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Of all the ensembles birthed by Fela Kuti's magic saxophone, Brooklyn's Antibalas are the best from this corner of the globe.
Rolling Stone Magazine -- Jun 24, 2004
Fela Anikulapo Kuti is alive and smokin' in Brooklyn, N.Y. The Afrobeat vibe of Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra has grown sharper with every album it releases. And now along comes "Who Is This America?," a collection of seven tunes with an edge like a straight razor. There's much to love here, so immerse yourself in the impolite political commentary via funk with "Indictment" and "Big Man." Fans of the late Kuti will revel in the undiluted essence of Afrobeat in such tracks as "Pay Back Africa," "Who Is This America Dem Speak of Today?" and "Elephant." The unflagging devotion Antibalas has shown to mastering the genre's intricacies pays off from the first bar of "Who Is This America?" to the last. This band has learned the voodoo that invokes the spirit of Kuti and the devilish groove of his music.
Billboard Magazine -- June 19, 2004
Antibalas
Who is this America?
****(out of 5)
 
Fela travelers rouse rabble with election-year afrobeat anthems
Need something to pump that John Kerry fund-raiser full of righteous rhythmic indignation? Look no further than the incendiary third album by Antibalas, a 15-member multiracial Brooklyn collective that plays music inspired by Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the radical Nigerian afrobeat founder who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1997. Antibalas sustain his sinuous sound with funky African orchestral grandeur, punctuating long molten guitar-horn-drum grooves with jazzy keyboard and sax solos. Vocals resemble a network news ticker. Singers Amayo and Ernesto Abreu editorialize about American identity with a mesmerizing string of acronyms (“EPA, FCC, NFL, NBC, NBA, WB…”) on the title track, declaim lyrics of unapologetic feminism in the 19-minute “Sister” and offer a scathing indictment of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush’s whole crew.
Reviewed by Richard Gehr, Blender –June, 2004
Who isn't pissed at Bush? These days everyone has something to say about the leader of the free world. As the approaching Presidential election descends upon us, the chorus of criticism gets louder and angrier. Artists of all mediums are focused on making political statements, some profound, some horribly infantile. Thankfully, Brooklyn's Antibalas isn't new to this game.
Having formed in 1998, the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra occasionally swells from 14 to 20 members, representing a broad cultural cross-section of races, cultures, and ethnicities. Singing in three languages (English, Spanish, and Yoruba), Antibalas' musical vocabulary is readily inspired by the works of late Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. Employing trance-like rhythms and a wash of percussion, Kuti used his expansive music as a launching pad for explosive but simple lyrical statements. Antibalas has ably picked up the torch, running forward with a sound that is as reverential as it is caustic.
With a barrage of percussion and an expansive rhythm section, Antibalas creates several hypnotic grooves that captivate the listener for lengthy periods of time. Thanks to an aggressive and talented horn section, these long stretches of music never grow dull or tiresome, regardless of the fact that a guitar solo is nowhere to be found. It's a tight and tenacious ensemble sound, but if one man stands out, it's the decidedly retro-sound of Victor Axelrod's haunting electric piano that adds plenty of chilling subtext to the album.
Lyrically, Antibalas is at their best while employing Kuti's technique of simplicity. On the opening "Who Is This America Dem Speak of Today?" the singer repeatedly asks about the current state of this country. In a particularly inspired moment, several three-letter acronyms, such as CIA, FBI, IRS, NRA, ATF, SEC, HMO, NFL, NBC, etc., are rattled off in tribute to the bureaucracies and commercial conglomerates that have become synonymous with America. Later, a profound anti-globalization tale is depicted in the simple story of "Big Man." As small man repeatedly thanks big man for the privilege of working 80 hours a week for miniscule wages, one gets the sense that this song could be found on page one of a WTO Protest Handbook.
Those who loathe politics and those who view Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as a personal hero shouldn't be afraid of this album. Truthfully, the lyrics only account for about ten percent of the disc. However, America's current political situation has clearly influenced the instrumental music, giving the grooves of Who Is This America? a decidedly ferocious intensity. I guess George W. Bush has proved to be inspirational after all.
