General Ayinla Kollington (born 20 August 1949) is a Nigerian Fuji musician from Ilota, a village on the outskirt of

Ilorin Ilorin is the List of capitals of states of Nigeria, capital city of Kwara State in Western Nigeria.. Retrieved 18 February 2007 As of the 2006 census, it had a population of 777,667, making it the List of Nigerian cities by population, 7th ...

Kwara State Kwara State ( yo, Ìpínlẹ̀ Kwárà), is a state in Western Nigeria, bordered to the east by Kogi State, to the north by Niger state, and to the south by Ekiti, Osun, and Oyo states, while its western border makes up part of the internation ...

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. He is also called Baba Alatika, Kebe-n-Kwara, Baba Alagbado.

Life

Ayinla Kollington ranks alongside his friend and competitor

Ayinde Barrister Sikiru Ololade Ayinde Balogun, MFR, (9 February 1948 – 16 December 2010) better known by his stage name Ayinde Barrister was a Nigerian-born Yoruba singer-songwriter, songproducer and music performer. He is regarded as a pioneer of Fuji and ...

as the two most important artists to dominate Fuji music from its inception in the 1970s through to the 1990s, by which time it had grown to become one of the most popular dance genres in Nigeria. Between the mid-1970s and late '80s, Kollington ranked with Barrister as the leading star of

Nigerian Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jour ...

fuji music – such as apala and waka, a Muslim-dominated relation of juju, retaining that style's vocal and percussion ingredients but abandoning its use of electric guitars in order to obtain a more traditional, roots-based sound. Kollington began recording for

EMI in 1974, and in 1978 achieved a pronounced, but temporary, lead over Barrister when his introduction of the powerful bata drum (fuji had until that time relied almost exclusively on talking, or "squeeze", drums) caught the imagination of record buyers. In 1982, when fuji was beginning to seriously rival juju as Nigeria's most popular contemporary roots music, he set up his own label, Kollington Records, through which he released no less than 30 albums over the next five years. As the popularity of fuji grew, and the market became big enough to support both artists, Kollington and Barrister's enmity diminished. By 1983, both men were able to stand side by side as mourners at the funeral of apala star

Haruna Ishola Haruna Ishola Bello M.O.N. honorary title, Member of the Order of the Niger (1919 – 23 July 1983) was a Yoruba musician, and one of the most popular artists in the apala genre. Music career He was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. Ishola's first album i ...

. A new and equally public rivalry emerged in the mid-'80s, this time with "Queen of Waka" star

Salawa Abeni Salawa Abeni Alidu (born 5 May 1961) is a Nigerian singer. An Ijebu Yoruba from Ijebu Waterside, in Ogun State, she began her professional career in waka music when she released her debut album titled, ''Late General Murtala Ramat Mohammed'', ...

, who exchanged bitter personal insults with Kollington over a series of album releases and counter-releases. At the start of the 1980s, he started his own record company, Kollington Records, to release his music and remains to this day an extremely prolific artist, having recorded more than 100 albums. In 2019, Kollington revealed why he had dropped the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

life for music.

References

External links

Short biography at The African Music Encyclopedia
1949 births 20th-century male musicians 20th-century Nigerian musicians Living people Musicians from Kwara State Nigerian male musicians Yoruba musicians Yoruba-language singers {{Africa-musician-stub