From the liner notes to "Get Yer Jujus Out," an album by Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey and his Inter-Reformers Band:

Late one night in 1985 Ebenezer Obey was playing to a packed house at S.O.B.s, Manhattan's third world watering hole. It was his first appearance since Island's promotional push for Sunny Ade', when suddenly there were people who knew that juju wasn't that multi-colored candy ground into floors at movie theaters, or some stuttering take on religion. The place was sizzling. The obligatory parade of Nigerian chiefs climbed to the stage in massive white robes to dash dollar bills onto Obey's sweat-soaked brow in an honored salute of respect. Club-goers bounced to the Chief Commander's miraculous, polyrhythmic juju—white and black, Wall-Street bedecked or downtown-garbed, it mattered little. It wasn't every day a band of 17 members locked into a transcendental groove graced such a tiny stage.

But my glance kept wandering back over my shoulder to a middle-aged gentleman with a broad, still-boyish face and spreading paunch who was cutting up the dance floor. Obey himself was staring too, flabbergasted. "Ladies and gentlemen," he beamed between songs, "I am so honored by our most esteemed guest." As well he would be. The Kennedys held something of the same spell over English-speaking Africa as they did in the U.S.—And there was big Ted getting down to the Inter-Reformers Band. "We welcome you." But Ted wouldn't look up and hardly acknowledged—he'd checked his dubious celebrity at the door. The Senator was there to boogie.

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