Brian Ferdman, 2004-07-29
When your radio and television have become front lines in the battle for hearts and minds, and Howard Stern and Janet Jackson pass for revolutionaries, what do true radicals do for entertainment? Re-enter Antibalas and Ozomatli. Like the master planners they are, both are releasing their Year of the Monkey albums just as the activist convergence centers gear up for the Demopublican conventions. With multilingual slogans, brass-monkey horn fanfares, and fist-pumping anthems, Street Signs and Who Is This America? declare apathy a boomer lie and protest season open.
Like the gremlins of Samuel Huntington's worst imaginings, Ozomatli and Antibalas emerged in the late '90s brimming with the multilingual, polyrhythmic anti-globalization ferment of Seattle, Porto Alegre, and Genoa. The Bakunin-quoting, Bushwick-based Antibalas (they fled Williamsburg when the electroclashers moved in) declared themselves a one-world collective and Clinton and Albright war criminals while supporting a floating Afrobeat army of seven to 19 musicians. Their songs, especially the new "Pay Back Africa," tell us that debt forgiveness and reparations aren't exclusively political concepts. There are cultural debts and reparations too.
In Afrobeat, Antibalas believed they had found a genre that could encompass their members' diverse political concerns and musical interests. The band has not exhausted the genre, but they are capable of more. Who Is This America? is overshadowed by the band's crucial 2003 12-inch "Che Che Cole," a syncretic slamdance from Willie Colón's catalog that recalled the singular '70s moment marked by Manu Dibango and the Fania All-Stars, Cortijo's Time Machine, and Eddie Palmieri's Harlem River Drive. But while Antibalas are avid students of the rhythms of vodun, Lukumi, and dub, only "Obanla'e" and "Elephant" hint at the band's potential to forge a new Black Atlantic sound. Their message, on the other hand, is right on time. The album transports Fela's "Who No Know Go Know" into the latest world war, convicting a new set of war criminals with ridicule and groove. "Indictment" 's deliciously twisted beat gives way to a courtroom scene worthy of Prince Buster involving Chomsky, Cheney, and the Saudi royal family. It's music to make 10-foot street puppets by.
In 2000, Ozomatli's world-party serenata to Al Gore's Los Angeles coronation ended with batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Last March, Ozomatli led a nonviolent conga line out of their SXSW gig and straight into another police riot. What makes the cops so rabid? Ranchera, merengue, rock en español, bolero, salsa, reggaeton, hip-hop, all freshly tinged with Arab textures. Or maybe it's the way they do it all at once, with Colón-sized genre-bursting abandon and Santana's arena versatility and chops. One minute they're playing Latin jazz with Eddie Palmieri, next they're attacking Blaxx and Vendetta's Egyptian riddim with Jurassic 5 founding member Chali 2na. "Ya Viene el Sol" opens with a screwed-and-chopped soca beat, escalates into a samba parade, and climaxes in a flurry of turntable scratches. Imagine abusive cops and prison contractors subjected to hours of Ozo at high volumes in lockup: They might learn to dance.
Since 2001's Embrace the Chaos (released on 9-11), the street-fighting band has moved from rebel-without-a-pause toward revolutionary romance, searching for a midpoint between Selena and Subcomandante Marcos. Here's one chorus: "Cuando canto mi canción quiero inspirar a mi gente con una solución" ("I'd like to inspire a solution in my people with my song"). The sweetest track is "Santiago," a bossa-washed tribute to the common man: "Sobrevives con amor, sobrevives con honor, sobrevives con tu gente" ("You survive with love, you survive with honor, you survive with your people"). These are words that can resonate equally in Baghdad, Bell Gardens, Bushwick, or the streets of New York City and Boston this summer.
Jeff chang, The Village Voice – July 6, 2004
Just when I start gloating about afrobeat legend Fela Kuti's influence permeating the underground, what should find its way through my mail slot but the new Antibalas LP? Let it be known: the American afrobeat awakening is in full effect. [Much rejoicing ensues.]
