Melissa Lane

On her 21st birthday, Wunmi talked her strict Nigerian father into allowing her cousin to take her to a Roy Ayers concert. It was the late eighties, Ayers ruled the thriving acid jazz scene and the show was part of the legendary "NY Jazz Explosion" series. Growing up in Nigeria for ten years and then returning to London at 14 had cultivated in Wunmi a kaleidoscope of creative impulses as well as a deep and wild love for anything involving percussion and dancing.

The show delivered all the rhythmic bliss she had envisioned--as well as a foretelling of what life might hold for her. As she tells the story, "I was dancing in my usual freaky Wunmi way, and this guy took me backstage--he said, "Roy has to see you. You can't be real. Are you real? No, you are not real!" She stops to laugh, delighting in the memory of the incident, then continues to explain how meaningful her encounter with Ayers was. "He read me. He read me so clearly. He told me that I was going to do something good. That everything I had was so strong. He told me don't be worried about it. It will come to you."

While it would take her years to find her voice, both literally and figuratively, she made impressive forays into a myriad of visual and performing arts. As the funky dancer with self-designed fashions and a huge throng of braids, she would become the "face" of Soul II Soul. She would be the choreographer and stylist for PM Dawn, as well as designer for all the top African-American dance companies. She would be chosen for Kiss FM's first advertising campaign, and Paper's list of "50 Beautiful People," all of which combined to cement her as an icon of London's club culture.

When she came to New York in 1992, she finally decided to give singing a shot. She shudders when recalling the response she got to the demo she brought to a record label: silence.

"I have always been this African Fusion girl. I look around me and there is nobody else like that. In that sense, I feel very alone. The market lets black people do one thing only: urban, and that breaks down to hip-hop and R&B. The only other avenue is to get in line for pop. I grew up and watched Caucasians like Bjork and Kate Bush do what they wanted to do, to be categories unto themselves, but for black people, we cannot exist like that. We can only be one thing: urban. Urban! How is this possible when we are such a colorful people?"

Only momentarily discouraged, she set out to places like the West Village club Anarchy, where bands jammed and encouraged people to join them. Even in pre-Giuliani New York, it was only a matter of time before a hyperkinetic explosion of freestyle scatting in English and Yoruba would get noticed. If not for that, amidst the whirl of clanging jewelry, partially shaved head and flashes of bright material acting as clothing was a disarming pair of the widest, sweetest, most alert eyes atop the most infectious grin.

"When I got the call from Masters At Work--Little Louie wanted me to do a track--that is when the dance world opened up to me, and it made sense, because I am a dancer. And until that point, I really didn't see where and how I could be me. So, you see, it just made so much sense."

Looking back, she proudly recites the all the people she has now done tracks with: MAW, Roy Ayers, Rainer Truby of Jazzanova, Truby Trio, Bugz In The Attic, Osunlade, A Guy Called Gerald, Vernon Reid & DJ Logic, King Britt and The Pastaboys.

At long last, she will release her own solo album (slated for May 2006). She strains to explain what the album is like. On one hand, it is clearly a dance album: it features many of the producers she has worked with previously. It also maintains a strong African backbone, but she doesn't want to be mislabeled as Afrobeat. "The only thing that is AfroBeat about me is the way I sing. But, honestly, other than that, Afrobeat is far more complicated than what I am doing. It takes a lot of musicians to do AfroBeat. I'm not doing that... I can't afford to do that!" she laughs. "What I'm doing is Afro-Everything. I used to be AfroPunk, then I was Afro-Tech... the Afro is me, you can never take that out. Really, I am just doing Wunmi. And how can I explain that? I can only explain it by performing it."

Without the benefit of seeing the woman in the flesh (Thursday's show will be her Chicago debut), you can most succinctly cull her essence by what she cherishes as her most favorite compliment. After performing at the Nuyorican Soul party in Miami a few years back, Barbara Tucker came up to her and said, "Wunmi, thank you for bringing the dance back into dance music." She sighs, "For me, it don't get no sweeter than that."

Wunmi performs live with two percussionists, alongside DJs Kennedy Octane and Hide Sukenari at Sonotheque, 1444 West Chicago, (312)226-7600, on November 3 at 9pm.

(2005-11-01)

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