Sewele album cover
Sewele

Sir Shina Peters & His International Stars

1986
S.P. Records

Conversations around Shina Peters’ musical career usually only center around a couple of albums, the groundbreaking and hugely successful Ace and its followup Shinamania. But for years before that Peters had been experimenting with new sounds, taking the jùjú he’d grown up with into more progressive, modern directions. The 1986 Sewele, reissued by Strut with great liner notes by Peters himself, was a pivotal point in his career, just as he started honing his Afro-juju sound that would make him a star a few years later. It’s a testament to his ability to take different styles and make them jùjú, from the Afrobeat in “Yabis” to the reggae riff on “Agbe’ere De”, a nod to Bob Marley’s “Get up Stand Up” (there’s a sneaky rip of ABBA’s “I Have a Dream” in there too). Though it may have flown under the radar when it first came out, Sewele is an absolute knockout.

Megan Iacobini de Fazio

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