All year, Fela-inspired ensembles have been rocking dancefloors and picking fights with nervous Republicans across the country. Antibalas, of course, predates them all, having staked their claim to Fela's dynasty back in 2001 with their Ninja Tune debut, Liberation Afrobeat Vol. 1. That release beautifully conveyed Fela's bravado and bluster, even while the band was yet unable to evoke his humor, intimacy and personality. Of course, while I was thrilled to hear a new multi-culti spin on the Nigerian afrobeat legacy, I couldn't shake my disappointment at the record's lack of focus, or its departure from Fela's tried-and-true blueprint.
But, never daunted, Antibalas regrouped to drop the bomb the world was waiting for: Their 2002 follow-up Talkatif lightened their sound with sharper songwriting, including some truly memorable melodies (no mean feat within afrobeat's syncopated firestorm) that popped with addition of bright major chords, Afro-Latin rhythms, briefer track lengths, and more compelling lyrical fomentations from Duke Amayo. Now arrives the third installment of the Antibalas handbook for global empowerment, Who Is This America?, which, in the midst of the current trickle-up afrobeat revival, has Antibalas bringing a more galvanized and urgent righteous noise than ever before, and proving they lead the pack when it comes to the re-imagining and recreating of Fela's archetypal artform.
If you're familiar with afrobeat, you'll have a basic grasp of this record's sound: Clean, staccato guitars and conga 'n' snare breakbeats are quickly avalanched by monstrous horn sections, shakere counter-rhythms, and kinky clavinets. Opener "Who Is This America Dem Speak Of?" enters with several minutes of polyrhythmic pyrotechnics, before Amayo finally busts in with a scathingly ironic vocal introduction, kicking the album into a high gear it never shifts back down from. At 12 minutes, it's one of the longer tracks in the group's repertoire, though a peek at the runtimes reveals that America contains two even lengthier tracks, one of which nears the 20-minute mark. Indeed, where Antibalas' previous works were abridged for accessibility, here they've clearly become more comfortable with their staying power, and more confident with their voice.
While Fela was a master at submerging political censure under metaphor (see his 1973 release, Gentleman, a denouncement of colonialism that employed pants as symbolism), Antibalas is more didactic, though they do dabble in some amusing poetics. Both the opening track and the breakbeat powerhouse "Big Man" come down on America's wholesaling of capitalist consumerism, augmented by a newfound razor-sharp wit. That sense of humor is also apparent on "Indictment", a stylistic watershed for the band. The track opens with a Superfly-echoing riff as spastic tenor sax man Stuart Bogie recites a litany of offenses committed by everyone from Donald Rumsfeld to "the game of baseball," in what sounds like some funky People's Court. The terrific throwback production-- cracking, overmiked drums, theme-show guitar, and background chatter reminiscent of James Brown's original Live at the Apollo-- make for one of the most unique, compelling songs the group has ever laid to tape.
The decision to close America with two monumental midtempo songs gives Antibalas the opportunity to show off all the tricks and insight they've gained in their seven years together. Victor Axelrod's liquid organ initially takes something of a plodding lead on "Elephant", but at six minutes in, the track briefly dubs out and Ernesto Abreu's Yoruba vocals come on like a Nuyorican boogaloo crooner. "Sister" is a 19-minute percussive workout; every instrument-- clavinet, horns, guitar, bass-- is a drum, rising and falling through a sexy, hypnotic and occasionally spacey plotline that, even in its extended length, keeps a tight, tense grip on the ear.
Like hip-hop and reggae, afrobeat is one of the crucial forms of expression for the world's disenfranchised. As time passes and we get further from the initial heat of Fela's influence, bands like Antibalas play a greater role in keeping the flame lit. Who Is This America? is the group's most powerful fuel for the fire.
