Babatunde Olatunji was a virtuoso of West African percussion.His 1959 album "Drums of Passion" was a worldwide smash hit. He received a Grammy Award in 1991 for his collaboration with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart on their Planet Drum album. He was also the founder of the Voices of Africa foundation.



Michael Babatunde "Baba" Olatunji died on Sunday, April 6, 2003, 7:30 am, at the age of 75.



Biography:

"Rhythm is the soul of life. The whole universe revolves in rhythm. Everything and every human action revolves in rhythm."

- Olatunji

Babatunde Olatunji was born 1927 in the small village of Ajido, Nigeria, about forty miles from Lagos, the capital of the country. This small fishing and trading town amplified the ebb and flow of the seasons through the sounds of drumming that echoed through the nights.



As a child, Olatunji accompanied his great aunt Tanyin to hear the drums - hollowed out from trees and covered with the skin of goats - punctuate the lives of his people. The drummers celebrated every occasion, proclaimed the coming of local politicians, evoked the dreams and aspirations of their people. The drumbeat of his childhood became the life blood of his adult experience as Olatunji grew and traveled throughout the world popularizing the music of his Yoruban heritage.



While still in Africa in the late '40s, the ever resourceful Olatunji read in Reader's Digest about the Rotary International Foundation scholarships offered to youths from war-affected countries. By 1950, Olatunji and his cousin were each awarded a scholarship and were on their way to America to attend school in Atlanta, Georgia. Olatunji came to the U.S. determined to succeed in the international arena, at the time he had no aspirations to be a musician.



In 1954, after graduating from Atlanta's Moorehouse College with a degree in Diplomacy, Olatunji moved to New York to begin a Political Science postgraduate program in Public Administration at New York University. Throughout his American education he had a unique perspective on the cultural divides between black and white Americans. Early on he realized that music, drumming in particular, had the ability to break down the long-established cultural divisions within the "Melting Pot" that America was thought to be in those days. These sorts of insights were the motivating factor that brought Olatunji to begin performing the drumming of his Yoruba ancestors.



To cover his expenses he started a small drumming and dance group. Recognizing the influence of African polyrhythms in jazz, some of Olatunji's earliest fans were the jazz greats of the time; men like John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, Clark Terry, George Duvivier, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones, Taj Mahal, Pete Seeger, Bill Lee (Spike Lee's father), and Dance luminary Alvin Ailey; not to mention the legendary noted Columbia A&R man John Hammond who produced Olatunji's first album. Even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (also a Moorehouse graduate) invited Olatunji to tour with him.



In 1959, Columbia Records released Olatunji's first album, Drums of Passion, which became an unprecedented, worldwide smash hit. It was the first album to bring genuine African music to Western ears, and it went on to sell over five million copies. Olatunji has traveled the world for forty years spreading his music and African culture. Thirty years ago, he founded the Olatunji Center of African Culture in the heart of Harlem and he has been a member of the faculties at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California and the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York for almost 15 years. At these institutions, as well as at innumerable workshops and festivals, Olatunji continues to pursue his strong commitment to spreading knowledge of African culture through the teaching of traditional drumming, dancing, and chanting in classes for adults and young people.



Olatunji received a Grammy Award in 1991 for his collaboration with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart on their Planet Drum album. In addition, his composition "Jingo Lo Ba" has become a signature song for the rock group Santana. Olatunji also has written scores for Broadway and Hollywood productions, including the music for She's Gotta Have It, a film by Spike Lee.



In 1997, Chesky Records released love drum talk, which went on to be nominated for the 1998 Grammy for Best World Music Album. On it, Olatunji unleashes the rhythm of passion. Olatunji leads an ebullient ensemble of guitarists, singers and, of course, percussionists through a series of spirited meditations on the nature of love. Lust, kinship, sensuality, courtship, and spirituality are the themes Olatunji uses to fuel his joyous, infectious playing.



Babatunde Olatunji died Sunday morning, April 6, 2003 just ten days after being admitted to Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, of complications due to his long struggle with the effects of Diabetes. Olatunji had a profound impact on everyone who knew him and everyone who had been touched by his love for the drum and the African culture that nurtured that love.