Sunny Adé

Sunny Adé Biography / Profile

Sunday Adeniyi Adegeye known popularly as Sunny Ade, the undisputed king of juju music was born into a royal family in Ondo State in September 22, 1946 to a Sammuel Adeniyi Adegeye who was a church organist and Maria Adegeye who was a trader.

Sunny Adé Age

Sunny Adé is 78 years old.

Sunny Adé Early Life

When Sunny Ade told his parents that he was leaving school for music, they were horrified that he would do a job that was believed at that time to be reserved for commoners.

Sunny Adé Career

Sunny Ade's love for music was so great that he left school to pursue a career in music eventually making waves with his African Beats band.

He started out performing with Moses Olaiya's Federal Rhythm Dandies which was a highlife band before founding the Green spots in 1967, a name he took out of love for the longtime juju king, I.K. Dairo's Blue Spots band releasing his debut single "Challenge Cup," which celebrated a local soccer team's championship and became a national hit and by the early '70s, Green spots have metamorphosed into the African Beats band with four or five vocalists, five guitarists, keyboards or vibraphone (in the '80s, he added synthesizers), bass, trap drums, and a half-dozen or so percussionists, including the talking drum players that are central to the distinctive juju sound. His music sings poetic lyrics ("ewi" in Yoruba land) and praise for dignitaries.

Frustrated at how the record labels were exploiting them, Sunny Ade launched his own record label in 1974 and since inception, the label has released more than 100 of Sunny Ade's recordings. Sunny Ade was influenced by the legendary Tunde Nightingale, borrowing stylistic elements from his "So wa mbe" style of juju and soon became known internationally with the albums, "Juju Music" and "Synchro System" for which he got his first Grammy Award making him the first Nigerian Grammy Awards nominee, and in 1983, performed before their first American audience.

Known by his fans as The African Bob Marley, and named by the New York Times as "one of the world's greatest band leaders" and in Trouser Press as "one of the most captivating and important musical artists anywhere in the world", he released "Odu", a collection of ancient Nigerian songs in 1998; the album was nominated for a Grammy making him the first African to be nominated twice for a Grammy and in 2000, he released a follow -up, Seven Degrees North. He and His African Beats have been featured in three films Juju Music in 1988, Live at Montreux in 1990, and Roots of Rhythm in 1997. He also acted in Robert Altman's 1987 comedy, O.C. and Stiggs. Sunny has collaborated with major artists including Manu Dibango and Stevie Wonder as well as younger Nigerian artists like Wasiu Alabi Pasuma and Bola Abimbola.

Sunny Ade is a business man, founding an oil firm, a mining company, a nightclub, a film and video production company, a PR firm, and a record label specializing in recordings by African artists.

Sunny Ade has a foundation, The Sunny Ade Foundation which is an organization that includes a performing arts center, a state of the art recording studio, and housing for young musicians and performers. He serves as chairperson of the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria. In December 2016 he was inducted into Hard Rock Cafe hall of fame.

Sunny Ade was appointed visiting professor of music at the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife and in March 2017, he was appointed as the "Change Begins with Me" campaign ambassador by the Nigerian minister of information, Lai Mohammed.

Sunny Adé Personal Life

King Sunny Ade has five official wives all of whom in an instagram post in 2016, he reffered to as his "Women Crush Wednesday" and so many children he lost count.

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