In 1976, a young woman from Ijebu released her first album, a tribute to Nigeria’s recently assassinated head of state. It sold more than a million copies.
Salawa Abeni became the leading figure in waka, a Yoruba music tradition, and one of the most successful female musicians in Nigerian history.
Waka and the debut
Waka is an Islamic-influenced Yoruba music style, older than juju and fuji. It is traditionally performed by women, with vocals and percussion. Singers perform at religious and social occasions, praising God, patrons and the community. Salawa Abeni modernised waka, adding new rhythms and instruments while keeping its vocal traditions. Abeni is an Ijebu Yoruba from Ijebu Waterside in Ogun State. She began singing young and developed her voice in the waka tradition.
Her first album, Late General Murtala Ramat Mohammed, was released in 1976 on Leader Records. It paid tribute to Murtala Muhammed, who had been assassinated in February that year and was hugely popular. The album became the first recording by a female Yoruba artist to sell more than a million copies in Nigeria.
The Queen and a long career
In 1992, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, crowned her Queen of Waka Music. The title stuck, and she has been known as the Waka Queen ever since. Abeni released many albums over the following decades and performed widely at parties and celebrations across south-western Nigeria. She has been a regular presence at owambe parties, where waka’s praise-singing tradition fits naturally.
Nigerian popular music in the 1970s and 1980s was dominated by men, especially in juju and fuji. Abeni built a career on her own terms, leading her own band and becoming a star in her own right.
The band and her influence
Abeni’s band combines the vocal chorus of traditional waka with drums, including talking drums, and at times keyboards and guitars. Her live shows mix praise, prayer and dance, and can run for hours. Younger female singers in Yoruba music have cited her as an example. Her success showed that women’s traditional music could compete commercially with the biggest genres of the day.
Her 1976 tribute to a fallen general started a career that has lasted half a century. In Yoruba music, few people have held a crown as long as she has.
