Biography
Born in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1952, Anyila Kollington shared top billing with Barrister as fuji’s dominant figure from the mid-1970s through the late 1980s. The genre, a Muslim-centered offshoot of juju that parallels apala and waka, preserved the parent style’s vocal and percussion foundations while discarding electric guitars in favor of a deeper, tradition-rooted approach. Kollington cut his first sides for Nigerian EMI in 1974; four years later he seized a decisive yet short-lived advantage over Barrister by adding the commanding bata drum—previously fuji had depended almost solely on talking, or “squeeze,” drums—sparking widespread excitement among listeners. When fuji mounted a serious challenge to juju’s status as Nigeria’s leading contemporary roots music in 1982, he launched Kollington Records and issued at least thirty albums on the imprint during the following half-decade. Once the expanding audience could comfortably accommodate both stars, the friction between them eased, although not before Kollington issued a record charging Barrister with causing the death of fellow bandleader Ayinla Omowura in a 1982 bar fight. By 1983 the two stood together as mourners at the funeral of apala icon Haruna Ishola. Mid-decade brought a fresh, equally public feud, this time with waka luminary Queen Salawah Abeni; the pair traded stinging personal attacks across a succession of albums and rebuttals. While the lyrical exchanges stayed incomprehensible to non-Yoruba audiences, the music’s dense drumming and hypnotic pulse held universal appeal.
Albums
