fújì

Fuji music was created by Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, a Lagos-born Yoruba musician who developed the genre in the late 1960s from ajísàrì music — the music played during Ramadan to wake Muslims for the pre-dawn meal. Barrister electrified and amplified the ajísàrì percussion and vocal style, gave it a commercial name he found modern and prestigious — 'Fuji,' borrowed from the then-popular Mount Fuji imagery in photography and technology branding — and released it to a Lagos audience hungry for Yoruba popular music that was distinctly modern.

The name had no Japanese content — it was a brand choice by a musician who wanted to signal progress and modernity. The Japanese visual presence in Nigerian markets in the 1970s (Fuji film, Fuji technology) made 'Fuji' connote quality and contemporaneity. Barrister attached it to a music that was entirely Yoruba in content, language, and rhythm.

Fuji music features percussion (talking drum, sekere), call-and-response vocals in Yoruba, Islamic-influenced ornamental singing, and fast tempos. Barrister's rival and contemporary Kollington Ayinla developed a parallel style. The competition between the two defined Fuji for a generation of Lagos listeners. Both performed in massive outdoor venues across Yorubaland.

Fuji remains one of the most popular music genres in Nigeria, particularly among Yoruba-speaking Muslims. It plays at weddings, funerals, naming ceremonies, and political rallies. The Japanese name containing Yoruba music and Islamic influences performing at a Yoruba political rally in Lagos is a compressed history of global exchange in the late 20th century.