Preview: Felabration 2016 @ Electric Ballroom (London, 7th October 2016)
It goes without saying that the best way to remember and pay tribute to a musician, his music and legacy, is playing his tunes. That’s why every year, every 7th of October, in Lagos, like in Osaka and Reykjavik, it’s Felabration: a day, or better, a night in honour of Fela Kuti.
Like every year, London will do its part, too. On the first Friday of October, more than a dozen remarkable artists, who have always lived and breathed afrobeat and the Lagos sound of the 1970s and 80s, will gather together at the Electric Ballroom to pay their musical respects to Fela.
DOPE BEATS for DOPE PEEPS is the name of our album of the week, a compilation celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Switchstance Recordings. Twenty years of searching for ultimate freedom, whether in their musical movements or in “switching” between styles. We listen to six artists from the German label, each…
This show is a trip through world music and global beats searching for the Oneness in humanity, regardless of all geographical, political, economic and all kinds of divisions, and identifications we might all have, in these times of uncertainties we search for Unity. The unity that music brings to us……
Finding one’s place within a diaspora away from your motherland can be an integral part of self-discovery. This is certainly true of Hamburg-based producer Farhot, who has now followed-up his eight-year-old debut with Kabul Fire Vol. 2 (released via his own label Kabul Fire Records) which explores this part of…
To end 2020 we make a Rendez-vous with three generations of afrobeat and celebrate a Nigerian musical dynasty. As Fela is honoured with a Black Plaque at his old music conservatoire Trinity Laban in Greenwich, we consider how the musical idiom he created remains more popular than ever. Track list: 1….
At times, we are the first to lose track of how many exciting music events happen in London each month, so we have decided to offer you some sort of “public musical service”, meant for all the locals and passers-by, with the aim of suggesting where to listen to some…
At times, we are the first to lose track of how many exciting music events happen in London each month, so we have decided to offer you some sort of “public musical service”, meant for all the locals and passers-by, with the aim of suggesting where to listen to some…
At times, we are the first to lose track of how many exciting music events happen in London each month, so we have decided to offer you some sort of “public musical service”, meant for all the locals and passers-by, with the aim of suggesting where to listen to some…
On first impressions, this is just another Fela Kuti compilation, albeit an extensive one. Dig a little deeper, though, and spend a bit more time with the music and, like any good art retrospective, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Badu’s own sensibilities shine through with her penchant…
A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to attend one of the highlights of the London’s music calendar: Amadou & Mariam. The Malian couple delighted the Koko audience presenting their brand new work Bofou Safou and performing an exciting sold-out gig supported by London born-and-bred hip-hop narrator Afrikan Boy. Here’s what we saw and…
If you want to pay tribute to one of the most renowned and influential musicians, you need to do it good and proper, and that’s what Dele Sosimi and music partners staged at the Electric Ballroom for Felabration 2016. The London-based Nigerian keyboard player, accompanied by his orchestra and a…
Tonight, Woolwich born MC Afrikan Boy will hit the U.K. with his much anticipated ABCD Tour.. There’s no denying that he’s is more than ready to hit the road, with gigs scheduled up and down the country from Edinburgh’s Electric Circus to The Small Horse in Bristol. Promising to be not just…
To sum up these three albums in a few words, would be to say that Highlife, Jazz and Afro-Soul is a journey to discover the origins of afrobeat and the Fela Kuti myth. In fact, there was a time when the Black President was ‘simply’ a music student at the Royal Trinity College of…
It’s not every day that you witness one of the most famous libraries in the UK (and one of the most important cultural centres in London) being transformed into the Shrine, the mythical Lagos club from which the legendary figure of Fela Kuti emerged in the late 1970s – yet…
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