Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge’s Jazz Is Dead label is releasing a Tony Allen album. Allen, who passed in 2020, was the innovative drummer who helped Fela Kuti created the Afrobeat genre. Their work together added a new vocabulary to the world of rhythm. Younge and Muhammad were luckyContinue Reading
Fela Kuti’s “Zombie“ album was a political firebomb driven by his distaste for the Nigerian government. The simmering rhythms, jazzy funky horns and Fela’s chants validated and incited the people at once even causing a riot in Ghana which got him banned from the country. His Afrobeat style ofContinue Reading
Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, who created the Afrobeat genre with Fela Kuti died in Paris at the age of 79 on Thursday. The cause of death was an aortic aneurysm. Allen was Kuti’s drummer and musical director from 1968 to 1979 for the Africa ’70 band. The artists had played togetherContinue Reading
[youtube id=”8-hMkHkoFrU”] Tony Allen’s visual for “Go Back” featuring Damon Albarn is a tribute to the African refugees who have been on the Italian island of Lampedusa since 2011’s revolutions in northern Africa. Film Of Life comes out in October.Continue Reading