Afrobeat Music In America

This article is about the 1960s gre defined by Fela Kuti. For the 21st ctury gre of West African pop music, see Afrobeats.

Afrobeat (also known as Afrofunk) is a Nigerian music gre that involves the combination of West African musical styles from mainly Nigeria such as the traditional Yoruba and Igbo music and highlife with American funk, jazz, and soul influces.

The style was pioneered in the 1960s by Nigerian multi-instrumtalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who is most known for popularizing the style both within and outside Nigeria. At the height of his popularity, he was referred to as one of Africa's most challging and charismatic music performers.

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Distinct from Afrobeat is Afrobeats, a combination of sounds originating in West Africa in the 21st ctury. This takes on diverse influces and is an eclectic combination of gres such as hip hop, house, jùjú, ndombolo, R&B, soca, and dancehall.

Afrobeat evolved in Nigeria in the late 1960s by Fela Anikulapo Kuti, ( born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun) who, with drummer Tony All, experimted with differt contemporary music of that time. Afrobeat was influced by a combination of differt gres, such as highlife, fuji, and jùjú,

In the late 1950s, Kuti left Lagos to study abroad at the London School of Music where he took lessons in piano,

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In 1969, Kuti and his band wt on a trip to the U.S. and met a woman by the name of Sandra Smith, a singer and former Black Panther. Sandra Smith (now known as Sandra Izsadore or Sandra Akanke Isidore) introduced Kuti to many writings of activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Jesse Jackson, and his biggest influce of all, Malcolm X.

As Kuti was interested in African-American politics, Smith would make it his duty to inform Kuti of currt evts. In return, Kuti would fill her in on African culture. Since Kuti stayed at Smith's house and spt so much time with her, he started to re-evaluate his music gre. That was wh Kuti realized that he was not playing African music. From that day forward, Kuti changed his sound and the message behind his music.

Upon arriving in Nigeria, Kuti had also changed the name of his group to Africa '70. The new sound hailed from a club he established called the Afrika Shrine. The band maintained a five-year residcy at the Afrika Shrine from 1970 to 1975 while Afrobeat thrived among Nigerian youth.

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The name was partially born out of an attempt to distinguish Fela Kuti's music from the soul music of American artists such as James Brown.

Prevalt in his and Lagbaja's music are native Nigerian harmonies and rhythms, taking contrasting elemts and combining, modernizing, and improvising upon them. Politics is esstial to Afrobeat, due to Kuti using social criticism to pave the way for change. His message can be described as confrontational and controversial, which relates to the political climate of most of the African countries in the 1970s, many of which were dealing with political injustice and military corruption while recovering from the transition from colonial governmts to self-determination. As the gre spread throughout the African contint, many bands took up the style. The recordings of these bands and their songs were rarely heard or exported outside the originating countries but many can now be found on compilation albums and CDs from specialist record shops.

Many jazz musicians have be attracted to the aromatic gre of Afrobeat. From Roy Ayers in the 1970s to Randy Weston in the 1990s, there have be collaborations that have resulted in albums such as Africa: Ctre of the World by Roy Ayers, released on the Polydore label in 1981. In 1994, Branford Marsalis, the American jazz saxophonist, included samples of Fela's Beasts of No Nation on his Buckshot LeFonque album.

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Both worked on Talking Heads' highly acclaimed 1980 album Remain in Light, which brought polyrhythmic Afrobeat influces to Western music. The new geration of DJs and musicians of the 2000s who have fall in love with both Kuti's material and other rare releases have made compilations and remixes of these recordings, thus re-introducing the gre to new gerations of listers and fans of afropop and groove.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a small Afrobeat sce began in Brooklyn, New York, with projects including Antibalas, The Daktaris and the Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra. Since th, other artists like Zongo Junction have come onto the sce. Many others have cited Afrobeat as an influce like Daptone Records-adjact groups The Budos Band and El Michels Affair. The horn section of Antibalas have be guest musicians on TV on the Radio's highly acclaimed 2008 album Dear Scice, as well as on British band Foals' 2008 album Antidotes. Further examples are Val Veto, Radio Bantu, Tam Tam Afrobeat, Combo Makabro, Marabunta Orquesta, Minga!, Antropofonica, Guanabana Afrobeat Orquesta, El Gran Capitan, Morbo y Mambo, Luka Afrobeat Orquesta or NikiLauda. Some Afrobeat influce can also be found in the music of Vampire Weekd and Paul Simon. In 2020, Antibalas was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album.

