![]() ![]() Take a sail down the Blue and White Nile as they pass through Khartoum, carrying with them an ancient history and a never-ending stream of poems and songs. The necessary inspiration comes in the form of the records of James Brown, but only a ten-month trip with the entire band to America completes the music of Fela Kuti. In 1963 he returns to Lagos, but the high-life jazz of his Koola Lobitos does not really want to ignite the audience there, because jazz takes the high life momentum and people want to dance above all else. When searching for accommodation, he experiences racism ('no blacks, no dogs'), gets to know the music of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, founds his first band with the Koola Lobitos. At 19 Kuti is sent to London to study medicine or law, but ends up at the conservatory and studies composition, trumpet and piano. His father Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti is a Protestant pastor, his mother Funmilayo a well-known political activist, winner of the International Lenin Peace Prize and first woman of Nigeria with a driver's license. ![]() The legend of Lagos Kuti is born on Octoas Olufela Olusun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta as the fourth of five children of a Nigerian middle-class family. You could think of Fela Kuti as a particularly peculiar mix of Duke Ellington, James Brown, Bob Marley, Nelson Mandela, and Hugh Hefner, and would not even half-do it justice. Ebo Taylor along with the Saltpond City Band and producer Justin Adams, brilliantly engineered soundscapes for the narratives, with the trusted horn section as the pillar upon which the entire sonic architecture is arranged. The entire project feels well round with no gagged melodies and unessential phrases taking away from the overall sounds. It also exhibits Ebo Taylor’s brilliance as a composer. ![]() For casual or first time listeners, this project is by far a huge pool of highlife bliss to dive into as it partially traces the contours of this very Ghanaian genre, showing how the sound has evolved from the palm wine days, through funk and disco to the experimental, electro-based, burger highlife days. The song has this freshly ground feeling of warmth with yet again, the kinetic and tender horns section, as well as Tony Allen style drum pattern as Ebo Taylor in his aged, raspy voice appears to be using palm nut soup as some grand metaphor. The more traditional vocal highlife, brewed from Palmwine Music, to his jazzy funk phase which has become his signature in the African music pantheon. Abenkwan Pucha, however, is the crown jewel of this album as it perfectly syncs the two critical phases of Ebo Taylor’s composition: i.e. ![]()
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