anything. It's the world's
music."
"'Bembe Orisha' means party to the saints, the spirits
of nature," he says. "It's a West African word.
So that's what this is all about. It honors the roots
of the music that we got -- rock 'n' roll, blues, big
band, jazz. It all came to us from Africa. This is the
roots of the roots."
Bembe Orisha features musicians from all over the world
playing native instruments. It includes Nigerian percussionist
Sikiru Adepoju; two Cubans, vocalist
Bobi Cespedes and Nengue Hernandez
on Latin percussion and vocals; Persian vocalist Azam
Ali; South African bassist/vocalist Bakhithi
Kumalo; and guitarist Barney Doyle
and drummer Greg Ellis, both from the
U.S. In Bembe Orisha, Mickey Hart mans a drum set, a balaphon,
a thumb piano called a kalimba, and his electronic master,
RAMU (Random Access Musical Universe), which allows him
to call up any of a zillion pre-programmed sounds.
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MICKEY
HART'S
PLANET
DRUM |

Planet
Drum album cover |
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"It had long been a dream of mine to bring together
great drummers from around the world to make a recording
based entirely on percussion," said Mickey
Hart. In 1991, that dream became reality when
Hart enlisted the talents of world-renowned percussionists
Zakir Hussain, Airto Moreira,
Babatunde Olatunji, Giovanni
Hidalgo, Sikiru Adepoju, and
vocalist/percussionist Flora Purim to
record and ultimately extensively tour the project that
became known as Planet Drum.
Planet Drum's self-titled album not only hit #1 on the
Billboard World Music Chart, remaining there for 26 weeks,
it also received the Grammy for Best World Music Album
in 1991 (the first Grammy ever awarded in this category).
Planet Drum is one of twenty-nine recordings released
on Mickey Hart's the WORLD series on Rykodisc.
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Babatunde
Olatunji |

Babatunde
Olatunji & Sikiru |

Giovanni
Hidalgo, Babatunde Olatunji,
Mickey
Hart, Sikiru Adepoju (L-R) |

Babatunde
Olatunji & Sikiru (background) |
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Late Nigerian drummer Babatunde
Olatunji pioneered the successful introduction
of native African music to US popular music culture and
influenced musicians such as Carlos Santana, Mickey Hart,
John Coltrane and Bob Dylan.
Released in 1960, his groundbreaking album, "Drums
of Passion," is considered the first significant
album in the so-called "world music" genre in
the United States. It has sold more than 5 million copies.
"Baba" Olatunji is best known to San Francisco
Bay Area rock fans through his association with the Grateful
Dead. His Drums of Passion performance group, which also
featured Sikiru Adepoju, appeared in concerts with the
Dead. Olatunji was also a founding member of Grateful
Dead drummer Mickey Hart's Grammy-winning Planet Drum
ensemble of world percussionists.
"He was the first to bring African rhythms to western
music, to rock 'n' roll and jazz," Hart has said.
"He changed the face of what we recognize as music."
For more than 40 years, Baba Olatunji served as an unofficial
ambassador of African music and culture, teaching traditional
drumming, dancing and chanting. Coltrane, the great jazz
saxophonist, was among those who studied at his Olatunji
Center for African Culture in Harlem.
Santana recorded Olatunji's song "Jingo," and
titled one of his albums "Shango," a track from
Olatunji's landmark "Drums of Passion" record.
Dylan mentioned him on his classic 1963 album "The
Freewheeling Bob Dylan," singing "What I want
to know, Mr. Football Man, is what do you do about Martin
Luther King, Willie Mays, Olatunji?"
A prominent voice during the civil rights movement, Baba
Olatunji performed at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration.
He also is credited with being an early proponent of the
mind-body-spirit connection in music therapy, seeing drumming
as a way to physical, spiritual and emotional health.
He once said, "Rhythm is the soul of life. The whole
universe revolves in rhythm. Everything and every human
action revolves in rhythm."
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