SIKIRU ADEPOJU Sikiru Adepoju Sikiru with Babatunde Olatunji Sikiru Adepoju - LIVE The man whom former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart calls "the Mozart of the talking drum," Sikiru Adepoju (Seek-ee-roo Ah-deh-poh-joo), first came to the focus of the American music scene through his involvement with Hart in the Grammy Award winning Planet Drum project. His technical mastery of the talking drum and various indigenous percussion instruments (dundun, gudugudu, gome, omele, sekere, etc.) have gained acceptance and respect among music listeners of all tastes. Yet, it is his unique spirit, discipline, and commitment to the moment that have gained him respect among his musical peers, and have contributed to his ability to engage and draw in audiences, body & mind, all the over globe. Born in Eruwa, Western Nigeria, Sikiru grew up in a "talking drum family" where he began his tutelage of the instrument at his father's side, at the age of six years old. He then went on to tour and record several albums with renowned Nigerian Juju artist Chief Ebenezer Obey and his Inter-Reformers Band. Obey, who called his personal style the miliki (enjoyment) sound, began where noted juju entertainer I.K. Diaro left off. Obey drew in such Western elements as multiple guitars and a Hawaiian steel guitar soloist, adding them to the traditional rhythmic foundation. Through his work with Obey, and subsequent work as a studio musician in Nigeria, the young Sikiru quickly won himself appreciation as a leading force on the talking drum throughout his homeland. In 1985, rising afrobeat artist, and nephew of I.K. Dairo, O.J. Ekemode, approached Sikiru to join his band. Sikiru agreed & later the same year Ekemode brought Sikiru and several other musicians from Nigeria to the United States to record and tour. After he moved to the Bay Area in 1985, Sikiru, soon met world-renowned percussionist and leading African music artist Babatunde Olatunji. Shortly after meeting Olatunji, Sikiru joined his Drums of Passion ensemble and began a 17 year period of productivity with the group, recording & touring extensively throughout the world, until a year before Olatunji's death in 2003. While a member of Olatunji's Drums of Passion, Sikiru recorded with Stevie Wonder, & Carlos Santana, and performed with the Grateful Dead, where he met Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. It was after meeting Hart that Sikiru also joined Hart's Planet Drum ensemble to record & tour. In 1991 the group's debut release "Planet Drum" hit #1 on the Billboard World Music Chart, remaining there for 26 weeks, and went on to receive a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album. In 2002 Sikiru joined Mickey Hart's Bembe Orisha (party to the spirits), where he continues to tour & perform. In 2003 Sikiru joined Trinidad born steel pan wizard Val Serrant to create Afrika Heartbeat. Afrika Heartbeat melds the musical influences of Yoruba culture across the African Diaspora with a foundation in Nigerian Juju music and Highlife.

SIKIRU ADEPOJU & AFRIKA HEARTBEAT Afrika Heartbeat Logo Sikiru Adepoju & Afrika Heartbeat Sikiru Adepoju & Afrika Heartbeat - LIVE What do you get when you put together seven world-class musicians with resumes that include playing/recording with the Grateful Dead, Babatunde Olatunji, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stevie Wonder? You get Sikiru Adepoju & Afrika Heartbeat. This amazing 7-piece West African Juju music & Highlife ensemble consists of Sikiru Adepoju (talking drum), Val Serrant (vocals & percussion), Nengue Hernandez (percussion), Peter Fuji (guitars), Deszon Claiborne (drums), Bola Abimbola (vocals), and Danjuma Adamu (bass). Each member of Afrika Heartbeat is a seasoned artist with reputations worthy of individual praise, and together, they are receiving it. With the release of their debut CD earlier this year, "Ijinle Ilu" (Original Drumming), they are capturing the hearts of world music DJs & jamband aficionados alike with their ability to draw out hypnotic rhythms which find their origins rooted in the Juju music & Highlife of the Yoruba cultural region of Nigeria. But their music doesn't stop there. Their unique blend of percussion-based music spans the African diaspora to include Yoruba-influenced folkloric music of Latin America and the Caribbean, along with jazz and R&B, and makes any show with Sikiru Adepoju & Afrika Heartbeat something to see! Recalling some of the artists with whom the members of Sikiru Adepoju & Afrika Heartbeat have recorded or shared the stage, reads like a "who's who" of the Jamband/Jazz/World music scenes: Mickey Hart's Planet Drum, Jerry Garcia, King Sunny Ade, Airto Moreira, Ornette Coleman, Zakir Hussain, Pharaoh Sanders, Carlos Santana, the Grateful Dead, Olatunji's Drums of Passion, Pele Juju, the String Cheese Incident, The Radiators, and many more. Do yourself a favor: Go see Sikiru Adepoju & Afrika Heartbeat!

