Afrobeat Diaries
This series chronicles significant recordings, people and events in the story of Afrobeat, from its inception until the present day.
Felabration 2013
by Chris May
Felebration 2013 Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra & Guests 229 London, UK December 14, 2013 The second package show to be staged in London this year in honor of Fela's memory, Felabration 2013--a celebration of what would recently have been his 75th birthday--followed Saluting the Black President, presented at 229 back in May. The format was similar: a fast-moving succession of young, mainly Afrobeats (with an “s") artists offering their own spins ...
read moreSaluting the Black President: London, UK, May 17, 2013
by Chris May
Saluting the Black President Dele Sosimi, Ginger Baker, Tony Allen, Keziah Jones, Afrikan Boy, others 229 London, UK May 17, 2013 Saluting the Black President was presented to mark the release of the second batch of albums in Knitting Factory UK's Fela Anikulapo Kuti reissue program. The event sold out long before the doors opened, with the advance publicity creating some seriously heightened expectations. Among these was the promised reunion of drummers Ginger ...
read moreEMEFE: Good Future
by Chris May
EMEFEGood FutureEMEFE Music2012For a glorious week and a half in November, London seemed like the epicenter of Afrobeat. Antibalas played Islington Town Hall. Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra played Hackney's New Empowering Church. Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 played Kentish Town Forum. If only every month could be like that.For most of each year, London's hardcore Afrobeat community lives from one of Sosimi's bimonthly Afrobeat Vibration all-nighters to the next. The ...
read moreCriolo: Nó Na Orelha
by Chris May
CrioloNó Na OrelhaSterns Music2012There may be an awful lot of coffee in Brazil, but there's not an awful lot of Afrobeat. So here's some qualitative easing: the opening track on singer/rapper Criolo's Nó Na Orelha ("knot in the ear"). “Bogotá" has the rhythms, a turbulent horn arrangement, chopping rhythm guitar, booting tenor saxophone, politically-engaged lyrics and a rebel vibe. It is the real thing with a Brazilian twist.“Bogotá" is the ...
read morePart 25 - Ben Zabo: It's a Blinder - But It's Not Afrobeat
by Chris May
Ben ZaboBen ZaboGlitterhouse Records2012The extraordinary success of the musical Fela!, and the resurgence of interest in all things Fela Kuti, has made “Afrobeat" a popular buzzword among label publicists. The invocation is often fanciful; albums claiming to be Afrobeat releases regularly land at Afrobeat Diaries which have little, if anything, to do with the music.The latest such arrival is from the Malian group Ben Zabo. “Malian Afrobeat may be two ...
read morePart 24 - Ghariokwu Lemi: Fela Kuti And Me
by Chris May
In an illuminating interview, artist and sleeve designer Ghariokwu Lemi talks to Afrobeat Diaries about his work and friendship with Fela Kuti. The interview attests to the indelible link between Lemi's designs and Kuti's music, and to a working relationship which, Lemi reveals, broke down only once, over 1977's Sorrow Tears And Blood. The interview is a follow-up to an earlier one given by Lemi to Afrobeat Diaries, The Art Of Afrobeat. Starting with 1974's Alagbon Close, ...
read morePart 23 - Ghariokwu Lemi: The Art of Afrobeat
by Chris May
Ghariokwu Lemi--"born, bred and buttered" in Lagos, Nigeria, where he continues to live--is an artist and graphic designer who created 26 of Fela Kuti's album covers, including many of his most powerful ones. Since his Kuti debut, for 1974's Alagbon Close, Lemi's art has been an integral part of Afrobeat's Pan African message, working hand in hand with the music to identify injustice, educate, galvanize protest and bring about change. Among Lemi's other Africa 70, Afrika 70 ...
read morePart 22 - Seun Kuti and Brian Eno Take Afrobeat Forward
by Chris May
Seun Anikulapo Kuti & Egypt 80From Africa With Fury: RiseBecause Music2011 It is, almost, too good to be true. With his second album, the aptly titled From Africa With Fury: Rise, co-produced with Brian Eno, Seun Kuti delivers on the promise of his debut, Many Things (Tot Ou Tard, 2008), which inhabited Fela's Afrobeat so resoundingly, and steps forward, his own man. All the music's original signatures are here: ...
read morePart 21 - Final Fela Kuti Masterpieces Reissued
by Chris May
Fela Power Show: Batch 4 is the concluding, eight-disc chapter in Knitting Factory Records' 26-disc reissue program of Fela Anikulapo Kuti albums and early singles. It starts on the 1979/80 cusp of the dissolution of Afrika 70 and the formation of Egypt 80, when Kuti made the landmark Vagabonds In Power (1979), Coffin For Head Of State (1980) and Original Sufferhead (1981). It finishes with three late masterpieces--Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense (1986), Beasts Of No Nation (1989) and Underground ...
read morePart 20 - ?uestlove Curates Fela Kuti Vinyl Box
by Freddy Charles
Fela Anikulapo KutiFela Vinyl Box Set 1Knitting Factory Records2011 With the release of the eight-CD and download collection Fela Power Show: Batch 4, two of the strands in Knitting Factory Records' high-end Fela Kuti reissue project have come to a conclusion. All of Kuti's albums are now available on CD and download (and additionally, via Britain's Wrasse Records, collected in one all-encompassing box set, the 27-disc The Complete Works Of Fela ...
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