Afrobeat Vinyl 416 Items

‘Dancing Time: The Best of Eastern Nigeria’s Afro Rock Exponents 1973 – 77’ by The Funkees is the latest title on Soundway to mine the rich musical output of 60s and 70s Nigeria. For the 5 year period this compilation spans The Funkees output crackled with dance floor fire.

Having featured on three of Soundway’s most popular titles, across the definitive Nigeria Special compilation series, we felt The Funkees output deserved closer inspection. Presented here (on CD, download & double gatefold LP) are 18 slices of funky Afro-rock grooves hand picked by Soundway’s Miles Cleret from a selection of the bands 45s and 2 long players.

In the early 1970s The Funkees were the number-one east Nigerian band and the only outfit to seriously challenge the popular Lagos based rock combos MonoMono and BLO.

It wasn't long before promoters in the UK came calling and The Funkees packed up their instruments and moved to London where they quickly established a fierce reputation on the live circuit.

Here they recorded two seminal albums before finally breaking up in 1977 amidst some controversy. This collection features for the first time all of their Nigerian 45s alongside the best of their UK album material and is accompanied by a full interview with original member Sonny Akpan, who still lives in the capital.

Hassan Wargui is a self taught musician, composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and an expert in the songcraft and poetry of the Tachelhit speaking Amazigh tribes of the Anti-Atlas mountains in the south of Morocco.

He was born in 1985 in the rural community of Issafen, which lies between Taroudant and Tafraoute in the Anti-Atlas mountains of Southern Morocco. His music draws from the deep well of Amazigh, or Berber, cultures that have long been suppressed across North Africa after the region underwent a process of Arabization following the Arab invasions of the 7th Century.

Hassan grew up in an isolated mountain community in which art and music is embedded into daily life. This allowed him to develop an excellent musical sense, a deep understanding of the complex poly-rhythms that underpin Amazigh music, and time to become proficient on the banjo which, since the ascendency of the popular modern folk movement involving groups such as Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala in the late '60s and early '70s, has been the preferred instrument of the region. Like many musicians from the region, Hassan built his first instruments himself, and it wasn't until he moved to Casablanca in his teens to find work which was scarce in his local community, that he was able to save for his first real banjo.

Since then Hassan has been active in the Amazigh musical community and has worked with a number of groups, notably Groupe Lbouchart, Imanaren and Etran Tiznit, as well as recording prolifically as a solo artist using Fruity Loops as a home studio. In 2009, Jace Clayton (DJ/Rupture) stumbled across a CD by Imanaren on a stall in Casablanca medina and this led to a fruitful series of collaborations in 2009 and 2011 (you can learn more about their work together here.)

Tiddukla (which translates to Friendship) is one of Hassan's numerous group projects and he recorded the album with friends in 2015 and self released it through YouTube due to the lack of music infrastructure in Morocco. The Tiddukla album is raw and hypnotic and sees Hassan and his group channeling the deep and contemplative sounds of classic Amazigh groups such as Izenzaren, Archach, Izmaz, all of whom risked their freedom by daring to sing in Tachelhit at a time when the language was still forbidden, and when Amazigh people were fighting for their rights to be recognised.

Hive Mind are thrilled to be able to release Hassan's beautiful music, and to introduce the fascinating rhythms of the Anti-Atlas Mountains into the wider world. We're incredibly proud to be able to support this fiercely independent and hugely resourceful and tenacious artist who has been able to continue creating music for over a decade without any real support from Morocco's music industry and while holding down a variety of day jobs. We really hope you enjoy his music as much as we do.

As the first item in its catalog and on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the release of the album Hagda by Raïna Raï, the legendary band from Sidi Bel Abbès (Algeria), Elmir Records is happy to present the vinyl reissue of this multi-faceted pop-raï masterpiece. This mythical album recorded and self-produced in 1982, which cover of Ya Zina became an international hit, still sounds very modern thanks to the avant-garde guitar of Lotfi Attar. These eight electrified and electrifying raï tracks are ready to be (re)discovered! This new edition was remastered by Josh Stevenson in Canada and enriched with notes in French and English by the specialist Rabah Mezouane.