MICKEY HART & BEMBE ORISHA Mickey Hart Bembe Orisha "World music is culture specific," says Mickey Hart, the former Grateful Dead drummer, ongoing ethnomusicologist and leader of Bembe Orisha. "If you were in the Philippines and you heard music of Appalachia, you would consider that world music, or vice versa. So 'world music' really isn't a good term to describe anything. It's the world's music." "'Bembe Orisha' means party to the saints, the spirits of nature," he says. "It's a West African word. So that's what this is all about. It honors the roots of the music that we got -- rock 'n' roll, blues, big band, jazz. It all came to us from Africa. This is the roots of the roots." Bembe Orisha features musicians from all over the world playing native instruments. It includes Nigerian percussionist Sikiru Adepoju; two Cubans, vocalist Bobi Cespedes and Nengue Hernandez on Latin percussion and vocals; Persian vocalist Azam Ali; South African bassist/vocalist Bakhithi Kumalo; and guitarist Barney Doyle and drummer Greg Ellis, both from the U.S. In Bembe Orisha, Mickey Hart mans a drum set, a balaphon, a thumb piano called a kalimba, and his electronic master, RAMU (Random Access Musical Universe), which allows him to call up any of a zillion pre-programmed sounds.

MICKEY HART'S PLANET DRUM Planet Drum album cover "It had long been a dream of mine to bring together great drummers from around the world to make a recording based entirely on percussion," said Mickey Hart. In 1991, that dream became reality when Hart enlisted the talents of world-renowned percussionists Zakir Hussain, Airto Moreira, Babatunde Olatunji, Giovanni Hidalgo, Sikiru Adepoju, and vocalist/percussionist Flora Purim to record and ultimately extensively tour the project that became known as Planet Drum. Planet Drum's self-titled album not only hit #1 on the Billboard World Music Chart, remaining there for 26 weeks, it also received the Grammy for Best World Music Album in 1991 (the first Grammy ever awarded in this category). Planet Drum is one of twenty-nine recordings released on Mickey Hart's the WORLD series on Rykodisc.

BABATUNDE OLATUNJI Babatunde Olatunji Babatunde Olatunji & Sikiru Giovanni Hidalgo, Babatunde Olatunji, Mickey Hart, Sikiru Adepoju (L-R) Babatunde Olatunji & Sikiru (background) Late Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji pioneered the successful introduction of native African music to US popular music culture and influenced musicians such as Carlos Santana, Mickey Hart, John Coltrane and Bob Dylan. Released in 1960, his groundbreaking album, "Drums of Passion," is considered the first significant album in the so-called "world music" genre in the United States. It has sold more than 5 million copies. "Baba" Olatunji is best known to San Francisco Bay Area rock fans through his association with the Grateful Dead. His Drums of Passion performance group, which also featured Sikiru Adepoju, appeared in concerts with the Dead. Olatunji was also a founding member of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart's Grammy-winning Planet Drum ensemble of world percussionists. "He was the first to bring African rhythms to western music, to rock 'n' roll and jazz," Hart has said. "He changed the face of what we recognize as music." For more than 40 years, Baba Olatunji served as an unofficial ambassador of African music and culture, teaching traditional drumming, dancing and chanting. Coltrane, the great jazz saxophonist, was among those who studied at his Olatunji Center for African Culture in Harlem. Santana recorded Olatunji's song "Jingo," and titled one of his albums "Shango," a track from Olatunji's landmark "Drums of Passion" record. Dylan mentioned him on his classic 1963 album "The Freewheeling Bob Dylan," singing "What I want to know, Mr. Football Man, is what do you do about Martin Luther King, Willie Mays, Olatunji?" A prominent voice during the civil rights movement, Baba Olatunji performed at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration. He also is credited with being an early proponent of the mind-body-spirit connection in music therapy, seeing drumming as a way to physical, spiritual and emotional health. He once said, "Rhythm is the soul of life. The whole universe revolves in rhythm. Everything and every human action revolves in rhythm."