Mr. Fuji: Barry Wonder: Episode I of The Fuji Documentary. Produced by Professor Saheed Aderinto

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Praise for The Fuji Documentary

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“The director and producer of the film, Professor Saheed Aderintọ, is a leading cultural historian and authority on Nigerian popular music. Though factually detailed and sophisticated in approach, the dominant note is one of respectful admiration for a unique cultural figure [Sikiru Ayinde Barrister]. The film is beautifully put together and entirely captivating -- a landmark in popular music documentation. Àjànàkú kọjá “Mo rí nǹkan fìrí”, bá a bá rérin, ká a sọ pé a rérin!"



Professor Emeritus Karin Barber, DBE, FBA

University of Birmingham

Author of The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theatre



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“Professor Saheed Aderinto is a masterful storyteller who successfully brings his prodigious skills as a historian to documentary filmmaking. This film brilliantly tells the story of Fuji music as it emerges in the cultural efflorescence of post-independence Nigeria and then goes global. This film is a must-see for music fans and anyone interested in understanding the creative spark currently igniting Nigerian music, film, and art.”



Professor Jesse Weaver Shipley

The John D. Willard Professor (Dartmouth College)

Author of Living the Hiplife: Celebrity and Entrepreneurship in Ghanaian Popular Music



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“An oratorical-historical masterpiece, Aderinto’s Documentary engages the rich rhythmic archive of Fuji, a major Yoruba musical genre with roots in Southwestern Nigeria. It is a compelling account of the postcolonial transformation of the Nigerian soundscape…Here, Aderinto announces his versatility as a debutant filmmaker, while continuing to prove his worth as a world-class historian-ethnographer.”



Professor Omotayo Oloruntoba-Oju

Adekunle Ajasin University

Author of African Theatre Aesthetics: A Comparative Study of the Plays of Wole Soyinka and Femi Osofisan as Paradigms

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“Saheed Aderinto’s rendering is masterful, and the visual prose is uncommon. With this film, he has proven to be the master of the subject and a brilliant visual narratologist. This documentary is rendered with stunning visual beauty, providing uncommon scholarly insights into the making of the most consequential genre of popular music in contemporary Nigeria.”

Professor Onookome Okome

University of Alberta

Co-editor of Popular Culture in Africa: The Episteme of the Everyday



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“Prof. Saheed Aderinto has created a documentary that is richly entertaining, insightful, and incisive. It is a landmark exploration of Nigeria's musical history, inviting us to a deeper appreciation of the profound cultural expression that Fuji music represents. Congratulations to Prof. Aderinto for this invaluable work.”



Femi Odugbemi, fta

Co-Founder/Director, IREPresent International Documentary Film Festival

Voting Member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences



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“A triumph. Iṣẹ́ takuntakun lèyí! Adérìntọ́’s interwoven voices of participants, performers, and specialist observers, render a moving history of fújì, a modern, popular, music idiom that offers viewers a revealing glimpse into an optimistic time in post-independence Nigeria.”



Professor Adélèké Adéẹ̀kọ́

Humanities Distinguished Professor, The Ohio State University

Author of Arts of Being Yoruba: Divination, Allegory, Tragedy, Proverb, Panegyric



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“This wonderful documentary by Professor Saheed Aderinto pays tribute to Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and to a whole crucial dimension of Nigerian cultural history. It’s lively, warm, rich, and fast-paced, crowded with testimonials and insights by people who were close to Barrister. Like the filmmaker himself, it wears its authority, lightly.”



Professor Emeritus Jonathan Haynes

Long Island University

Author of Nollywood: The Creation of Nigerian Film Genres



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“I was transported and transfixed. Professor Saheed Aderinto’s documentary film on the fújì pioneer Sikiru Ayinde Barrister shows how history is made up not only of dry archives, but of lived orality, meandering anecdote, gossip and the everyday emotions of the people.”



Dr. Carli Coetzee

President of the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom

Editor, Journal of African Cultural Studies

Chair of Lagos Studies Association Publications Committee


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“Professor Aderinto’s powerful 120-minute documentary weaves together biographical, critical, and anecdotal narratives interspersed with musical excerpts to paint a holistic picture of the remarkable career of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, the late Nigerian superstar of Fuji and one of Africa’s icons of popular culture in the 20th-century.”



Professor Bode Omojola

The Hammond-Douglass Five College Professor of Music

Mount Holyoke and the Five Colleges

Author of Yoruba Music in the Twentieth Century: Identity, Agency, and Performance Practice