Inception: Where It Began

For Adekunle Gold (AG Baby) Fuji is not just a record; it’s something that’s been years in the making. According to his interviews, the project took five years to complete. Over that period, he says, he was collecting stories, building ideas, and feeling out how to bring together his present voice with ancestral sounds.

The title Fuji is obviously evocative: it calls to the rich genre of Fuji music that emerged in Yoruba Muslim communities, especially during the ’60s onward. Its drums, its rhythm, its sociocultural messages. But AG doesn’t try to reproduce Fuji exactly; he treats it as both foundation and launch pad. It’s a tribute, a reinterpretation, a bridge between yesterday and what he hears in his head now.

He frames this album as not nostalgia. Indeed, he told media:

“I named this album after an entire genre because Fuji is bigger than music. It is Lagos, it’s street royalty, it’s our story, our hustle, our heritage turned global … This is not nostalgia. This is reinvention.”

So Fuji was born out of his desire to pull the ancestral sounds of Yoruba, Lagos street life, family, grief and love to fold them into something contemporary but rooted. He also had conversations with Fuji legends like Adewale Ayuba, who affirmed that his venture feels “full circle,” because artists like Ayuba saw in him someone trying to bring Fuji into new spaces and among new audiences.

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Inspiration Behind the Style: What AG Is Doing Musically

1. Heritage, drums, rhythms: Fuji music is known for fast beats, an ensemble of Yoruba percussion (talking drums, shèkkèrè, gángan, etc.), lyrics that often deal with social, religious, political themes. AG picks and chooses from that palette. It’s not “traditional Fuji only,” but there are nods. Rhythmic inflections, syncopations, percussion tones, call-response textures, that kind of layering.

2. Personal stories: The album isn’t just about genre. It’s deeply personal. AG discusses loss (his father’s death in 2019 is a major theme), fatherhood, love life, friendships, growth. One track, Simile (“rest on me” in Yoruba), was submitted to Beyoncé’s team at some point but didn’t make their list. This suggests its scope was always ambitious, aiming for universal resonance even as it is rooted in specific experience.

3. Blending past & present: AG doesn’t abandon his Afropop, highlife, R&B leanings. Rather, he fuses them with Fuji energy. Earlier albums showed evolution: Gold (2016) had highlife / folk manners; About 30 (2018) matured into deeper themes; Afro Pop Vol. 1 & Catch Me If You Can explored more global sound-scapes; Tequila Ever After (2023) pulled in even more diverse influences. So with Fuji, he’s continuing that trajectory, not resetting.

4. Sampling & nods to older works: One of the clearest examples is the single “Believe”, which opens with a recognizable sample from “Just the Two of Us” by Bill Withers & Grover Washington Jr. AG and producer Seyifunmi reshape it into Fuji-tinged percussion and flow, so the familiar becomes new in context. Also, in Don Corleone, there are inflections that echo Suru Baba Iwa by Sikiru Ayinde Barrister (a Fuji pioneer), e.g. lyrical or melodic gestures. It’s not outright cover, but listeners steeped in Fuji will catch what is being referenced.

5. Linguistic and cultural texture: AG continues using Yoruba (and English) but the Yoruba isn’t always just decorative. He uses idioms, phrases, spiritual and cultural references. For example, track titles like Lailo, Oba, Simile, Obimo, etc. reinforce that dual identity: the modern global sound and the Yoruba world from which he comes.

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Conclusion: The Brilliance of Fuji

Fuji is one of those rare albums that does two things at once:

It reclaims what’s foundational Yoruba heritage, Fuji rhythms, Lagos’ energy, and celebrates it with reverence... It pushes forward: emotionally, sonically, globally.

Adekunle Gold has shown with this project that he is not content to ride on past success; he is trying to define something lasting. Fuji is an album that demands to be felt as much as heard, in its drums, its words, its silence between those words, in its cover art, its cultural references. It’s not perfect, but it is powerful. It’s a milestone not just for AG, but for what contemporary Nigerian music can be when it looks back to move forward.

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