Alhaja Queen Salawa Abeni

Fuji is a percussion‑driven popular music from southwestern Nigeria that grew out of Muslim wake‑up (wèrè/ajisari) songs performed during Ramadan. It blends the call‑and‑response vocals and praise‑singing tradition of Yoruba culture with dense drum ensembles, hand percussion, and later, modern band instruments. Characterized by rolling polyrhythms, insistent grooves, and melismatic lead vocals, fuji emphasizes rhythm and vocal interplay more than complex harmony. Since the 1980s it has absorbed elements of jùjú, highlife, and contemporary urban pop, producing both traditional street‑party variants and sleek, band‑backed concert styles.

Highlife is a popular music genre from Ghana that blends indigenous rhythmic cycles and song forms with Western instrumentation and harmonies. It is instantly recognizable by its bright, interlocking guitar lines (often played with a two‑finger plucking technique), buoyant polyrhythms, call‑and‑response vocals, and jazzy horn riffs. Early dance‑band highlife favored brass and woodwinds (trumpet, saxophone, trombone) and big‑band arrangements, while guitar‑band highlife drew from palm‑wine guitar styles with lighter, lilted grooves. Across its variants, the music typically sits in major or mixolydian tonalities and uses dominant 7th/9th chord colors. From its coastal roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to post‑independence urban dance halls, highlife has continually evolved, later embracing electric guitars, synthesizers, and drum machines—yielding contemporary uptempo, synth‑driven forms that still retain the genre’s danceable feel.

Waka is an Islamic‑oriented Yoruba musical genre from southwestern Nigeria. It blends Hausa‑Islamic devotional singing practices with Yoruba language, poetry, and percussion, resulting in a spiritually grounded but socially vibrant style. Traditionally led by powerful female vocalists, Waka features call‑and‑response choruses, melismatic lead lines influenced by Arabic recitation, and interlocking Yoruba drum patterns (gangan/talking drum, bàtá, sákárà), with shèkèrè and handclaps reinforcing a cyclical groove. Lyrics offer praise (to God, notable persons, and families), moral counsel, and social commentary, and are commonly performed at weddings, naming ceremonies, and festive Islamic occasions.