Afrobeat artists of the 2000s and prest, continue to follow in the footsteps of Fela Kuti. Some examples of these artists are his sons Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti,

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Franck Biyong & Massak (from Cameroon), London Afrobeat Collective (from London, UK), Segun Damisa & the Afro-beat Crusaders, Shaolin Afronauts (from Adelaide, Australia), New Afrobeat (from Santiago, Chile), Eddy Taylor & the Heartphones (from Cologne, Germany), Bantucrew, the Albinoid Afrobeat Orchestra / Albinoid Sound System (from Strasbourg, France), Underground System / Underground System Afrobeat (from Brooklyn, New York), Abayomy Afrobeat Orquestra, Chicago Afrobeat Orchestra, Warsaw Afrobeat Orchestra, Karl Hector & the Malcouns (from Munich, Germany), Ojibo Afrobeat (from Vilnius, Lithuania), Afrodizz and Dele Sosimi and the ex-Africa '70 members Oghe Kologbo (guitar) with Afrobeat Academy, Nicholas Addo-Nettey (percussion), who is also known as Pax Nicholas [de], with Ridimtaksi (both based in Berlin, Germany). Namibian artist EES (Eric Sell) associates Afrobeat with reggae and kwaito.

In 2009, the music label Knitting Factory Records (KFR) produced the Broadway musical Fela! The story showcased Kuti's courage and incredible musical mastery along with the story of his life. The show had 11 Tony nominations, receiving three for Best Costumes, Best Sound and Best Choreography. Fela! was on Broadway for 15 months and was produced by notables such as Shawn Jay-Z Carter and Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Many celebrities were noted as attding the shows, including Dzel Washington, Madonna, Sting, Spike Lee (who saw it eight times), Kofi Annan, and Michelle Obama. Michelle Williams, former singer of girl group Destiny's Child, was cast as the role of Sandra Izsadore.

Fela Kuti's music has be sampled by various hip-hop musicians such as Missy Elliott, J. Cole, Kanye West, as well as other popular acts such as Beyoncé.

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The Festival de Afrobeat Indepdite (FAI) takes place regularly in Buos Aires, where regional bands as well as rown Afrobeat acts perform.The people loved seeing an Englishman in Africa 70. They couldn’t believe it at first. Oyinbo (white man) drummer! They would come and press money on my forehead. It was a mark of approval. —Ginger Baker

It would be hard if not impossible to compile an Afrobeat Top Ten which was not wholly made up of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti albums. Such was Kuti's centrality in the creation and development of Afrobeat, such was the productivity of his recording career—his catalogue totals more than fifty albums, not counting reissues and compilations—and such was the alpha-plus quality of all but one or two of his releases.

Choosing those albums would be another near impossible task. You could almost draw the titles out of a hat. But most enthusiasts would probably agree that the following selection is a meaningful career overview:

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man or woman in possession of a good quantity of Fela Kuti albums, must be in want of a lot more. Kuti is the kind of musician who gives completists a good name. But a parallel Afrobeat Top Ten can also hit the spot.

So here are ten signal albums recorded by other musicians. Some are well known, others less so. Followers of the London music scene will note the absence of Ezra Collective , Soothsayers , Cassie Kinoshie's SEED Ensemble and Kokoroko . Excellent bands all of them, who can turn out busting Afrobeat. But none has yet to release a full-length album focused on the style.

Ginger Baker and Kuti—who sings and plays keyboards on this album—began their friendship in London in the late 1950s, when Kuti, who was studying trumpet at Trinity College of Music, jammed alongside Baker in Soho jazz clubs. Baker spent the first half of the 1970s based in Lagos, where he built a recording studio and hung out at Kuti's Africa Shrine club. He guested on several Africa 70 albums, including 1971's aforementioned

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Is not a pure Afrobeat album, but the music, explicitly or implicitly, plays an important role throughout. Kuti's American girlfriend, Sandra Izsadore, a key influence on his burgeoning political awareness, is on backing vocals (she was later a lead singer on Kuti's

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