Raï is the music of a youth hungover from Algeria's recent independence. It became a space for a liberated, transgressive dialogue that told the social truths of its time -- an up-front yet poetic voice that covers the taboos and frustrations of daily life, expressing emotion without detour. This voice is heard at weddings, cabarets, in the nightclubs of the Oranese coast, and casually on the street... With the boom of the audio cassette, an avalanche of raï tapes were produced in Oran and diffused all over the world. Both women and men sang and listened to the new sound, as raï is intimately tied to parties, alcohol and the night. With the spontaneous improvisation of its singers as the main part of each song, raï keeps reinventing itself. In this style, Cheb Hasni, along with Cheb Nasro, incarnates a second generation of musicians. With the "love raï", or sentimental raï, Hasni sings about love, passion and its setbacks -- moving away from the bittersweet daily chronicles of the first chebs and chebates. Having recorded nearly 150 cassettes, Cheb Hasni remains one of the most prolific and talented raï singers of his generation. Almost thirty years after his death, this three-volume compilation of rare tracks from his cassette releases on the Oriental Music Production label is a tribute to the lasting legacy of Cheb Hasni -- ya raï!

Favorite Recordings proudly present its new series of 7" reissues with the following concept: each side dedicated to one Funky French track coming with its original artwork. You just have to flip it! On the first side, you'll get the amazing track "Funky Biguine" by West Indies band Crystal. Originally compiled by Charles Maurice on French Disco Boogie Sounds Vol. 2, the original eponymous album still goes for crazy prices. And there's a reason for that: "Funky Biguine" will bring the heat on the dancefloor with its enchanting synth bassline, its West Indies influences and melodious Funk arrangement. Don't miss the synth solo in the end! On the other side, you'll find a reissue of "Looking For You" by J.E.K.Y.S from the island of Réunion. The song has just started and you're already overwhelmed by the strong bassline and the sirens of this French boogie anthem - despite this one has English lyrics. Originally, you'll find it compiled by Charles Maurice on French Disco Boogie Sounds Vol. 3. Expect lovely harmonic progressions and perhaps a more spacey groove, as in these beautiful bridges leading to chorus where the lyrics blend perfectly with the synthesisers line and Fender Rhodes.

Ayalew Mesfin stands aside the likes of Mulatu Astake, Mahmoud Ahmed, Hailu Mergia and Alemayehu Eshete as a legend of 1970s Ethiopia. Mesfin’s music is some of the funkiest to arise from this unconquerable East African nation. Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation. Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974, he has returned almost 50 years later with this triumphant set albums – the first time that his music has been presented in this form. These albums give us a chance to discover a rare and beautiful moment in music history, in anthologies built from Mesfin’s uber-rare 7” single releases and from previously unreleased recordings taken from master tapes. Che Belew gives us a chance to discover a rare & beautiful moment in music history, in an anthology built from his uber-rare 7” single releases.

