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Results for "Fela Kuti"
Ash Walker: Astronaught
by Chris May
London DJ Ash Walker came to attention in 2019 with Aquamarine (Night Time Stories), a butterlicious mix of jazz, blues, soul, funk and dub reggae that was beyond categorisation. Astronaught is the follow-up, cut from the same cloth. Like its predecessor, it is by no stretch of the imagination a “jazz" album, however ...
Dele Sosimi & Friends At Ronnie Scott's Club
by Chris May
Dele Sosimi & Friends Ronnie Scott's Club London June 11, 2023 Born in London but brought up in Lagos, keyboard player Dele Sosimi was a child prodigy who joined Fela Kuti's Egypt 80 the moment he left secondary school in 1979. Sosimi had by that time been rehearsing with Egypt ...
Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: 60 Years
by Chris May
The 2 x LP 60 Years celebrates the history of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (PAPA), which was founded by the pianist, composer and community activist Horace Tapscott in South Central Los Angeles in 1961, and directed by him until he passed in 1999. The release, albeit of archive material, also reminds us that the Arkestra ...
Neil Ardley & Ian Carr: Authoritative Studies Of Paradigm Shifting British Musicians
by Chris May
Not-for-profit label Jazz In Britain is best known for carefully curated releases of historically important recordings made by British musicians in the 1960s and 1970s, most of them previously unavailable and sourced either from the musicians' own tape archives or those of BBC Radio. But from time to time, the label also publishes books.
Fela Kuti: Coffin For Head Of State
by Chris May
From the late 1970s onward, Fela's lyrics became longer, more complex and ever more confrontational. Coffin For Head Of State, first released on Kalakuta in 1981, is an outstanding example. It is one of several albums on which Fela responded to the Nigerian army's destruction of his Kalakuta Republic compound on 18 February 1977, and focuses ...
Fela Kuti: Yellow Fever
by Chris May
Yellow Fever was originally released in 1976 on Decca's West African imprint, Afrodisia, and both its tracks were hugely controversial in Nigeria. The title track is one of Fela's greatest masterpieces. Sung in Broken English, the language Fela adopted in order to make his words understood beyond Yoruba speakers, the lyrics rail against women's use of ...
Michael Blake: Afro Blake
by Ludovico Granvassu
Africa seems to have been a special source of inspiration for Michael Blake, as compositions like “Addis Abeba" (Elevated), “Malagasy" (Combobulate), “Mauritania" (Buzz), “Road to Lusaka" (In the Grand Scheme of Things), “Africa Used to Be Home" (More Like Us) or “Surfing Sahara" (Elevated ) attest. They are all characterized by memorable themes and an instantly ...
Ezra Collective's Femi Koleoso: On Tony Allen and UK jazz today
by Rob Garratt
Of all the artists to emerge from the overbaked “UK jazz explosion" of recent years, Ezra Collective are arguably the greatest crossover success--based on Spotify stats and tour bookings, anyway. And while the juggernaut of early hype may have worn itself out, things are only looking rosier in 2023: The barrier-busting London quintet is currently gearing ...
Fela Kuti: Army Arrangement
by Chris May
Fela only occasionally used outside producers on his albums. Mostly, the results were good: EMI producer Jeff Jarratt's Afrodisiac (EMI, 1973), British dub master Dennis Bovell's Live In Amsterdam (Polygram, 1983) and keyboard player Wally Badarou's exceptional Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense (Philips, 1986). But on one occasion it was spectacularly bad: avant-funk bassist Bill Laswell's ...
Fela Anikulapo Kuti: Perambulator
by Chris May
Until now one of the lost treasures of Fela's recorded legacy, the history of Perambulator is as arcane as the sleeve credit to Egypt 80 on the Lagos International label's original release is misleading. Far from being recorded by Egypt 80 in 1983, as claimed by Lagos International, both tracks were actually recorded by Afrika 70 ...
