Apala is 20th century percussion and voice music of Yoruba Muslims in Nigeria. This style is typically cited as the most important precursor of the better known fuji music popularized by Sikuru Ayinde Barrister, Ayinla Kollington, Adewale Ayuba and others. But unlike some fuji and all juju music, apala never incorporated any Western instruments and maintains a highly spiritual dimension. One sign of this is the fact that apala singers typically perform while seated.

This genre apparently emerged in the late 1930s and early '40s when amateur musicians played songs to rouse the faithful after the rigorous fasting of Ramadan. When it fell into the hands of professionals and began to be recorded, apala took on more polish and pump. Musicologist Chris Waterman suggests that the influence of Afro-Cuban percussion recordings was also formative in refining the music's presentation, although not its rhythms and forms. Apala features a relatively small ensemble, focused around two or three omele, variably pitched talking drums. The talking drum, the sekere rattle and the agogo bell are all staples of many Nigerian styles, but apala also features one more unusual instrument. The agidigbo is a hollow lamellophone (thumb piano) that is both plucked and struck, often by the lead singer in an apala ensemble. This instrument's plinking ostinato patterns are easily identified in apala recordings.

Apala came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of rising wealth and great optimism in Nigeria. Clubs and societies merging Yoruba tradition and British social custom thrived in Lagos. Musicians who performed at inawo, urban parties, soon found themselves in Decca's recording studios and on the radio, some on their way to stardom. Apala's greatest popularizer was no doubt the celebrated praise singer Haruna Ishola, who recorded and sold millions of records between 1955 and his death in 1983. Ishola's apala mostly relies on two popular Yoruba rhythms, one slow and sensuous, the other fast and percolating. His lyrics draw on traditional proverbs, improvised praise and the Koran to arrive at a potent brew--so potent, in fact, that Ishola's praise was said to have the power to kill the person being praise, if taken in too strong a dose. Although there seem to be no contemporary apala stars, the music lives on in treasured recordings. Thankfully, some of those are beginning to become available internationally. See Discography.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre