Joe Tangari reviews
Femi Kuti's
The Best of Femi Kuti.
Being born of greatness has its perks, I'm sure, but it seems it's mostly a burden. How does Jakob Dylan even get up in the morning knowing he's doomed to be judged against his father every time he writes a song or cuts a record? There are hundreds of children of musical giants roaming around the industry these days, working with varying degrees of success to carve out their own names separate from their parents-- Zak Starkey, the Lennon half-brothers, Moreno Veloso, Eric Mingus, and the various offspring of Charlie Haden, to name just a few. Femi Kuti is in this same position, perhaps dealing with an even more insurmountable legacy. As far as African music goes, his father Fela wasn't just Bob Dylan; to continue an imperfect analogy, he was also Bob Marley and John Coltrane, and that doesn't even take into account his political impact.
Femi of course is acutely aware of his father's towering legacy, and seems content to extend it, realizing that trying to equal it is impossible, regardless of genes. Femi had something of a head start, playing sax in his father's Egypt 80 bands for close to two decades, assuming leadership of it during his father's various politically motivated imprisonments. Though he had performed his own right for years, he only released his first solo album, Shoki Shoki, in 1998, a year after Fela's death from AIDS, in effect picking up the torch his father finally had to let fall. In the time since then he's recorded another album, contributed to records by Common (Like Water for Chocolate) and Rachid Taha (Made in Medina), opened up the Afrika Shrine, a successor to his father's iconic Lagos nightclub, and founded an organization aimed at galvanizing and educating working-class Africans, all of this between multiple world tours.
So to say he's a busy, conscientious guy is something of an understatement. He may be the son of a legend, but Femi Kuti has paid his dues to arrive where he is, and now Wrasse Records has released this compilation of material drawn from his two studio albums as an introduction. Given that it's a 70-minute disc drawing from only two albums, you can imagine that it includes the bulk of both records and it does. Being familiar with both records, I really can't think of any of the usual wounded-critic objections to the track selection-- a better introduction to Femi's modern take on Afrobeat isn't in the offing.
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Antibalas, the politically charged Brooklyn-based ensemble that meshes Afrobeat, Latin rhythms and any other appetizing world-music stylings it finds to its liking into a musical melting pot uniquely its own, is a dozen men strong. How will they all manage to fit on the tiny Troubadour stage for their show on Thursday?
"We've played in kitchens," Stuart Bogie, the group's tenor saxophonist, recalls with a laugh. "We get real close. In a lot of places, we're physically touching each other for the duration of the show."
"A lot of times, our best shows are on small stages," says Martin Perna, who assembled the group a decade back and plays baritone sax.
"We hear each other a lot better on small stages."
Antibalas (Spanish for bulletproof) broke through with its universally acclaimed 2004 recording "Who Is This America?"; its current release, "Security," continues the band's ascent with impossibly infectious, swinging grooves and heartfelt, defiant political idealism.
"Most of us would like to be singing about flowers, trees and love, but Afrobeat is a music of resistance," Perna notes. "There are issues independent of major global geopolitics or American domestic policy. There's war going on, but people would get tired of an album of songs of how ridiculous and deceitful and expensive the war is."
To that end, "Security" begins with "Beaten Metal," a tune inspired by the fact that many of Germany's World War II weapons were melted down and turned into musical instruments. Perna says that lyrics were written for the songnumber, but the group decided the vibe came across just as persuasively as an instrumental.
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Twelve musicians and no band leader: Sounds like a recipe for disaster in logistics, organization, command, finances, you name it.
But the musical "collective" known as Antibalas wouldn't function any other way.
"Operating this way can be frustrating," allows Martin Perna, the band's saxist. "But in the end, it's more rewarding. You can get very lazy when you have a leader. You just let somebody else figure it out. Here, everyone has to figure it out."
Ironically, Antibalas' messy setup has resulted in music with a rare sense of order. In the past few years, this Brooklyn-based band has become one of America's prime promoters of the "Afrobeat" sound, a complex style pioneered by the Nigerian artist Fela in the '70s.
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Seed Newsvine
Antibalas, the horn and percussion driven Brooklyn collective, is best known for their energetic afro-beat grooves that channel the legendary Fela Kuti. But with careful attention to refining their sound—adding distinct Latin, jazz and funk elements—the group has emerged as a well-rounded and diverse sonic force. On Security, they demonstrate their growth, with the capable guidance of producer John McEntire (of Tortoise and The Sea and Cake fame), post-rock pioneer and a consummate shaper of dynamic soundscapes.
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Aside from the Brazilian Girls, there's probably no other Brooklyn band that embodies and embraces the cultural melting pot of New York City's five boroughs better than Antibalas. At their deliriously funky live performances one finds an eclectic smorgasbord of fans, listeners from different scenes, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds. Antibalas' bombastic cannonade of horns and polyrhythmic beats proves that music will always be a barrier breaking common language for the people of the world.
Sure, some are quick to point out the Fela Kuti vibe, but Afrobeat is only the foundation of Antibalas' sonic dynamic. Security finds this 14-member plus collective grooving on a wave of Latin, calypso, reggae, salsa, juju, world jazz, Middle Eastern accents, and a whole lot more to create a simmering cauldron of spicy world stew.
Security's opening salvo, "Beaten Metal," is a thunderous array of clanking tremors and guitar riffs, while "Filibuster XXX" is evocative of a car chase scene from a '70s Blaxploitation flick with a meringue sizzle and a lashing Farfisa organ. Frontman Duke Amayo ponders what GOP stands for ("greedy old people," "gas, oil and petroleum," "guilty of perjury"). "Hilo" is funky, shadowy, and exotic. "I.C.E." is an album highlight that starts out like soundtrack composers John Barry or Lalo Schifrin writing for a cock fight scene in the back room of a Bushwick bodega at 3 a.m. before descending into an ambient, psychedelic flurry straight out of a 19th century opium den.
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Nigerian musician Femi Kuti was recently in Britain as part of the third African Soul Rebels tour.
Femi burns with conviction that music can have a social impact. “What I do is communication,” he told Socialist Worker. “My music says the struggle is not over. Africa still has a very long way to go, but the fight is on.”
His father Fela Kuti was a seminal African musician and a powerful political focus in Nigeria in the 1970s.
Influenced by the Black Power movement in the US, Fela developed Afrobeat – a fusion of different styles of African music with jazz and funk.
A long series of albums denounced the state and led to continual raids from the Nigerian state, beatings and imprisonment. Fela died in 1997.
Femi’s music is smoother and less confrontational than his father’s – but it is still overtly political.
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The CD was released by Shock Records NZ through Border Music on Monday 12 February and features 16 tracks from some of the fantastic worldwide performers set to take to the stages at WOMAD New Zealand 2007 at New Plymouth's Brooklands Park and TSB Bowl from March 16-18.
The CD truly is a world music journey, beginning in Mali with a track from "the Golden Voice of Africa" Salif Keita, followed by sensational French/Swiss/Argentine tango act Gotan Project.
Next up is Kronos Quartet and Afrobeat superstar Femi Kuti from Nigeria, with tracks from New Caledonia's traditional Kanak performers Celenod, and the legendary Mahotella Queens from South Africa.
New Zealand's own Don McGlashan contributes a track, before the stunning sounds of Portugese fado singer Mariza, and Mexico's Lila Downs. Next up is Australia's Augie March, Chinese bamboo flautist Guo Yue and another Australian act, Lior.
The festival's incredible world tour continues - off to Israel for Yasmin Levy, and to Tuva for Huun Huur Tu, before coming back to New Zealand with a track from dDub and finishing with Indonesia's SambaSunda.
