Afrobeat 280 Items

An astounding compilation of the breakneck Shangaan dance output of the Nozinja studio in Soweto, recorded between 2006 and 2009.

Precious, stinging selections from an HMV run of more than four hundred 78s, recordings made in Uganda and Kenya from the mid-1930s till the mid-1950s.

Berlin versus Kaolack, round three. A traditional Jola rhythm, fast and energetic, with tuned, talking and kit drums swarming across a skeletal downhome guitar — somewhere between blues and disco — and the Mboup brothers' impassioned plea for an end to division and bloodshed in their Casamance homeland.
Then a more deeply dug-in, spaced-out funk, edgily spun from a Serer rhythm, underpinning Mbene's reflective song about parental selflessness. 'Sama Yaye', 'My Mother'. Both with full instrumental versions.

Sound-wise peas in a pod with the intricate, soaring barrage of Ornette's Prime Time in full flight, when it had two of everything in the lineup, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma was on bass, Denardo on electronic drums.

Chico Mann’s fifth album will be anticipated by the single "Same Old Clown", featuring the sultry vocals of New York based Kendra Morris.

Displaying his mastery over an arsenal of studio weapons and synthesizers, Chico Mann (aka Marcos Garcia) scores his fifth long player against a backdrop of pop sensibilities and guest vocalists. The album draws as much on 80's funk, boogie and electro as merengue and Afro-beat.

A member of Antibalas, multi instrumentalist and guitarist, Garcia has in the past worked with the likes of TV On The Radio, The Roots and Dam Funk as well as remixing Little Dragon and Alice Russell.

Soundway Records present Kenya Special: Selected East African Recordings from the 1970s & ‘80s - a treasure-trove of rare and unusual recordings from East Africa. Spread out over two CDs and one triple LP, Kenya Special is accompanied by detailed liner notes, original artwork and photographs.

It follows on from Soundway’s much acclaimed African ‘Special’ series that to date has focused on the highlife and afrobeat output from 1970s Nigeria and Ghana. Kenya Special is a collection of 32 recordings (most of which were only ever released on small-run 45rpm 7" singles) that stand out as being different or unique as well as some classic genre standards. From Kikuyu language ‘liquid soul’, Luo benga and Swahili afrobeat to genre-bending Congolese and Tanzanian tracks recorded in Nairobi, Kenya Special sees Soundway yet again taking the less trodden path. Many of the tracks featured here are peppered with innovation and experimentation highlighting how diverse the music scene in Kenya was at the time.

In 1970s Kenya the two threads of rumba and benga loosely dominated the music scene. Benga quickly became Kenya’s unique contribution to afro-pop; spreading like wildfire through the interior countryside with it’s fast, 4/4 machine-gun beat and intricate electric guitar layers. The Congolese take on Afro-Cuban rumba was introduced by touring bands many of whom settled in East Africa - influencing bands from Kenya and Tanzania to come up with their own take on this popular style. Alongside these styles were small ensembles and hotel-sponsored bands, playing a blend of music that often included rock ‘n’ roll riffs, elements of ‘afro’ music (influenced by West African musicians like Fela Kuti), and multiple other combinations from South African and Zambian guitar styles to disco, funk and Swahili coastal rhythms like chakacha.

Painstakingly compiled, assembled and researched over two years by a team of five people from five countries (Kenya included), Kenya Special is a collection that looks beyond the mainstream and brings new life and recognition to some little known gems and forgotten classics of Kenya’s past.

This remastered reissue of Mergia's 1985 solo cassette features the multi-instrumentalist handling accordion, analog synth, rhodes piano and drum machine. The all-instrumental album has a distinctly futuristic (circa mid-80s) approach to classic Ethiopian songs and modes.

The legendary digger re-ignites the Lagos Disco Inferno and kicks off his own mouth-watering imprint with these two sides of boogie-down bliss. Irresistible Afro-disco, layered with delirious syn-drums and sick keys, and featuring a horn-line bumptiously whipped from Louis 'Thunder Thumbs' Johnson's bass-playing on MJ's Workin' Day And Night.

Originally from Warri where he stayed throughout most of his career, Tony's first band was the Famous Latin And His Dominant Seven. He gigged for a while as a James Brown imitator with The Great Peters, before his breakthrough fronting the Magnificient Zeinians, with some amazing 45s on EMI's HMV imprint — best of all the psych-rock-funk monster Ije Udo. From the early to mid 1970s, his EMI sides range from Afrobeat to rock and pop. All Tony's records are great. He came up with various names for his backing bands — the Black 7, the Super 7, the Black Kings...
From the early-eighties, with the Ozimba Messengers, Grey's two recordings here were originally released on different LPs.

Limited, top-notch pressing from Pallas via Abbey Road; with a lovely 12-by-24-inch poster.