-Jonathan Zwickel, May 19th, 2004
This is the album Antibalas fans have been waiting for. Anyone who has spent time losing themselves in the polyrhythmic layers of Afrobeat funk at one of the hundreds of shows they've put on over the past half-decade knows their potential. Maybe it was their label switch, moving from the experimental Ninja Tune to the saviors of jamband and roots, Ropeadope. Maybe it was the decision (finally!) to portray on wax what they do on stage: extended versions rather than brief snippets. Maybe it was their steady gradation from pure Afrobeat to Latin flavors ("Che Che Cole" on Turntables on the Hudson 4 a great starting point). Maybe it was the inclusion of frontman's Amayo's vocals, the warmly domineering figure live finally given the chance to shine in the earpods. Or maybe it was the Yoruba deities of Lagos setting up a massive skyward sound system which the 16-member collective heard standing atop their mountain of Brooklyn, screaming, "Give us what you got already, damn it!"
What they got is one of the hottest releases this year. Formed in '98 by saxophonist Martin Perna after a brainstorm meditating on Zapatistas while in Mexico, the decision was clear: to keep the lineage of Nigeria's Fela Kuti alive. Never having received the much-deserved international attention of a Bob Marley, Kuti has been enshrined (much like his hometown club where he started the madness) by audiences globally hip to the fact that, to get inside a song, to really feel the build and sway and emotion of a tune, it takes more than 3 1/2 radio minutes. Opening with a slightly-extended take of the album title ("Who is This America Dem Speak of Today?"), the 12 minutes spent let you know they're in it for the full ride. And while this, again like their performances, is a group effort, there's something undeniably engaging about the power of Amayo's vocals. His likeness to Kuti is poignant, but for those who've watched his show-stealing live antics, he is a character unto himself. The man can rhyme a hypnotic pattern relating the CIA, HMO and NBA and make sense of it; it's the suspending of disbelief comprising his craft.
"I personally tend to like the mid-tempo and slower grooves because that's where you feel the hypnotic elements," he told me earlier this year in an interview for Rattapallax. "If you go too fast you tend to miss the message. But in terms of an Afrobeat show, there needs to be room for the meditative aspect and hopefully people leave with new rejuvenation with whatever struggle they have." The blaring subject matter of struggle on this record is, obviously, the upcoming election. "Indictment," the shortest cut here, is brilliant in its maddening horn lines and bullet-like drum patterns, along with shouted indictments of Bush, Rice, Cheney and crew. But they never loose the groove; like proper political statements, the song doesn't submit to a message, but enhances it. Even more so on the closing "Sister," a heartfelt tune where Amayo truly muscles his way through the slowest - and longest - cut at 19+ minutes. He doesn't even speak until after 9, and when he does, this track dedicated to masculine support and softening towards women carries you gorgeously to the album's end.
"Not jams" drummer Phill Ballman told me a few years back in a piece in Relix, assured that, despite the circuit they constantly find themselves on, Antibalas is not a jamband. Searing through the 14-minute "Elephant," a traditional Yoruba chant arranged and sung by Ernesto Abreu, the freeform feeling is structured tightly. Throughout any show there may be moments of improvisation, but when dealing with 15 other cats on stage, one best not stray. This has been Antibalas' cornerstone: the ability to keep to the program while liberating the sound enough to sound completely inspired by the moment. With Talkatif and Liberation Afrobeat Vol. 1, their first two records, this never came across quite right. Fortunately the Orishas caught wind of it and decided it was time to speak up.
Derek Beres; www.afropop.org -- July 2004
"Lip Service Too Much": Antibalas Grows Up
I wanted to love Antibalas's first album, Liberation
Afrobeat Vol. 1, a whole lot more than I actually did.
It seemed like a great idea: a multicultural Pan-American
take on Fela Kuti's trademark sound! with fiery leftist
politics! headed by an enigmatic loudmouth named Martín
Antibalas! which means "bulletproof"!
