Afrobeat is a vibrant, living music – and there’s no group better equipped to express it than the Black President’s own band, Egypt 80, who pulse through the seven long tracks like it was 1980 all over again. They’ve been playing together for decades – and it shows, as they’re as tight as a duck’s proverbial.
Seun Kuti takes the reins and pulls no punches, his ferocious vocals pinning to the ground the miscreants who have raped his native Nigeria for decades. But it’s the rolling, throbbing music which snaps you to attention track after track. Mr Big Thief starts off with snappy percussion and banked brass before levelling out with outstanding solos and, of course, Kuti putting the corrupt politicians in their place. Rise is a slow, deep cry for food for the impoverished masses and For Dem Eye is almost hypnotic in its insistent rhythm, while The Good Leaf decries hard drug use and extols the virtues of ganja to a blasting brass and scatting Seun soundtrack.
This is what Afrobeat is all about – and it’s the album Fela’s fans have been waiting for since his sad death in 1997.
