Healing Session

by Jonathan Widran Billed as "traditional African Meditation Music," this provocative mix of tribal wails, chants, and hypnotic percussion patterns is the first posthumous release from a Nigerian master whose impact on Western culture was profound and demands attention. Linked to the African education of Malcolm X, John Coltrane, and inspiring Martin Luther King, Jr., Olatunji (who died in April 2003) later collaborated with the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart to create the ultimate percussion supergroup, Planet Drum. Healing Session was recorded in 1992 when Olatunji was at the height of his powers, and it features all the key members of his renowned Drums of Passion ensemble. You'll probably just enjoy grooving along to the cool, polyrhythmic thumping sounds; exotic inventions; and impassioned tribal cries, but in actuality he's allowing listeners to experience the heart of his native Yoruban culture, designed for healing and guided meditation. These honor and invoke the Yoruban gods, the potent backbone of the healing and trance rituals of voodoo, Santeria, and candomble traditions in the New World. It's tribal music at its most pure and raw, designed for hardcore fans of deep Africa but also intriguing for those who simply like a lot of rhythmic variation.