The Origin and Development of JuJu Music

UJU MUSIC, a type of popular music found in Nigeria, originated in the island city of Lagos during the third decade of this century. The present article focuses on the history of this music, about which little has been published up to the present. Part 1 deals with the origin and early development of the music from the 1920s to its emergence in the mid-1930s; Part 2 examines the meaning of the word jiuju as associated with jiujut music; and Part 3 treats the subsequent development ofjujui music from the period of its greatest notoriety in the 1930s to the present. Traditional African popular music falls into two categories, each of which has its own socio-cultural origin (Roberts 1972, 24142). One type is a music intended for group or communal dancing and produced for an audience of dancer-singers. The other type is a "listening music," performed by one or two persons who play and/or sing largely for their own self-expression and amusement. As we shall see, in juju music the two styles are blended into one, thus producing a new genre.