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Fela, put and emphasised an accentuated beat on ‘Afro’-rhythm
and, it became the pulse and trademark of his music, Afrobeat. The top end
remained the 4/4 (jazz) beat of the claves/sticks aided by the shekere and, the
bottom end was provided by the trio of Ghanaian Addo Nattey on one-membrane
conga, Oladeinde Henry Koffi on three-membrane drum (played with sticks as
‘borrowed from Rex Lawson’s Ijo Highlife music) and; Ladi Tony Alabi a.k.a Tony
Allen the anchor rhythm master on trap drums.

Not surprisingly Tony Allen was the leader of Fela’s Africa ’70
band that fashioned his unique brand of Afrobeat music. Tony Allen was and
remains a living legend; a complete drummer who kept the basic 4/4 beat
simultaneously on snare drums and high hat (cymbals) and augmented it with
rhythmic textures from the two tom tom drums and a deep bottom of bass drum
tattoos. He was a busy drummer with both hands and both feet always in action
and, he was an advanced African pop music trap drummer in that his
embellishments included playing the high hat with drumsticks and, rim shots on
the snare and tom toms. Tony Allen was everything top American Jazz drummers of
the 60s and 70s wanted to be: a master drummer of pulsing rhythms. Fela who was
very knowledgeable about the rhythmic structure of modern jazz music found a
genuine soul mate in Tony Allen to collaborate with and create Afrobeat; a
hybrid of jazz, highlife and African folk rhythms.

Demystifying Ginger Baker

That Fela knew Tony Allen’s worth as an innovative world-class
trap drummer, was proud of his prowess and, was prepared to let the world know
about it, was well demonstrated when Fela – cheeky rascal that he was – set up
his friend, drummer Ginger Baker, by inviting him to record with the Africa ’70
as a second trap drummer in London. Ginger Baker, touted as the greatest
drummer in pop music based on his knowledge and incorporation of Afro rhythms,
was completely blown away by Allen whose fluid multi-rhythms were a sharp
contrast to Baker’s lumbering heavy-handed flaying of the drums. This important
Fela record not only demystified Baker’s rating as a drummer, it also featured
fascinating spells of gong rhythms.

Interestingly, I caught Ginger Baker try and pull a fast one on
the music world at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games World Music Festival with his
band, Salt (made up of young Nigerian pop musicians including The Lijadu
Sisters whom he had recruited from Lagos). From the audience, it sounded as if
Ginger Baker was playing some ‘heavy drums’; but I was suspicious and decided
to check out what was really happening. On close investigation, I discovered
that Baker conveniently kept the second drummer in Salt, Laolu Akins, next to
him; then deliberately ‘under-miked’ Akins’ drum set, whilst his own drums were
literally ‘over-miked.’ All Ginger Baker was cleverly doing was feeding off
Laolu Akins’ original rhythms, reacting split seconds after Akins’ rhythms. And
because Baker was very well ‘miked’, it sounded as if he was the one creating
all the heavy rhythms of Salt!

Good times

In what many consider as the golden age of Africa ’70 and Afrobeat
and, when the band was still resident at the Shrine at the Surulere nightclub,
the best place to sit for hardcore aficionados was away from the Africa-shaped
table in front of the bandstand, where Fela’s friends, V.I.Ps and celebrities
like radical Naiwu Osahon and Wole Bucknor sat. Instead, you sat at the back of
the covered space, directly facing and listening to the duo of Henry Koffi and
Tony Allen as they laid down the Afrobeat rhythms and, admiring tall slim Ijo
Black Rose gracefully shimmying to the music in her ‘dance cage.’ Whenever
Koffi got into his groove, dancing and playing multiple rhythms on his
three-membrane drum, he would play the zinc roof of the stage with his sticks
and smile knowingly. A good time was always had by all!

Fela stamped his huge personality on Afrobeat and used his savvy
of marketing by deliberately creating controversy to make himself and his
Afrobeat very popular. He was immediately accepted by the youth, the ‘masses’
and later, grudgingly, by the middle and upper classes who felt threatened and
in some ways let down by one of their own! Musically, Fela brought his vast
expertise of composing and arranging garnered from Trinity College, London,
into making Afrobeat one of the most distinct genres of world popular music from
the twentieth century.

Tony Allen Live

In October 2007, I was part of a group of Nigerian artists
invited to participate in an annual Book Festival that honours Nobel Laureates;
held at the resort town of Aix en Provence in the South of France. Nigeria’s
Wole Soyinka was the guest of honour for 2007; Tunde Kelani showed his films;
George Osodi and I had a one-month-long photography exhibition and Tony Allen
was invited from his Paris base to perform an improvisational drum session with
Ara, the Nigerian female talking drum player.

It was nice renewing acquaintances with Allen and he gave me his
new CD, ‘Tony Allen Live KIP 002′, on his independent label. It has since been
a CD I play and enjoy a lot and one that has, not surprisingly, attracted the
interest and admiration of all who have heard it. A live recording from some
unidentified music festival in France, it starts with the master of ceremony
saying, “It is indeed a privilege for me to introduce to you a living legend.
Ladies and Gentlemen give it up big-time for Tony Allen and his Afro-Funk
Orchestra;” to great applause. Tony Allen, now based in Paris for two decades,
is hugely popular in Europe and has also been Nigeria’s Ambassador
Plenipotentiary for Afrobeat music worldwide.

The first striking aspect of Tony Allen Live is the excellent
recording which showcases his clean, snappy and intricate drumming at its best!
Afro-Funk? The instrumentation and young talented musicians; mostly from the
Diaspora, give an electronic flavour to the seven-tune 74-minute-long CD of
mostly laid-back foot-tapping body-shaking Afrobeat-funk.

The opening track ‘Asiko’ starts with frisky wah wah-guitar
riffs and the tune is sustained by the interplay of rhythms between guitar and
drums with Allen lamenting about women’s ways in Yoruba and, then comes an
extended efficient jazz-style trumpet solo, much like Tunde Williams with
Fela’s band. ‘Black Voices’ is an outstanding up-tempo tune with rich
instrumentation of claves, Fender Rhodes electronic piano, the usual ‘tenor’
guitar continually laying down rhythmic riffs, a second guitar that takes an
interesting fuzz-effect solo, a horn section, Allen on trap drums and vocals in
English after which there is a gravel-voiced segment in another African
language.

The album’s format is Fela-style in musical structure: long introductions
which Manu Dibango once joked are longer than the songs themselves and, order
of solos. Tony Allen’s drum sounds are unmistakeably stamped on all the tunes
particularly on ‘Yeshe’ (about sexual harassment) and ‘E Parapo’ with their
Campos Square/Faji Owambe flavour of rhythms maintained for long spells by trap
drums, guitars and marimba/xylophone effects from electric piano. An obvious CD
by a drummer-leader who has inspired his musicians to modernise and ‘funkify’
Afrobeat as they hear it!