A truly special evening at Jazz Café London will host a group of highlife music aficionados that is very likely to bring up the Ghanaian spirit of the ‘King of Highlife’. Highlife music airs meandering horn sounds melting with a travelling guitar’s voice, accompanied by up-tempo, enhanced clave rhythms. The...
Tag Archives: Afro-Funk
![Album Review: Femi & The Inrhythms – Pressure to Pleasure [Joyful Noise Recordings, January 2018]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/capture-335x293.jpg)
With headlines around the world of famine, inequality, racism, and Donald Trump, we go the other side of life, the good side, as Femi & The Inrhythms plays to spring us forth with their studio album: Pressure to Pleasure released by Joyful Noise Production. Rhythm’s effect on humans is Kafkaesque and...
Wormfood is an events company that sets out to align London domiciled African music with the dance floor energy of club nights. Set up in 2007, they have injected energy into many UK festivals and London’s wide array of world music venues. This ten-year celebration at South London’s Electric Brixton...
Fans of afrobeat must not miss Afrobeat Vibration’s 9th anniversary, which takes place at the Jazz Café on December 15th. Ahead of this celebration, Rhythm Passport caught up with Fela Kuti’s former keyboard player and Afrobeat Vibration’s founder, Dele Sosimi, for a brief chat. Rhythm Passport: When you left Fela...
View Koichi Sakai bio here It all started on a November night back in 2008 at the late New Empowering Church in Hackney. Since then, London’s afrobeat and afro-funk purveyors Afrobeat Vibration kept us dancing to their afro-vibes and West African rhythms almost on a weekly basis. On Friday, they will celebrate their...
![Album Review: The Souljazz Orchestra – Under Burning Sky [Strut Records]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/a2515715529_10-335x335.jpg)
The Souljazz Orchestra are back with their killer eighth studio album and have added some fearsome vintage synthesizer sounds to their trademark horn arrangements and earthy tropical sounds for maximum dancing impact. Think William Onyeabor meets Fela’s Afrika ‘70 with a splash of Creole flavours and you will have a feel for...
As one of the pre-eminent leaders in the field of afrobeat, Dele Sosimi now brings his funky, jazz-laced fusion to a new generation of music lovers. Being Fela Kuti’s rhythm keyboard player for many years, as well as a long-time collaborator with Kuti’s son, Femi, Sosimi’s musicality is understandably rich....
![Album Review: Fela Kuti – Box Set #4 curated by Erykah Badu [Knitting Factory Records; 15th December 2017]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/a1284379874_10-335x335.jpg)
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...
Last time we met Ibibio Sound Machine it was a little more than a year ago. They were “still” one of the most interesting bands enriching the London music scene. 12 months or so later, we find them as a “global music phenomenon”, with an exciting new album, new label...
It’s always interesting when musicians confront themselves with art forms that are not music. That’s what our favourite “afro-fusionist” K.O.G., frontman of K.O.G & the Zongo Brigade, has recently done adapting and reciting one of his new songs titled “Money”. On Friday, K.O.G. & the Zongo Brigade will visit London and surely turn Pop...