Before there was world beat music, before there was Afropop or any of the other genres of African music marketed to Western audiences, there was Babatunde Olatunji. Olatunji's 1959 “Drums of Passion” ...

Babatunde Olatunji, a Nigerian drummer whose decades of groundbreaking work were rooted in his native culture and influenced countless musicians, has died. He was 75. Olatunji died Sunday morning at ...

Babatunde Olatunji, 76, the Nigerian drummer whose 1959 Columbia Records album, "Drums of Passion," helped introduce African music into the American mainstream, died of complications of diabetes April ...

Master drummer Babatunde Olatunji, 68, champions his instrument, the timekeeper and heartbeat of music, as a religious salve. When he speaks of the drum’s sound as not only a universal language but ...

Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji dies Sunday at age 76. Olatunji recorded an album in 1959 called Drums of Passion, and it was for many Americans their first exposure to African drumming. While ...

Legendary drummer Babatunde Olatunji passed away Sunday at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Olatunjis 1959 album, Drums of Passion was a top 10 hit in the United States, long before world music ...

Percussionist Babatunde Olatunji was born in a Yoruba-speaking fishing village in Nigeria in 1927 and succumbed to diabetes in Salinas, California in 2003. Why might Circle of Drums, a ...

Groundbreaking Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji, whose decades of work was rooted in his native culture and influenced countless professional musicians, has died. He was 75. Mr. Olatunji died April ...

Babatunde Olatunji, the Nigerian drummer, bandleader and world beat pioneer who first brought authentic African music to the United States with his 1959 album, "Drums Of Passion," died Sunday from ...

Groundbreaking Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji, who helped introduce the power and intricacy of African music to the United States, died April 6 in San Salinas, Calif., of diabetes complications ...