Limited edition of 250 copies only!
Only one copy per customer!
Access to groovy, funkin', rockin', psychedelic, revolutionary (etc.) African music as we've grown to like it at Paris DJs was not for everyone before the internet age. For Paris DJs co-founder Loik, it began in the early 80s when he met with a former Fela Kuti horn player, who introduced him to Afrobeat. When Loik arrived at Radio Nova in 1986 (he was radio programmer there between 1987 and 1997), he then discovered marvels of African Music (other than Fela), through the radio's vast record collection, which soon led to the word-famous "La Sono Mondiale" concept.
At the same time, Grant Phabao, in his late teens, discovered Congolese music through friends from Zaire. He gets access to Afrobeat in the mid-90s with a Fela Kuti CD gathering the "Zombie" and "He Miss Road" albums, which long-time friend Djouls brought back from his diggin' sessions in Paris. Many friends ripped and burned that CD, for sure. Then the legendary Daktaris album happened on Desco Records in 1998, followed by the beginning of the Antibalas, the Comet Records & Strut Records compilations in 2000, and soon after Soundway Records… the rest is history but that's roughly how African Music started for us at Paris DJs.
At this point we met online with Calumbinho on the Soulseek P2P network. Such a mind-bending experience… The man was sharing hundreds of full albums, all sorted by country, and had music from every corner of 1960s/70s/80s Africa! We asked for advice, he listed 50 records to begin with! All those records, digital files, influences & experience gathered together gave birth in 2006 to a series of mixes on the Paris DJs podcast, "African Mashed Potato Popcorn", blending old and new African music from all over the world. It was an instant smash, DJs from all over the world reaching out asking us to keep on focusing on this amazing music coming from Africa (or inspired by music from Africa).
Around that time, the Paris DJs crew met with musicians from Antibalas (Martín Perna, Duke Amayo / USA), and from the Poets Of Rhythm/Karl Hector bands (Ben Abarbanel-Wolff, Jan Whitefield / Germany). They had all played with Fela Kuti's guitar player Oghene Kologbo by then. The German guys had even started a band with him, the Afrobeat Academy, releasing an album together in 2007. Little did we know that from this point on, Kologbo and African music would grow to become a very important part of our lives.
We started collaborating with Samy Ben Redjeb from Analog Africa, Miles Cleret from Soundway or Quantic from Tru Thoughts, among many others very influential record collectors, for some exclusive mixes of rare afro/latin music on the Paris DJs podcast. In 2009 we co-organized the first Ebo Taylor show in Europe, with German musicians from the Afrobeat Academy/Whitefield Brothers/Jimi Tenor crew backing him along with Kologbo. Soon we helped open the Superfly Record Store and got our hands (and ears) on many rare, original African Records. Loik started recording Kologbo's second solo album "Africa Is The Future" (featuring Tony Allen and Pat Thomas!), Grant Phabao was producing his first afrofunk tunes, and all this new music was damn funky…
Phabao went on a trip to Benin and Ghana, where he ended up hooking up with Ben Abarbanel-Wolff, who was recording with Ebo Taylor and Pat Thomas there. After a two-year period during which Grant Phabao and Djouls partnered with famous Irish-born, Paris-based producer Doctor L, and released with Cameroonian artist Franck Biyong no less than 16 digital albums and conceptual compilations, the Paris DJs label was born in 2012, with the addition of poster artist Ben Hito to the gang.
Five compilations in the "Tropical Grooves & Afrofunk International" series were released, with artists from all over the world, featuring the first tracks from the Grant Phabao Afrofunk Arkestra project, with Grant Phabao at the controls and many guests from the now global African music scene adding their own, original touch. Most of those were compiled in the "Massive Hits From the Grant Phabao Factory" LP in 2015.
It was a long read, many years of learning and sharing back, but we wanted to tell how African music slowly but surely infiltrated its way into Paris DJs' daily life, which led to the Kologbo LP being released at the end of 2017, and to this Grant Phabao Afrofunk LP to be released june 2018, featuring 20 guests among which Tony Allen, Oghene Kologbo, Sandra Nkaké, RacecaR, members of Antibalas, The Breakestra, Brownout, Fela Kuti's Egypt 80, Jungle Fire, Les Frères Smith, Ebo Taylor's Afrobeat Academy, Osemako… coming from Paris, Berlin, Lagos, Washington, Austin or Los Angeles!

Following the reissue of his cult album “Ti jan pou vélo”, Heavenly Sweetness decided to continue the collaboration with Edmony Krater and record a new album! The first one in 30 years! As an avant-gardist percussionist, singer and trumpet player, Edmony Krater has always worked to develop and promote the Gwoka music of Guadeloupe and to feed it with different influences, from Jazz to Reggae.

Composer/arranger/producer Etienne de la Sayette is a frenetic globe-trotter and a relentless collector of musical instruments. Founder and headhunter of, among others, the Frix and Baeshi Bang groups, co-founder/saxophonist for Parisian Ethio-Jazz band Akalé Wubé, Etienne might mostly be a live musician, he manages nonetheless to find the time for audio production, remixes and synch music. 'Maputo Queens' is his first solo album, a deep afrojazz masterpiece for thoughful moods and after-hours atmospheres, with some masterful blends of spices from all over the globe.

The latest instalment from Acid Jazz’s Albarika Store series, ‘Afro Funk’ compiles the very best of the legendary T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo’s funk cuts.

Formed in 1968 by leader Clément Mélomé, T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo became the leading group in Benin and the cornerstone of the Albarika Store label and legacy.

This collection brings together highlights from their extensive career, including tracks as ‘Gbeti Ma Djro’, ‘Segla’ and the collectable ‘It’s A Vanity’: wall-to-wall some of the finest Afro-Funk ever made.

