I’ll be the first to admit that my Afrobeat collection doesn’t run very deep, aside from Antibalas’ Who Is This America?, I have two other albums by the father of the genre, Fela Kuti. Kuti founded the genre and coined the term Afrobeat in Nigeria in the 1960s, which fuses jazz with Yoruba music, highlife, and funk. The horn driven resulting sound is energetic, eclectic, and very danceable. Since it’s inception, politics have been essential to the genre, from Kuti’s songs about political injustice in the beginning to Antibalas’ jabs at our joke of an administration today. The Best Of The Black President, a collection of Kuti’s songs from the 1960’s through the 1990’s and compiled by his first son, Femi, served as the perfect introduction to Afrobeat.
On their fourth effort, Security, Antibalas utilizes the framework of Afrobeat roots, while reinventing and expanding the sound to include electronic elements, classical, reggae, funk, Latin, free jazz, and soul. A month long recording session with producer (and Tortoise percussionist) John McEntire in his Soma Electronic Music Studios helped the Brooklyn 12-piece to tap areas of their music not previously explored.
The 7-track album opens with faint chimes and the thick big band horns of the appropriately titled “Beaten Metal” which features percussion sections that sound like silverware being smacked off of pots and pans. This is probably my favorite track on the album, I really love the way the deep keyboards come in around the 4:27 mark and then the beat punches through the rest of the song. “Filibuster XXX” follows, which features vocalist Amayo taking jabs at the GOP, call and response lyrics fill the final portions of the song as Amayo asks “What is GOP class?” He answers his call in three different ways “Greedy Old People; Guilty Of Perjury; and Gas, Oil, and Plutonium.” As the chorus chants “Filibuster XXX, XXX…Filibuster XXX, XXX!” Amayo continues his rip on the administration, “GOP, What they say? Clean air; GOP, What they do? Choke the sky”…”GOP, What they say? Care for the future; GOP, What they do? Leave the child behind.” What is G-O-P?
“Sanctuary” with it’s tinges of reggae and “Hilo” are two chill, downtempo tracks and also the longest and shortest songs on the album (12:53 and 4:49). The album closes with the laid back, slow samba groove and horns of “Age” and you can just feel yourself drifting off as the sun slips beneath the ocean’s horizon.
Security, out now on Anti-, is almost certainly the most diverse album these ears have heard in years and it’s going to be really exciting to see where Antibalas takes the sound next. The band is on tour from now until May, check their MySpace page to see when they’ll be bringing their live show to your town and check out “I.C.E.” below.