![Album Review: Ibibio Sound Machine – Uyai [Merge Records, 3 March 2017]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/a2574861825_10-335x335.jpg)
Yes, Ibibio Sound Machine are back, with their hotly anticipated second album and they have returned bigger, better, rougher and tougher! It’s three years since the release of the now classic self-titled debut album and Uyai (Merge Records) doesn’t disappoint, laying down 12 tracks of synth-tinged African vibes sweeping from full...
Tag Archives: Afro-Funk
Awesome Tapes from Africa’s Brian Shimkovitz has done a brilliant job over the past seven years or so of bringing new life to legendary artists whose genre-shifting music has often been lost in the sea of modern sounds. One of these prolific musicians is Ethiopian Hailu Mergia, the keyboard and accordion...
For over 40 years, Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou have been producing their own indomitable brand of voodoo-infused Afro-beat, heavily tinged with highlife and soukous accents. Having disbanded sometime in the mid-eighties, like many other long lost doyens of tribal African dance music, they were rediscovered in the early part...
Mokoomba are the biggest band in Zimbabwe, achieving global recognition, with their breakthrough album Rising Tide. Five years on, with an established global fan base after playing in over 40 countries, they’ve released their self-produced third album, Luyando (Out Here Records). Attracting glowing reviews, the album blends their pan-African sound with traditional...
K.O.G & the Zongo Brigade is Afro-fusion in the truest sense of the word: “you can call us Afrofusionists! Think about African music and fuse it with every other genre you know in the world” said Kweku, founder member of the band, in our recent interview. He originally comes from...
It’s Friday, so…roll out the red carpet for the weekend and get up-close and personal with the dance floor at the best music party in town! You’ll be dancing the night away to the uplifting West African vibes performed by London-based 5-piece band Afriquoi, entrancing Afro-electro grooves chosen and mixed...
You might think a 9-piece band is overwhelming by definition. So try to imagine a 9-piece band playing Ghanaian highlife, Nigerian afrobeat, West African rhythms and mixing them all with a UK multicultural urban approach. It goes without saying that Friday’s K.O.G. & the Zongo Brigade show at Jazz Café will...
![Album Review: Arat Kilo – Nouvelle Fleur [Eklektik, 27th May 2016]](http://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/003d9262-335x335.jpeg)
If you’ve never listened to ethio-jazz, a genre very popular in the bars and hotels of Addis Ababa during the 1960s and ’70s, Arat Kilo’s new album Nouvelle Fleur could be the perfect introduction. The Parisian band, whose name comes from a famous monument in the Ethiopian capital, brought into...
This is not just an exclusive mix by DJ Khalab, it is also a heartfelt tribute to one of the most brilliant, unpredictable and significant figures of West African music: William Onyeabor. “We have lost one of the grooviest psychedelic masters of African music In his Nigerian hometown, they were calling him ‘The Chief’....
Mosaiques Festival, a festival of world culture in an ever-changing format, returns to London this October with its offerings spread over two days: two evening performances, showcasing three acts each, including one free afternoon of entertainment, all in the familiar setting of Bethnal Green’s Rich Mix. The festival is founded...