Lagos No Shaking

Personnel: Tony Allen (drums); Fred Fisher (trombone).
Everything from the title to the music to the graffiti-style cover art on Tony Allen's LAGOS NO SHAKING invokes the spirit of the legendary Fela Kuti, and with good reason: Allen was the drummer and occasional director of Fela's great Africa 70 ensemble, helping in no small part to create the very beat of Afro-beat
Allen's career has been marked by experimentation and a willingness to synthesize musical styles (something he learned from his old bandleader), but the core of LAGOS NO SHAKING is pure Afro-beat. Dense polyrhythms create a rattling skeleton fleshed out by burbling bass lines, chiming guitar, call-and-response vocal lines, and ubiquitous, out-front horn riffs. Allen's compositions may dip into American R&B-style singing ("Kilode") or approximate the cool-toned feel of King Sunny Ade's juju ("Moyege"), but Fela Kuti's legacy lives on in the album's intense, beautifully constructed grooves.