Song: Jin-Go-Lo-Ba (Drums of Passion)

Artist: Babatunde Olatunji
Year: 1959
Youtube url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzVjLEzN36M

Here at Utopiat, we hope to use any and all creative platforms to inspire a shift in our collective experience towards love. We aim to curate rare, under-discovered tracks that are almost always underground, counter popular culture and written from a place of love and truth.

In 1959, Babatunde Olatunji's "Drums of Passion" was realized, the first complete album of traditional West-African music, to be recorded in the United States and popularized in the west. It has impacted influential musicians such as Quincy Jones, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan and Santana, just to name a few. 

This historic contribution was distributed to the western masses at a pivotal moment in time, during the societal and political development of the 1960's.

"Drums of Passion" demonstrated how Olatunji put into practice messages from his Yoruban ancestors, specifically that chanting, drumming and music, have the capacity to bring down long-standing cultural divides, unifying and healing the world.

His message was so strong and pure that Dr. Martin Luther King asked Olatunji to tour the country with him.

Says Olatunji, "The spirit of the drum is something that you feel but cannot put your hands on. You feel when people come together to play.

It does something to you from the inside out, but you can't really put your hands on it.

You feel it while you play… ...sometimes for 24 hours, sometimes for two or three days.

It hits people in so many different ways, But the feeling is one that is satisfying and joyful.

It is one that makes you say to yourself, ''Yes, I'm glad to be alive today. I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad I am a part of this world.''. It stays with you until other things come and take your attention away from it, but you will ALWAYS remember it…"

Over 50 years later, Babatunde Olatunji's message of the power of healing through drumming and chanting, is just as relevant…

This #MusicMonday post was curated and written by an Utopiat friend, the shamanic dj/producer Alex Gardel: http://bit.ly/29Qjukg