Richard Bona

I just got back from the radio 3 london jazz festival where richard bona played at the queen elizabeth room of the royal festival hall @ the south bank.
The show started at about 8.20pm and lasted for about an hour and a half.It was my first time of seeing him live, though i have known about him and his music for about 4 or 5 years and happen to have all his cds from 'Reverence, Scenes from my life, Munia-the tale and the latest 'Tiki' not forgetting his collaboration 'toto bona lokua'.
The room was made for 'live' music, acoustically prefect. His band was made up of ernesto simpson from cuba on drummers, Samuel torres (colombia)on percussion, etienne stadwijk (holland)Tom haskins trunpet (USA) and lastly john Coban( USA) on guitars.Richard himself on bass (he's from cameroun). Seeing him live was a dream come true cos he's such a show man and gave us all our money's worth!!The high point of the show was his solo preformance were he sang in his native tongue(douala which he normally does anyway) and over dubbed himself live right there, he sang a part ,recorded it there, played that part back, sang another part, stood back listen and played another, in short it was like 3 or 4 richard bonas playing different part of a song ,like you would have an acapella group play.. it was magic ....!!.he runs such a tight band and he highly recommended for those that want and love live music.
It's such a big shame that we had must more white than black people in the house!! is it me or we, as black people seem not to appreciate 'ours'! Same thing i noticed when i went to see john legend(another good show) @ the royal albert hall, we were so out numbered it was unbelievable!! like 75 to 25 percent !!maybe it's the environment or we just dont appreciated good music !!Finally all i can say to you is, if you haven't 'discovered' richard bona please go out and get all his cds, forget that he sings in a 'foreign'language, just enjoy his music and let it take you places. if you don't enjoy his music i will refund the cost of the cd to you !!

rocky dawuni

I just received my copy of rocky dawuni's book of changes' and boy is it a brilliant album.It's a mix of afrobeat, roots reggae, hip hop and a bit of everything.apparently he's been around since 1996 and this is his fourth cd .The more i listen to it ,the more i am amazed at his songwriting and musically arrangement.The stand out so far for me is the 'africa for learn' wake the town and shesemane (the last two were played and licensed to the american hit series 'ER').In this days of computerized music rocky is a breathe of fresh air, maybe i am too old skul but i really enjoy reading credit on a song and love see that we still have people that still believe in music and have bass player guitarist,drummer and the whole nine and not just written and programmed by timbaland.This album comes highly recommended and for all music lover please do yourselves a favour and add this to you music collection. you can read more about him @ www.rockydawuni.com

old skul fela anikulapo kuti

Got back from hmv to shop for old skul fela cds, got myself 'stalemate/fefe ne efe, confusion/gentleman
and just reminising about the good old day back in lagos nigeria.That guy was a musical genius, how many musicians do you know ,that their music still stands the test of time 20 to 30 years later ? not too many.
He rates with people like robert nesta marley, john coltrane, duke ellington,marvin gaye,monk etc were you listen to music played way ,way back and its still relevant to today.Fela sang 'shuffering and shmiling' i think it was 1980's and we all thought, he was smoking too much marijuana, but check naija too day,
what he said is all there!!, that is the mark of a genius, a man with foresight.... Take 'gentleman', the opening arrangement is nothing short of 'classic'.Fela's music was all about 'mountains and valleys, he takes you up there, bring you down gently and lifts you up once again and in the mix of it all is 'baba 70' .
For those that want to research fela i personally feel a good starting point is zombie, mr follow follow, teacher dont teach me nonesense would be a good starting point.
I think he was at his creative best in the 70's were he created classics like lady, shakara, kalakuta show.Tony allen(afrobeat co-creator & drummer )tony allen was the only person in the whole of afrika 70 fela didnt write a part to play.when tony allen left the band fela kept on changing drummers and at a time had two drummers to recreate the 'tony allen afrobeat'
Fela has created a genre that has been copy, chopped or recreated from as far a field as canada, america and europe ...Nu afrobeaters to check out are Mr Something Something, Ultra Magnus, Chicago afrobeat project, akoya afobeat ensemble, antibalas . All these nu groups come highly recommended and also not forgetting the Princes Femi & Seun kuti still keeping the flag flying!!Seun is leading his dad's old band and femi's doing his thing at the new africa shrine in ikeja lagos nigeria