Two standouts from
Aiye People magnificently revived: crisp sound, top-notch pressing in
a Voodoo Funk house-bag, with a two-by-one-foot poster.

180g vinyl!

Eno Louis gained a solid background in traditional Edo music as a student at Edo College in Benin City, south-east Nigeria. He lived at Fela's Kalakuta Republic till the army raid in 1978, when he moved to the US for a couple of years. On his return, he recorded with Edo funk powerhouse The Talents Of Benin, and quickly became a mainstay of the flourishing disco and boogie scene, in-demand as guitarist and drummer, with credits including releases by Pogo Ltd, Amas Grill, Chris Okotie, Oby Onyioha, Chris Mba, Dizzy K Falola, Harry Mosco, Pat Finn and the Super Elcados... to name just a few. 

Damon Albarn & Four Tet dig this gentleman, so you should dig this forgotten master of african synth-craze, too!

The Martin Brothers are pioneers of the Nigerian Funk and Afrobeat scene. Besides many releases under their own name, as the Tabansi Studio Band they lit up innumerable recoding sessions — it's them on Pax Nicholas' Na Teef album, for example; and the same team is behind the legendary Saxon Lee & The Shadows International LP.

Money is the Martins at their deepest and heaviest — tearing, wailing, mid-seventies funk, heady with spirituality. Superbad from start to finish with no let-up.

Original copies are amongst the most sought-after of all African and funk records on the international collectors' scene. It seems there is just a tiny handful of copies at large.

The tracks were originally laid down at Ginger Baker's ARC recording studio in Lagos and later mixed down at London's Tin Pan Alley Studios. The audio restoration and remastering for this re-issue was done at Abbey Road.

Soul Safari presents volume Two of the Township Jive & Kwela Jazz compilation, featuring 18 rare gems from South Africa, recorded between 1930 and 1962. All titles on this compilation have been carefully handpicked from the ILAM Archives (the International Library of African Music), in Grahamstown, South Africa.

In 2010, against all odds, Angola Soundtrack Vol.1 was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize in the category "Black music". This victory was all the sweeter for its triumph over the predicted winner, Aloe Blacc's multi platinium record, "Good Things". Many were surprised that the award was handed to a compilation that covered obscure music, but it didn't surprise the team behind Analog Africa who believed such award should have come much earlier. Since discovering the music of Angola 15 years ago, styles such Kazucuta, Rebita and Semba have become an addiction for Samy Ben Redjeb, the compiler, who proclaimed a serious warning in the first edition liner notes:

"Listening to these tracks may cause addiction and provoke heavy rotation!"

Angola Soundtrack Vol.2 - Hypnosis, Distortions & other Sonic Innovations 1969-1978 - The unique blend of incomparable musicianship, passionate delivery and regional rhythms that make these tracks so combustible are no accident. An exceptional set of circumstances existed in the history of Angola before Independence that created the giant leap in the style and standard of bands and recordings of the time.

When Portuguese repressive measures prevented the small Turmas, street musician groups, from being able to perform in Carnaval celebrations in 1961, a Portuguese civil servant, entrepreneur and Angolan music fan named Luis Montês was already in a position to capitalise on Luanda's need for a live music scene. His self-designed "Kutonocas", Sunday afternoon live music festivals, delighted a Luandan population hungry for a communication between the city and musseques (townships). It also forced groups to adapt to a different style of playing that would accommodate large stages and broader audiences. They equipped themselves with electric guitars, and fed on the musical influences from Cape Verde, Congo and the Dominican Republic, while staying patriotically true to their own musical legacy and unique rhythms.

The intimacy of those participating in this musical revolution meant they playfully and professionally wanted to trump each other's style; communication between the groups was frequent as everyone studied each other's records and concerts and players were under a lot of pressure to outdo each other due to the limited recording and performing opportunities. Development of skill and ingenuity was a must, as well as addressing the highly politicised climate. The optimism of Independence can be heard in these recordings; a common goal between the audience and musicians.

Upon reading the characteristically generous liner notes of this new Analog Africa release, you will be given more hints of the crucial melting pot that allowed this short period to have such an outstanding productivity. Featuring 44 pages acquired in coordination with the National Library of Luanda and the art magazine "Note E Dia", Analog Africa head honcho Samy Ben Redjeb has managed to collect newspaper clips, extremely rare pictures of the bands on stage and printed interviews from the 70s.

The stunning pages of passionate photography and artistic design also include interviews with many of the original artists and their families, biographies of the three labels that made it all possible, and of Luis Montês, who was the pulse of the live music scene in Luanda. This compilation is a dedication to the short lived recording industry in Angola, a brief moment of history between 1969 and 1978 in which three recording companies produced approximately 800 records, mostly singles. They are rare jewels, each song with a significant story and feel behind it. You will hear exciting music blazed with the anticipation of emancipation, tracks fuelled with a sense of unity, community, importance and immediacy.

