Adekunle Gold’s sixth album may be named after the improvisational Nigerian genre that emerged in the late 1960s, but it’s as much a reflection of Gold’s life as it is a full-throttle embrace of Yoruba oral music culture. “Fújì is just the sound of Lagos,” Gold tells Apple Music. “I grew up on fújì. I guess I should say thank you to my auntie, for constantly playing it when I was a child. It’s at every party, every event, they play it everywhere. It’s ingrained in me.”
With just over a decade of stardom under his belt, Lagos’ Adekunle Gold has lived many lives—and written even more hits. Since breaking out in 2014 with “Sade”, Gold has proven adept at pulling distinct strands from eras past to incorporate into his interpretation of Afrobeats. Early releases like “Orente” and “My Life”—propped up by their callbacks to genres such as jùjú and highlife—established Gold as a singer with a griot’s soul and sentimentalities. He’d broaden his reach with 2020’s Afro Pop, Vol. 1—which includes experiments in EDM and soca—but it is Fuji the singer points to, as a crystallisation of his practice.
“My album [title] started as an acronym,” says Gold. “Finding Uncharted Journeys Inside. But I’m already making fújì sounds; Since my first album Gold, I have a fújì-sounding song on every album. Even if I sing R&B, I sound fújì. So I might as well show the world this sound that I grew up on.”
Deftly merging tradition and heritage, Fuji is built around a rich percussive base as the singer works his way through apala, fújì and tungba influences. “Big Fish” plays as an out-of-body recounting of his come-up story and “Many People” embraces success, while “My Love Is the Same” and “Believe” emphasise familial and romantic love. In each instance, we get a tip of the hat to the storytelling techniques that make up the Yoruba oral music tradition. “I love my culture, I love my traditions and heritage,” Gold says. “I will always uphold it. I feel, as Africans, we all have a duty, an obligation to show our culture. I will never stop doing that.
