01:03 GMT 28th September 2011
With limited finances and no guarantees of success, it was a huge gamble, but one that would pay dividends. The first festival sold out across its two venues with a total audience of 1,350 people. Buoyed by its success, he and Barbara set about planning the next edition with no idea that it would become an annual fixture on London's musical calendar.
Between September 9 and 18, they will put on the ninth London African Music Festival, which takes place at top venues all over the capital with a star studded lineup of 18 performers and an expected audience of 12,000 people. Anticipating what will be the largest and most talked about festival to date, Adepegba maintains that creativity remains the source of inspiration behind London's most successful festival of African music.
'The goal is to show that Africa has creative music,' he says. 'Normally people expect Americans and Europeans to have creative artists, but in Africa we do have creative artists - people who are actually trying to do something new, year in year out. That is why people are coming to the festival. They are getting an experience that they are not getting anywhere else.'
Adepegba, of Nigerian descent but born and raised in London, always lent his ears to the sounds of his ancestral home. In spite of the pop music that blasted out whenever he turned on the radio or watched TV, he preferred to seek out African sounds, accessible either through friends and family and the occasional concert. By the age of 21 music had already become a career after he started out in the industry as a runner at festivals and a booking agent at London's prestigious Jazz Cafe.
In 1990, teaming up with Pukwana, the former wife of South African saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, they formed Joyful Noise production company and put on their first show at London's Conway Hall that year. In 1992 they reinvigorated the Jika Records label, originally Pukwana and her late husband's brainchild, and produced recordings by the African Jazz Allstars and the Township Express with Pinise Saul and Lucky Ranku among others, whilst simultaneously promoting artists through bookings at a range of gigs such as the London Jazz Festival and the Rhythm Sticks Festival throughout the late 1990s.
Although Joyful Noise was successful in some aspects, Adepegba's desire to highlight artists creating a sound beyond conventional African music remained unsatisfied and so the concept of the London African Music Festival was born. 'For example, in Nigeria if you don't play Afrobeat, juju or fuji you don't have a space,' explains Adepegba. 'Here [at the festival], people are not doing a one hour or 45 minute set, they are doing a full two hour set, sometimes more. Here an artist can explore everything they have so they don't just play the hits and [leave] the stage. They have to fill those two hours and play songs that they don't usually play on a festival run. That is one of the key reasons why the festival is unique.'
With the popularisation of traditional African music such as Nigeria's juju, Ghana's highlife, Congo's soukous and Zimbabwe's jit throughout the 1970s, came the threat of commercialism. As African artists, spearheaded by legends such as F ela Kuti and Miriam Makeba, began to shake up the music scene with a fresh sound, westem culture was quick to pigeon-hole them and African music companies in tum were keen to replicate a winning formula.
Today African music has established itself across the world as a genre in its own right, boasting collaborations with leading American and European performers, its own billboard charts, festivals, international record labels and its very own modem day superstars recognisable around the globe. However, in popularising itself and departing from its traditional roots, the genre has become more constrained to feed the money-making demands of western popular music. Adepegba seeks to reignite the musical experimentation he so dearly loves.
'If you take someone like [Cameroonian bassist] Etienne Mbappe, for example, who plays with all the big names - when he plays his own music with his own band, it's completely different because he starts to explore what the role of a bass player is as a band leader, as a groove bass person, trying to create a song,' comments Adepegba. 'He 's not just doing full on dance music, he's experimenting with instrumentation, using violins, accordions etc, and that's not expected from an African artist.'
In an age when music lovers are able to pick and choose their sound at the touch of a button, it is no surprise that the African Music Festival has proved to be a hit amongst discerning Londoners. 'I can't wait for the festival, I go every year.' Said Adam Phelps, 26, a computer programmer from London. 'I go to a lot oflive gigs, but this one is something else. You really get a chance to see the artists play and relate to the audience and that makes for an amazing vibe. There's so much on offer that you can get a real flavour of the freshest sounds coming out of Africa.'
The roster for the upcoming festival continues to offer an eclectic mix of African sounds. Playing alongside artists including Mbappe, Nigerian vocalist Funmu Olawumi and Congolese pianist Ray Lema, there are fusion bands who reach across continents such as the Congolese and Cuban Grupo Lokito, the Angolan and Portuguese band Terrakota, and the British and Congolese collaboration of Ruby and the Vines.
There are also virtuoso performers such as the first female Kora player, the Londonbased Sona J obarteh, South African trumpet virtuoso Claude Deppa and Gramrny award winning Ivorian vocalist and dancer Dobet Gnahore, as well as group acts such as the Vocal Ensemble of Africa, which represents six African nations in one group and the French based ten man Orchestre National De Barbes.
Given the festival's barrage of flavours and styles, it is no wonder that it prompts such a ground swell of anticipation, but even Adepegba is surprised by its demographic. 'Surprisingly [there' a lot of] young people,' he says. 'I thought it would be for an old fuddy-duddy like myself, people in their forties, but we are getting lots of really young people who want to hear great live music.'
One would forgive him for getting carried away with the hype, but beneath the sheen of the show's artistic director lies perhaps the festival's biggest fan. Having grown up in London, he doesn't see the need to go beyond the city and venture into other parts of the country or abroad. Instead, Adepegba's goal is to expand to other venues within the capital and continue to bring the freshest and most cutting edge examples of African music to the attention of the festival's patrons.
Visible at every event and happiest knee deep in the bustle of the audience rather than the quiet of the foyer amongst the media and organisers, Adepegba is all about the music and he remains prepared to go anywhere to discover the most innovative sounds. 'When I travel in Africa I might stay at a hotel and there is always a band playing and I will always go and listen to them. Some of them are great, some of them are terrible and some of them are really outstanding,' he tells me.
'That's how the Naija Rhythm Orchestra found themselves in the festival, because I saw the leader playing and I thought "wow,this is really incredible". They played [in London] last year and were probably the most surprising programme and they are coming back this year because people were just so stunned by the performance. They are the first band I have brought back two years in a row. I've never done that before. The continent is big and the musical styles are so big it's impossible to repeat yourself.'
With an unquenchable thirst for new sounds, a growing audience and an impressive pedigree, Adepegba's vision will continue to grow and inspire listeners to better appreciate Africa's musical and artistic creativity for many years to come.
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