Awon Ojise Olorun Popular Music in Yorubaland 1931-1952 Awon Ojise Olorun tells the story of the dawn of recorded music amongst the Yorubas of Nigeria as seen through the collection of the British Library. Surveying the sakara music of Yoruba Muslims, the guitarists of Lagos, and the origins of apala percussion groups, the collection presents works by some of the most influential musicians in the period alongside tracks by forgotten pioneers. However, it also tells the story of the Yoruba response to the seismic changes in its society. With complete English translations of the lyrics, it is finally possible to gain a glimpse into the musical life of the Yoruba under British rule.

Apart from an important field trip made by Odeon at the turn of the decade, the Yoruba music market was the exclusive domain of Parlophone and HMV in the 1930s. From their catalogues, both companies initially focused their resources on juju and sakara with juju stars Tunde King and the Jolly Boys recording for Parlophone and HMV responding with works by Ayinde Bakare and Irewolede Denge. However, from an initial release schedule of juju music in 1937, HMV abandoned the genre to focus almost entirely on sakara, releasing a number of works by Ojo Olewale, Tijani Ayanlola, Ligali Adisa, and Salawu Atanda. HMV effectively handed Parlophone the monopoly on juju recordings which the latter exploited to the full. Parlophone also tried to diversify its catalogue by making the occasional recording of church choirs, drumming ensembles, and first commercial recordings of a female Yoruba artist. However, apart from juju, the public demand was overwhelmingly for sakara and Parlophone's repertoire consisted of works by Musa Lawal, Kasumu Bello, Salawu Atanda and Jimmy Yekini. Parlophone seems to have ceased operations in the late 1930s, leaving HMV as the only company in the Nigerian market. Parlophone's monopoly of juju was at an end and HMV took advantage to release recordings by the Jolly Boys, Ayinde Bakare, Godwin Scotland and most notably the remarkable Akanbi Wright who made ten discs during the war. The remainder of HMV's output in this period consisted almost exclusively of sakara, with recordings by Salawu Atanda, Musa Lawal, and Abibu Oluwa's first discs for ten years. The only exception to this was two recordings by the otherwise unknown Lasisi Layemi, which appear to have been HMV's first foray into producing drumming ensembles. In the immediate years after World War Two, HMV found stiff competition from Decca who emerged as a very active and progressive player in the region. Curiously HMV again abandoned recording juju artists entirely until 1954 when it released a disc by Theophilus Iwalokun. As it had done prior to the war, HMV pursued its policy of supporting sakara, releasing discs by Tiamiyu Kekere, A Giwa, and most significantly, some very early recordings by Yesufu Olatunji. Decca became the home for many juju artists with Ayinde Bakare, Rafiu Bankole, and Irewolede Denge all releasing tracks on the new label. Decca's Yoruba output was prodigious and inevitably sakara featured prominently on its roster with artists including Alhaji Muniru Singers, Olu Olewale, and Aiyeke. However, Decca also tried to diversify its catalogue by recording various drumming ensembles and examples of church choirs. The history of recorded drumming groups between 1931 and c1949 is a great enigma. The drum is an integral part of Yoruba culture and yet no purely percussive groups in this period seem to have had any commercial success. Most groups only managed one or two singles, recorded in the same session, before disappearing again and only Amusa Elo appears to have managed to record for two separate labels. The problem may have been that with such a diversity of drumming rhythms across Yorubaland, no one drumming group had managed to transcend its regional origins for mass appeal. Whatever the reason may have been, the period 1949-1954 marked a turning point for drum ensembles with the creation of the apala style. Apala would reach its heyday in the 60s and 70s and provide one of the foundations for the fuji style of the 80s but it was the early 1950s that saw the emergence of the style. Earlier recordings on Decca hint at this new force in popular Yoruba music, but Raimi Dogo, Aminu Olaribigbe, and S. Abeni emerged as the first apala artists to be recorded extensively by both HMV and Decca. Drum composers had finally managed to create a style that appealed throughout Yorubaland to compete against the previous near dominance of juju and sakara