And yeah, that album was laced with some great music,
but only because it was such a slavish copy of Fela,
and because Fela rocked so hard. I was a bit disappointed
that Antibalas didn't try to add anything at all, and
ended up sounding like a tribute band. And the lyrics,
when there were any, weren't so much of a much: some
vague talk about "revolution" in Soweto and
Milwaukee, some stuff about how Bill Clinton and Madeline
Albright were war criminals. Weak soup indeed: no one
hates the left like the people farther left, but that
kind of Naderrific crap is what got GWB elected.
Nevertheless, I was very interested in what Antibalas
would do for a follow-up. My heart sank when I saw that
it was called Talkatif -- aw, hell, more talking? But
it turns out that Talkatif is actually LESS of the same,
in a really good way. First of all, Martín Antibalas
is now just calling himself Martín Perna. This
seems like a little deal, but it's actually a big one.
Remove the whole "Le band, c'est moi" thing
from him, and he turns out to be an even better bandleader
than he was before. The compositions are tighter, funkier,
leaner -- only three go over seven minutes -- and it
sounds like they've actually been practicing during
their time off. They swing like 60 now; there are definite
hints of Miles Davis's 1970s albums now that I never
heard before. They sound great, from the massive battery
of interweaving percussion lines all the way to the
horn soloists. Even Martín's baritone sax work
is deeper and wider this time around.
Lyrically, too, it's a stripped-down affair. Only two
songs have any real words to them at all, which is a
slight change from the first album. "Nyash"
is about how to get one's revolutionary self out there
global style, which is cool. And then there's title
track/mission statement "Talkatif." This one
is a grand beast of a thing; almost 10 minutes long
and worth every penny, especially because it lays everything
out there for us to see. Vocalist/percussionist Duke
Amayo is exhorting us to avoid verbal diarrhea and useless
chatter, to get our asses up off the couch and get engaged
. . . but damned if it doesn't sound like he's talking
to himself, to Perna, to the rest of the band. It's
almost as if the whole band is acknowledging that they
have a tendency to be a little too talkatif themselves,
and that more grooving and less yapping will change
people's minds a lot faster.
So when you pump these other instrumental tracks up,
with their titles like "War Is a Crime", "Hypocrite",
and "World Without Fear", you're supposed
to feel all revolutionary, I guess. Do these titles,
or the little screed on the inside of the CD case, or
the CD cover art by Fela's artist Ghariokwu Lemi --
which my six-and-a-half-year-old daughter has decided
is "the best art in the entire world" -- actually
make people more political? Hell, no. But it's nice
that they're there anyway. And it's nice that Antibalas
seems to be back on board with the whole "free
your ass and your mind will follow" scenario. But
there ain't nothin' nice about these grooves: they're
nasty and funky and greasy and sweet and I'm digging
them all the way.
In fact, I'm thinking about volunteering with the neighborhood
program again. Enough of this talkatif crap, sitting
around complaining about the unfairness of the world
and our racist classist fascist power structure; it's
time to do something about it. And this is a very appropriate
soundtrack for that.
by Matt Cibula
PopMatters Music and Books Critic
As if born to fill a void after
the 1997 death of Nigerian superstar/Afrobeat king Fela
Kuti, the massive groove outfit Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
formed in Brooklyn in 1998 with members of retro-soul
outfits Daktaris and Soul Providers. This second volume
from Antibalas ("Bulletproof") follows in
the footsteps of Liberation Afrobeat Vol. 1, unloading
more dense African grooves, righteous horn charts and
extended keyboard jams. Fela's hot-blooded Afrobeat
is definitely the blueprint here, but with more than
a dozen players (black, white and Latino) lending a
voice to Antibalas, the surprising mix of African, Latin,
jazz and soul influences keeps the sound of Talkatif
current, if not evolutionary. There are also political
echoes of Fela here; Antibalas tends to put its musical
voice and muscle behind a number of liberal and grassroots
causes. Even without lyrics, tracks like "War Is
A Crime" make a statement. With bold horn harmonies
and sax solos riding over the bubbling bass, it has
the stirring quality of a struggling people's freedom
anthem.