This addictive, outlawed music from Angola shakes and grooves with the smoothness of staccato machine gun fire. Do yourself a favor and submerge yourself into some of the most addictive music created by mankind!

A most unusual & stunning album. Tsege Mariam Gebru is an Ethiopian nun who has dedicated her life to helping others. She has been composing & playing music on the piano since the 1960's. Her music is a unique mix of Western classical music in the vein of Erik Satie, Ethiopian music & Religious Christian meditation music. On this reissue of her first LP, originally released in Germany in a very small pressing, we find Tsege Mariam Gebru playing her own compositions solo on piano. She plays with restrained grace & purity. The record invites repeated listening well and is filled with spiritual warmth.

Chico Mann’s fifth album will be anticipated by the single "Same Old Clown", featuring the sultry vocals of New York based Kendra Morris.

Displaying his mastery over an arsenal of studio weapons and synthesizers, Chico Mann (aka Marcos Garcia) scores his fifth long player against a backdrop of pop sensibilities and guest vocalists. The album draws as much on 80's funk, boogie and electro as merengue and Afro-beat.

A member of Antibalas, multi instrumentalist and guitarist, Garcia has in the past worked with the likes of TV On The Radio, The Roots and Dam Funk as well as remixing Little Dragon and Alice Russell.

Muyei Power or Orchestre Muyei (muyei means ‘our country’) was one of the top dance bands of the1970s in Sierra Leone. Soundway Records' first collection of music from this West African country (‘Muyei Power: Sierra Leone in 1970s USA’) is an album of rock-infused, 'afro' music from a group that traveled the world throughout the mid 1970s. Fusing elements of electric Congolese and Nigerian music with fast, syncopated, uptempo modernised arrangements of traditional music, Muyei Power produced a series of unique single-only releases that have been unavailable for 35 years. The rare recordings featured here are a glimpse of a dynamic and powerful band at the very height of its powers.

This two mindblowing songs were entirely recorded, mixed and mastered with old analog tapes, and played with vintage instruments which recalls the sound of bands like Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou or El Rego!

Soundway Records present a special summer tribute double a-side 12" with two tracks from African musicians that both passed away within a couple of months of each other at the end of 2013 / start of 2014. Both tracks are perfect smooth summer tropical DJ fodder for the dancefloor.

On the first side South African singer Shaluza Max's massive Mashkandi / house anthem from 2002 gets a first release on vinyl. This track was a huge hit in South Africa and around the world on its release. With a soaring Zulu vocal and big sound it's a fitting reminder of a very talented musician who worked as a very well respected producer, composer and arranger who died tragically young at the age of 47 in January of 2014.

On the flip we drop a fairly unknown track from the mid 1980s from one of the biggest names in African music, Tabu Ley Rochereau. With a kind of almost balearic proto-house congolese pop cut with drum machines, and trademark sweet congo horn section, Hafi Deo is a beautiful track that fell into obscurity by perhaps being too smooth for the world music crowd in the mid 80s. Tabu Ley passed away in November 2013 in his late 70s with over 250 albums and 3000 songs to his name. A true pioneer of the congolese soukous sound, he was also one of the most influential African musicians of his generation.

Apiafo is a 12 tracks album, entirely recorded, mixed and mastered with old analog tapes, and played with vintage instruments, recalling the sound of bands like Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou or El Rego!

Special compilation from Parisian re-issue kings, Born Bad, of the late Cameroonian master musician, Francis Bebey. This is the material we were hoping would follow the excellent comp from last year. Amazing 'universal' music currently only available on expensive originals. Double album with printed innersleeve.

Following up on their well-received single “Only Now” featuring a remix with label mate Bosq, Warsaw Afrobeat Orchestra deliver a knockout debut album full of heavy Afro and island-inspired tunes.

The album title Wëndelu means “Wanderer” in the native African Wolof language and is a fitting name for the album which explores the wide-range of sounds from the African diaspora and infused with their own traditional Polish folk, jazz and rock sensibilities. Tracks such as “No Such Thing”,“Let It Flow” and “Usurpation” reflect an obvious Reggae and Dub influence while the uptempo numbers on the album “Close To Far” and “Which Direction” veer towards Afro-Disco and Funk.

Formed in 2012, the 10-piece band consists of musicians that have worked and collaborated with each other in different projects ranging from rock, jazz, folk, reggae and funk in the ever-evolving and musically diverse underground music scene in Poland. Inspired by the masters of Afrobeat, world music, as well as African tribal music which is evident in their lyrics and choruses that repeat and weave in and out of deep, hypnotic grooves infusing it with a transcendental quality.

