#465: King Sunny Adé, 'The Best of the Classic Years'
Shanachie, 2003
Throughout the week, I’ve been in a lot of conversations about NFTs. Even Kanye has been talking about it. While listening to this album on an airplane, I overheard some people talking about NFTs. I rolled my eyes and kept listening. Then I started wondering, how would this album work as an NFT? Would it? What does that mean?
First, let’s get into King Sunny Ade. He is Nigerian royalty, his dad was a king and his brother was next. His music is thick and tangible and sweaty and chunky and smooth all at the same time. He produced music and art for his people and by his people.
He is a cultural engineer building musical bridges across the world, reminding the ignorant folk of the west of the dignity of the East.
His music is rooted in reality, it projects reality and it affects reality.
I don’t know enough about NFTs to write a big ol’ discourse but I do know that creating an NFT uses a ton of energy. The impact on the environment is massive. I also know that an NFT cannot live outside of the internet and is reliant on the permanence of a URL. URLs have yet to prove permanence.
We are pulling so much from an already spent Earth to create things that are not real for some sort of meta world that money buys access to. I don’t understand the attraction of this perversion. As I question whether I want to participate in the NFT world, I can no longer ignore the soundtrack these thoughts were created— King Sunny Ade. His world is not a world of the impermanent and virtual. His is real.
Maybe someday I will change my mind and NFTs will be my life. You’ll have to call me Nicolle FT. But right now, I would rather live in a space where King Sunny Ade and his art is valued more than something that can only live on the internet.
Top Songs: The whole album. Please listen.