Even without an album out: they have already set the world on fire freaking out audiences all over Europe on their 2019 summer festival tour including Sines in Portugal, WOMAD in UK, Roskilde and WOMEX in Tampere. This young allstar band from Ghana brims with gifted musicians and energy on stage. The 8 piece collective is made up of a young generation of awarded musicians who have backed anyone in Ghana from Azonto sensation Sarkodie to Nigerian superstar 2 Face Idibia, but their passion isn't local pop but Highlife. And their mission is to bring it back; not only to the world but also to Ghana, where the young generation has forgotten all about this great music.Santrofi's debut album Alewa now brings you a new wave of fresh highlife rooted in the past with a knowledge of the future directly from the streets of Accra. Santrofi was founded by bassist and producer Emmanuel Ofori who rose from the source having played with Ebo Taylor, Pat Thomas and Kwashibu Area Band and has now formed his own band collective: Santrofi. The 8 musicians are deeply rooted in vintage Ghanaian highlife music in all its forms. The influences range from the riveting fast-paced pulse of 70s dance-guitar highlife, or the other-worldly sound of Highlife funk to the polyrhythmic beats and melodies that took Afrobeat across the globe. The members have toured the world with legends like Ebo Taylor, Pat Thomas, Gyedu Blay Ambolley, Osibisa, George Darko and many, many others. They have learnt from the masters and are now ready to take highlife into the future.

Strut present the first ever compilation bringing together classics and rarities from the seminal spiritual jazz and conscious soul label Black Fire, covering 1975 to 1993. Formed by DJ and record producer Jimmy Gray in Richmond, Virginia, and following in the footsteps of other influential black-owned independent labels like Strata-East and Tribe, the foundation of Black Fire coincided with saxophonist James "Plunky" Branch returning to the city from New York to form Oneness Of Juju. The band's 'African Rhythms' album in 1975 was the perfect fusion of jazz, deep African polyrhythms and empowering lyrics and bassist Muzi Branch, a trained artist, created the first of many Black Fire hand-illustrated sleeves for the label's debut release.

“It’s a paradox, in a way, like you’d have in a dream – something that’s both light and heavy,” Wayne Shorter muses, speaking to Nat Hentoff for the liner notes of Night Dreamer, his 1964 album and first for Blue Note as a leader.



Night Dreamer takes its name from this album, and retains something of the essence of what he was trying to convey.



Working with Artone Studio, and located above Record Industry pressing plant in Haarlem, Netherlands, Night Dreamer specialises in direct-to-disc recordings – the process by which music is cut onto acetate from single-take live performances, without interference: Neumann microphone to Neumann lathe. From there, it is simply ‘walked downstairs to the pressing plant.



For musicians recording at Artone, the process speaks to Shorter’s paradox. The levity of liberation vs. the weight of expectation; trust in raw musicianship vs. vulnerability of exposure. It is in such alchemical moments of contrast that the essence of expression can emerge.



Every Night Dreamer release is produced using a wide range of vintage mastering and recording equipment assembled and painstakingly restored over seven years. With one of just four remaining RCA 76D mixing desks – the same model used at Sun Studios – alongside Westrex Capitol cutting amps, designed specifically for Capitol studios to record the likes of The Beatles and The Beach Boys, it brings together state-of-the-art, often bespoke gear that has never been bettered.



Shorter captured Night Dreamer in a single day, an art not lost on today’s musicians, who, although afforded a surfeit of choice, are as wedded to the idea of collaboration as those of previous generations. The methods are timeless, and the impulse is as contemporary as ever.

If Cannibale's members brought their breakfast back up when talking about 'Not Easy To Cook', their listeners would be surprised. There's a world of difference between the beginning of Cannibale's success story and this second album. The most surprising thing about 'Not Easy To Cook' is the sultriness that emerges. It's hard to sum it up other than by comparing these 10 songs with some pressure cooker in which bits of dancehall, London ska and Hawaiian dub would have cooked together. Here's the small miracle achieved by this LP recorded by the band in its remote French village: sounding French, but Polynesian French. A very psychedelic mixture of cumbia, African rhythms and garage music. Or, if you will, a kind of missing link between Fela Kuti, The Doors and The Seeds!

Finish The Sun, the second offering from Shane Cooper & Mabuta, is a glowing and energetic album, rooted in grooves from all over the African continent. The six-piece outfit draws on influences from Mali, Nigeria, the Sahel, Morocco; and the many sounds that make up their native South Africa. This musical trip seamlessly dances through Afrobeat, maskandi, funk and hip hop, to moments of cinematic beauty. All embedded with subtle hints of 70s psychedelia. The core group of Shane Cooper, Bokani Dyer, Sisonke Xonti, and Robin Fassie invited international guests on drums including: Jamie Peet, Arthur Hnatek, Christopher Cantillo, and more…