When King Sunny Ade's African Beats ambled one by one onto the 9:30 club stage Friday night, it was no surprise that the first six musicians were percussionists, but it was a surprise that there was ...

Note: This article was originally published in April 2005. It was created at a time when African music was on the cusp of becoming an increasingly large part of the Western pop culture landscape.

LONDON (Reuters) - If African music is often wildly joyful and uplifting, its myriad variations were largely born from a history of slavery and suffering, imperialism and immigration. It's a songline ...