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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti. But, in the run-up to the annual "Fela-bration" in Lagos, his eldest son and chief musical heir is in no mood to reminisce. "There's so much in my father's life," says Femi Kuti. "Just his musical works you could listen to all year long. But I don't want to be derailed. I have it at the back of my mind, and I just use it as a strength to keep me grounded."
In the 1970s, Fela Kuti pioneered the exhilarating meld of horn-driven jazz, funk and west African highlife that took James Brown's soul beat "back to Africa". For more than 20 years he played to thousands in his famous Lagos club, the Shrine. But his politically inflected lyrics brought clashes with successive military regimes in Nigeria, including frequent beatings and jail. In one raid in 1977 on Fela's walled compound - his self-declared "republic of Kalakuta" - his mother died of her injuries after being thrown from a window by soldiers.
Femi Kuti rebuilt the New Afrika Shrine in 2000, after it was closed down the previous year following harassment from the landlord, and he plays three free concerts there a week. He also founded, in 1998, the student-based Movement Against Second Slavery (Mass) to push for social change. Although he has been less confrontational with the government than his father, his appearance to many as Fela's reincarnation has drawn attacks in the Nigerian press for "standing by my father's legacy".
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This is the third year of the African Soul Rebels tour - previous line-ups have included the Sahara Guitars of Tinariwen, Mali's Amadou & Mariam, Rachid & Taha & Souademassi from Algeria.
This time around you couldn't beat the line up with a stick. The "son of a lion" Fema Kuti is the headliner. Kuti's 16-strong band summon up a killer brew of Nigerian Afro-Beat, matching the energy and innovation of his father Fela Kuti. Guinean kora player Ba Cissoko, is a relative newcomer. His Electric Griot Land was a nod to Hendrix's 1968 double album, Electric Ladyland, to do for the kora and its West African repertoire what Jimi did for the Delta Blues. His cousin Sekou plays a Kora saturated with effects and veers from a skunk futurism to sounding like it has been amplified from a 1920s radio.
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Nigerian master-drummer Tony Allen was the powerhouse behind the late Fela Kuti's bands Africa 70 and Egypt 80. By general consensus, he invented the devilishly complicated, deceptively simple-sounding rhythm that came to be known as Afrobeat. It's said that Fela needed four drummers to replace Allen when the two musicians eventually parted ways and from this record it's not hard to see why.
Blur's Damon Albarn seems to find his way onto a number of African records nowadays. Whilst association by fame can do nothing but good for African record sales, the actual artistic point of his inclusion as singer on this session's opener, 'Every Season', is questionable. Although Albarn makes a perfectly good fist of his guest spot, the tune is a success despite the celebrity presence, not because of it.
This is the key to the whole album. Although Allen brings in fresh elements to his time-honoured sound in order to attract a broader audience (another example is the convincing rapper Ty), it's still the deep afrobeat grooves that leap out here. When the rich horn section locks into Allen's supernaturally powerful percussion the whole comes into its own.You can find the review
here
Honest Jon's Records is fast becoming a haven for treasures left-field, lost and overlooked, and has given Allen his head and let him do Lagos No Shaking. Recorded over 10 nights in the Nigerian capital, the record effortlessly proves that this older generation can still show the Afrobeat way. As might be expected, the album is rhythmically faultless, the percussion being allowed to breathe in its own space, while the horns are reassuringly rude, and the guitar figures conjure a trance for a dance, if you will.
Lagos No Shaking plays host to a handful of guest vocalists, including highlife maestro Fatai Rolling Dollar and diva Yinka Davies, and while that might present the idea of a Buena Vista-esque rolling revue, it's actually the record's only real failing, with some performances - largely those in English - like Morose and Losun, found wanting in execution. Where Fela made a virtue of communicating in English pidgin-style, these just strike a wrong chord.
But that minor grump aside, Tony Allen's return is all anyone could wish for. It's hot and heavy, exhausting in the best possible way, and as funky as hell. It's literally in a league of its own as the dance record of the year so far. A legend still going where others could only hope to tread.You can find the review
here
