REFINED FUJI GARBAGE: BARRISTER’S ANOTHER FIRST BY TUNDE BUSARI

King Sunny Ade’s African Beats’ remix titled “Ja Funmi”, which was released in 1982, must have particularly influenced Dr Sikiru Ayinde Barrister’s remix titled “Refined Fuji Garbage” he released in the UK in 1990. KSA’s ‘Ja Funmi’ till this morning is a masterpiece and a timeless work of art that asserts the Ondo-born as a true king of world beat, in terms of quality of his lyrics, speed of the tempo and combination of instrumentation.

Barrister, on the other hand, was on a summer tour when he entered the studio and recorded the piece, which pointed to the direction to which he was, like KSA, leading fuji music. He was evidentially hungry to transform the genre he solely carved to a global brand that would be sharing concert stage with the best entertainment personalities. And he justifiably featured at concerts in Europe in 1993 before other fuji musicians would follow his footprint.

Although I couldn’t extract the details of the actual background to that dance-all “Refined Fuji Garbage”, the songs, the sound are undoubtedly indicative of Barrister’s bottomless urge to create a new clan of fans for fuji among the western audience as a compliment to his hundreds of thousands owanbe patrons across the world.

That must be the real reason drum set, piano and hawai guitar take the lead in the percussion arrangement and the tempo accelerated to the taste of disco goers. Barrister picked his chart-burster “Fuji Garbage II” he released in 1988 and his “America Special” of 1986 as contents for the experiment, and the results are everywhere till this morning when I had to listen to it with mind of an analyst rather than that of a fan of fuji.

The former gives you a broader perspective to see everything you need to see to pass your judgement. The latter will naturally blur and indeed blindfold you not to see everything you need to see before you pass your judgement. The latter is the incurable affliction fans of music, movie stars suffer.

The accompanied clean video of “Refined Fuji Garbage”, shot in UK and Germany, rebrands fuji as a cosmopolitan and ruthlessly ambitious genre. Barrister and his band members are seen at attractive sites and singing and dancing to the amusement of charmed white spectators.

Look, there is nothing wrong in showing love and sticking to one’s favourite artistes but everything is wrong in overtly and covertly attempting to distort and rape history in a broad day light. The height fuji music has attained today arguably can’t and won’t be detached from the sweat and vision of Barrister who clearly defined the genre as combination of different, unrelated brands of music. That’s in 1979. That’s 46 years ago.

Again, attempt to rob him his seat in the hall of fame is an attempt in futility, for overwhelming proof is available to justify that he is that leading horse that breasted the tape ahead of others. Thankfully, others are also doing their best and sustaining fuji music identity. Yo daa fun gbogbo yin.