Search - Tony Allen :: No Accommodation for Lagos / No Discrimination

Fela Kuti is known as the architect of Afro-beat, but Nigerian drummer Tony Oladipo Allen was the genre's prime mover. Allen melded highlife with traditional drum patterns and African-American R&B, funk, and jazz. He played with Fela from 1964 to 1979. This double CD, originally released as two LPs in the late '70s, makes it possible for a new generation to experience the Afro-tantric, sub-Saharan grooves Allen and Africa 70 laid down on the turntable and the dance floor. Allen locks down the dub-influenced rhythms while below-the-equator bass lines, kinetic guitar licks, and funky horns turbocharge the long tracks (such as on the title cut, the uplifting "African Message," and "Road Safety"). As political as it is pulsating, this dancing document by Tony Allen shows that the music he and Fela created was the real rave music. --Eugene Holley, Jr.