2016 was the year for Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids: their album "We Be All Africans" (produced by Philophon and released on Strut Rec.) vaulted them among the global top acts of the current Spiritual Jazz renaissance. The strengh of the group is its deep connection to Africa: not just that their music is inspired by the spirit of Africa, they actually founded themselves on an extended trip to the Motherland in 1972.

On that trip Idris Ackamoor visited the tiny town Bolgatanga in Northern Ghana to play with local Frafra musicians - an experiance which changed his life. Now, after 45 years, Idris dives once more into the magical music of the Frafra people by teaming up with master musician Guy One, the no. 1 Kologo artist of the vital music scene of Bolgatanga. On "Tinoge Ya Ta'a Ba" Guy One sings about the power of unity - a unity you hear clearly on this Afro-Euro-American cooperation: a driving rhythm, a eulogizing saxophone, a gripping voice and in total a journey into another dimension.

In 1971 two songs were released in Trinidad & Tobago that represented completely new directions in the musical and lyrical expression of Trinidad's place in the diaspora, Indian on one hand and African on the other. Nanny & Nana by Sundar Popo and “Blow 'Way” by Lancelot Layne were revolutionary and ground breaking and spawned two distinctly new genres in Trinidad & Tobago music – Chutney music in the case of Sundar Popo and Rapso, in Lance's case. Brother Resistance calls Lancelot Layne the father of Rapso music.
During the early 1970s Lance recorded at least a dozen startlingly original songs including “Blow 'Wa”y, “Afro'Dadian”, “Bringing' Off”, “Dat Is Horros” and “Kaiso For Mout' Band”. Each one expanding his talent for musical arrangements and dramatic counterpoint with chorus responses and vocal variation. He enlisted musicians, each exciting and pioneering in their own right, breaking ground in the post 1970 cultural revolution: calypso/jazz pianist, Clive Zanda; composer, guitarist, singer and flautist, Andre Tanker; Mau Mau Drummers including the young Jah Jah Onilu, Mansa Musa Drummers; vocalists, including Ann Marie Innis and Ella Andall.
The result is exciting, confident and musically ground-breaking. Until his death in 1990 he kept commenting and educating T&T'ssociety with songs like Get Off The Radio, Kamboulay, Jambalasie Dance and Strike Squad.
This release is pressed on 180-gram virgin vinyl and contains an additional 45RPM single. Everything is housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with 20-page booklet (8.2” x 8.2”) with extensive liner notes by Lancelot's daughter, Niasha Layne-Forde, and Christopher Laird. Cover and booklet artwork were created by famous Scottish painter, Peter Doig, one of the most renowned living figurative painters who settled in Trinidad since 2002.

Loi Toki Tok band started out as a nondescript musical group. But irrefutably, the band’s star scaled the heights and shone brightly on the early 1970s Kenyan capital, Nairobi’s burgeoning live music circuit. And basking on the top of the pops charts, was vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Leon Kabasela aka Kalle. He also doubled as band’s composer and songwriter – earning credits for among other tracks, this mellow ‘ballad’ aptly titled Mungwana – loosely translated in Swahili, is descriptive of a selfless and conscientious gentleman. Kalle is one of handful surviving remnants of the band, whose lifespan was somewhat short-lived. It lasted barely three years – circa 1971 to mid-1973. Mungwana’s lyrics, sang in Congolese lingala dialect, mirror his roots and musical dream, which lured the youthful artiste during late 1960s to pack bags, and desert the rural fringes of Lubumbashi – then Zaire’s second largest city. On the 45 single flipside is a soulful, funky hit Chakacha – a seemingly timeless afro-soul flavoured cut. Its catchy and hypnotic lyrical refrains, easily grow on the listeners. The vocals of the band’s one-time frontman, singer Kasim Combo, ooze with an unmistakable tinge of late 1960s to early 70s American soul rhythms, propelled onto the global showbiz spotlight by US pop stars Otis Redding, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix. Their popular hits gained massive, almost staple airplay on Kenya’s then sole broadcaster’s twin national radio stations. The fact that this record was pressed on an obscure Athi River label, is perhaps symbolic of Loi Toki Tok’s last band phase – shifting base from Club Arcadia in the heart of Nairobi, to the Small World Club in Athi River – an equally nondescript urban town, tucked away along the Mombasa highway.

A deep mystery surrounds the movie “Nell’anno della Luna” (In the year of the Moon) and its soundtrack, which was released one year later. A beautiful work that lingers in between swing and melodies, in a fad that was popular a few decades earlier, complemented by some elements of novelty borrowed from beat and rock. The title track, “Alla brasiliana” and “Samba Querida” sound more traditional, while titles like “Afro Swing”, “Underground”, “Beatmania” (all featuring the vocal ensemble I 4+4, led by Nora Orlandi) represent a more adventurous side of this soundtrack.