- Steve Ciabattoni: CMJ New Music Report Issue: 754
- Mar 18, 2002
Any discussion of Antibalas' sophomore recording Talkatif
must first be prefaced by a mini-analysis of the man
who invented the socio-political sound world that Antibalas
calls home. Nigerian musician Fela Kuti is, was, and
continues to be a complex individual to say the least.
His vast recorded output deserves serious study by any
aficionado of groove, improvisation, and the notion
of "life as art as protest as life".
Despite his dozens and dozens of recordings - most
of which have been recently released in two-LPs-on-one-CD
format - it's his extracurricular exploits that partially
steal the thunder of his groundbreaking Afrobeat concoctions.
Highlights include: marrying 27 women in a simultaneous
ceremony (the singers and dancers in his band Africa
70); railing against injustices perpetrated by the Nigerian
government; declaring his compound, The Kalakuta Republic,
a sovereign nation that wouldnšt answer to the Nigerian
law; running for President of Nigeria; being exiled
to nearby Ghana; and - most importantly - surviving
numerous beat downs by the Nigerian Army -- including
round the clock surveillance and harassment, incitement
of riots at concerts, the destruction of his homes on
numerous occasions, and the brutal murder of his elderly
mother at the hand of the Nigerian guard (she was physically
thrown out of a window). Fela was renegade, rebel, rabble-rouser
and Afro-funk musician beyond compare. If Saint Bob
Marley got up in your face and turned his screw face
to a scowl, his intensity may equal about 1/10th of
Fela's.
Musically, Fela cross-pollinated African highlife,
James Brown funk, Black Pantheresque politics, power-to-the-people
sermons, world-wise Afro-unity, big band and combo jazz.
His grooves were deeper than the valleys of despair
he endured; his jams were as long as his politics were
heavy. All these elements were masterfully mixed into
30 minute long hypnotic social sermon symphonies that
usually included graphic descriptions of Fela's dealings
with the Nigerian authority, calls for empowerment,
naming names that needed to be named, and threats of
revolt.
Talkatif the latest recording from self-described "AfroBeat
Orchestra", Antibalas (which, according to their
website, translates as "bullet proof" or,
literally, "anti-bullets"), is pretty much
a sonic tribute to the late great Fela Kuti and, in
theory, a continuation of the Afro-beat sub-genre. There
isn't much in Talkatifšs seven tracks that Fela didnšt
already do, and there isn't much here that says what
Antibalas actually is, other than a tribute to Fela
Kuti. Felašs sound is reproduced to amazing detail.
Honking horns, polyrhythmic chicken scratch guitars,
Tony Allen inspired manic grooves, solid percussion,
call and response vocals, scrunched analogish recording,
groove breakdowns, it's all here. Even Fela's spiky
keyboard solos are replicated to near perfection. Pulling
off reconstructions of one of the strongest and most
loved voices in African music is an extremely perilous
task. One has to deal with purists who will scrutinize
every nuance in comparison to the original. Antibalas,
however pulls this task off with class, style and love.
That's not to say that Talkatif dosen't have detractions.
What's missing is clearly evident in Fela's "Coffin
For Head of State", a requiem mass for his deceased
mother; an emotional description of her murder at the
hands of the Nigerian Army. There's true life or death
struggle in Felašs music. Passion abounds in every saxophone
wail, lyrical call to arms, structural breakdown, and
album cover. Fela's dramas are sewn with the thread
of real struggle, real blood, and real fire. Antibalas's
Talkatif is an achievement in its replication of the
style of Afro-beat, but - to some degree - it's an empty
victory.
Yes, the grooves are as punishing as anything Fela
may have done, the arrangements are tasty, the playing
is impeccable, and - in a live setting - I'm sure these
tunes will expand to Fela-ish epic proportions causing
mad amounts of shake-ass to erupt. The recording's seven
tracks seem like more of a sampler plate mostly due
to their relative brevity. Yet there is something missing.
