Past Tours:
Tony Allen @ The Corner, Melb - 12/3/09
March 2009
The Corner - 57 Swan St Richmond, VIC
Niche Productions Presents, for the first time in Australia…
Tony Allen
Thursday 12th March - The Corner, Melb
"without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat." Fela Kuti
Following Niche Productions’ tour of Roy Ayers and his impressive US band, the promoter presents another absolute legend of the Soul & World music scenes, who will be appearing in Oz for the first time ever, Mr Tony Allen. As drummer of Fela Kuti’s Africa 70, Allen introduced the world to the ‘beat’ in Afrobeat. This is a musician who puts the step in to hotstep and the swing in to funky dancefloor stompers. He has been called ‘perhaps the greatest drummer who ever lived’ by Brian Eno and continues to have the world’s best dying to collaborate with him, as recently executed in Damon Albarn’s The Good, The Bad and The Queen or other sessions with Air, Charlotte Gainsborough and Jarvis Cocker.
A self-taught musician, Allen began to play the drums at eighteen, influenced by music his father listened to (Juju, traditional Yoruba ceremonial music), but also American jazz, & the growing highlife scene in Nigeria and Ghana. In 1964, Fela Ransome Kuti invited Allen to audition for a jazz-highlife band he was forming. Kuti and Allen had played together as sidemen in the Lagos circuit. Fela complimented Allen’s unique sound: "How come you are the only guy in Nigeria who plays like this - jazz and highlife?" Thus Allen became an original member of Kuti’s "Koola Lobitos" highlife-jazz band. Allen recorded over 30 albums with Fela and Africa ’70, arguably Fela’s best works.
Post-Fela, Allen developed a hybrid sound, deconstructing & fusing Afrobeat with electronica, dub, R&B, and rap. Allen refers to this synthesis as afrofunk. Tony Allen returned with a much anticipated new project for his thirteenth release in 2006. Recorded live in Lagos, with a full-sized Afrobeat band, ‘Lagos No Shaking (Lagos is OK)’, signified Allen's return to roots Afrobeat after forays into avant-garde electronica hybrids. The album was followed up with a remix effort which featured Diplo, Bondo Do Role, Carl Craig, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and more.
Do not miss this opportunity to see a living legend appearing in Oz for the first time!
Supports TBA
