The importance of the collective community that characterizes traditional African life is reflected in three main activities associated with music: communal dance, call-and-response singing, and the use of polyrhythm in instrumental performance.

Polyrhythm (meaning “multiple rhythms” that aren’t readily perceived as deriving from each other) is the predominant structure for organizing instrumental (as well as some vocal) musical performance in sub-Saharan Africa.

For centuries, the polyrhythmic music traditions of sub-Saharan Africa were largely incomprehensible to outsiders and often labeled as “wild” playing. Ignorance of how the complex polyrhythmic music organization worked was a primary factor behind these negative attitudes.

One rhythm typically functions as a density referent, a pattern that is like the center of a bicycle wheel. This is a reference pattern heard in polyrhythmic music, usually articulated by a bell, rattle, or woodblock. Because drumming ensembles tend to be loud, a louder instrument with a distinctive timbre, such as a bell or a rattle, usually plays this part.

Nigerian Jùjú blends the traditional foundation of polyrhythmic percussion and storytelling with modern elements of instrumentation, such as use of electrophones (a fifth category later added describing instruments that require electricity to produce sound), and concert performance. The music has immediate appeal for its easily discernible “beat” but also an undercurrent of complex rhythm.

Jùjú music first appeared during the 1920s and is considered to be an innovation of Tunde King. This early style utilized an acoustic guitar or banjo with a drum, gourd rattle, and tambourine as rhythmic accompaniment. After World War II, musicians in Nigeria began incorporating electric instruments into their jùjú recordings. Innovators such as Ebenzer Obey and I.K. Dairo expanded the musical elements further by adding other instruments, such as the accordion, and introducing a greater variety of percussion.