The wisdom of the master, the fearlessness of the rebel,
the - dare I say it - eye of the tiger. Fela was a master
storyteller in song, deed and word. When he screeched,
"That's my mama that you killed / the only mother
of Nigeria," you feel his pain, and the huge horn
section breaks that follow underscore his rage to epic
effect. You become one with the injustice, one with
the sorrow, one with the struggle. You dance with tears
streaming down your face, feeling the passion down to
the deepest parts of your soul.
Antibalas's struggle has yet to become clear, but -
with critical attention to dramatic architecture and
a fearless approach to lyrical content - they, too,
could have their phones tapped by the FBI, their finances
mangled by the IRS, their gigs raided by the NYPD, their
passports revoked by the INS, their mothers killed by
the CIA and homes destroyed by the U.S. Marine Corps.
More importantly, they may add bricks of their own design
to the wall of change pioneered by their hero Fela Ransome
Anikulapo Kuti.
Antibalas = Anti-Bullets.
2002-05-22 Charles Morogiello
Originally Reviewed: March 09,
2002
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra's debut last year on Ninja
Tune, Liberation Afro
Beat Vol. 1, was a critic's darling. The band was not
the tightest out there,
perhaps, but the energy was a thing of beauty, and its
dedication to the
Afrobeat groove of Fela Kuti was the real deal. With
the release of Talkatif,
the Antibalas (which means "bulletproof/anti-bullets")
collective has dealt
with the slightly disorganized vibe of its debut. Talkatif
is incredibly
tight, the musicianship is powerful, and, most importantly,
in the process of
honing their chops, the band members have lost none
of the muscle and edge
crucial to their sound. Afrobeat is all about rhythm
and groove, and
Antibalas has assimilated these lessons completely.
Check out "War Is a
Crime," a wonderful, sultry dance track in the
best tradition of Highlife and
Afrobeat. It's powered by fine sax work and a flawless
rhythmic sense that
matches the feel conveyed by the best Cuban danzon,
mambo, or charanga
groups. Antibalas keeps Afrobeat real with Talkatif.
Racked by Caroline.
—PVV
Brooklyn's 14-member collective
Antibalas offers what is easily one of the
best live shows around; pulsating energy radiates from
the stage. The
socially conscious group's name translates as "bulletproof"
(literally,
"antibullets"), but the musicians fire off
lines with military precision.
Their sound, while obviously indebted to legends like
Parliament and James
Brown, is so totally saturated with the spirit of Fela
Kuti's Afro-beat that
their music would sound as natural in Lagos, Nigeria,
as it does in New
York. But so often a band is better live than on record,
and (scarily
enough) the reverse is frequently true as well. Thankfully,
Talkatif
confirms the promise of Antibalas's earlier record Liberation
Afro Beat,
Vol. 1--that this band is as solid on record as it is
live. The equally
welcome news is that this follow-up sounds as fresh
and vital as the first
disc, although the formula is largely unchanged except
for the increased
emphasis on instrumentals. The only problem with Talkatif
is its length.
Clocking in at a shade under 41 minutes, Talkatif gets
the party started,
but doesn't run nearly long enough to truly satisfy.
Even so, it's a
must-have, especially as a between-shows fix. --Anastasia
Tsioulcas
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
Their brand-new Talkatif is their kickiest recording
to date, but it's
basically just a trailer for their live show. This local
Afrobeat legion
does best when they've got a hip-to-hip crowd they can
heat up by degrees,
floating on the grooves of a repertoire that's equal
parts ultra-tight Fela
covers and original songs that might as well be. (Wolk)
(Ninja Tune/Outside)Brooklyn's
Afro-beat preservationists return, some 17 members strong,
flying the Fela flag high. The spirit of late Fela Kuti,
Nigeria's pope of politicized pop, is present throughout-from
the jacket illo by Ghariokwu
Lemi (who did all of Fela's records) to the pin-point-precise
polyrhythms,
percolating guitar and requisite freight-train brass
that defined Fela's
original mid-'70s sound. Blessed with a seamless collectivity
that
underscores their people-power message, Antibalas are
all the more necessary
these days, as the U.S. creeps ever closer to being
a militarized police
state. 9/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)
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