Antibalas

Antibalas | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 7, 2012)
• Original Release Date: 2012
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: DAPTONE
• ASIN: B0086ALX48
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,110 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Antibalas piled into two rooms at Daptone's House of Soul Studios in Bushwick, Brooklyn to cut an explosive new set of afrobeat classics. ''Dirty Money'' launches the propulsive six-song LP with deep, pulsating rhythms, monstrous horns and tight funk. Lead singer Amayo -- a native of Lagos, Nigeria and senior Kung Fu master - guides the band through cathartic workouts of call and response, dynamic instrumentals and eruptive solos.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Groove collective August 7, 2012

By Nse Ette TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Audio CD

Antibalas are a 12-strong collective from New York who specialize in Fela Kuti's Afrobeat style. Expect extensive ornate musical breaks, shifting polyrhythms, organ, horns, and a freeform carefree spirit.

The members have at different times collaborated with Amy Winehouse, TV On The Radio, and also helped provide the backing for the musical Fela! Comprising 6 tracks which surprisingly manage to stay under 15 minutes each (as Fela's songs were wont to do), the album opens with a trio of songs performed in English by Nigerian vocalist Amayo; "Dirty Money", "The Ratcatcher", and taking the tempo down "Him Belly No Go Sweet" which could almost transport you to Fela's "shrine".

The other half of the album is sung in Yoruba; the upbeat "Ari Degbe" (The metalsmith spirit), the slow shuffle "Ibeji" (twins), and Sáré Kon Kon (Run Fast), the latter with some interesting hand tapped rolling percussion juxtaposed with thumping beats, akin to Drum & Bass rhythms, and ending literally on a (drum) roll.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Power Of The Groove From The Source September 4, 2012

By Andre S. Grindle TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Audio CD

Funk music started it's connection with African pop music from it's very inception. When James Brown was inspired to make his breakthrough funk masterpiece "Cold Sweat" after being inspired by boogaloo and the music of people such as King Sunny Ade. Since that time funk and Africa have never been too far away. Even the Motown house band,who by no coinsidence called themselves the Funk Brothers developed a sound filled with Afro/Arabic melodies and polyrhythms. Since that time funk and Africa have never been far apart. In the 1980's when radio was waging a war against funk,that connection began to reappear under the name of Afrobeat. That subgenre was almost the alternative rock of funk-it could encompass much of those polyrhythms by using another name. Now it's coming back to a point where you no longer need to hide what it is. It's just there.

Antibalas have been around for some time. But this is their Daptone debut. And as with much the label seems to put out? Inspired heavily by the Afro-funk of Fela Kuti,it emphasizes funk from the root as I call it. For sure it's heavily Afrobeat all the way. But when you listen to numbers like the opening "Dirty Money","His Belly No Go Sweet" and "Ari Degbe" the funk is firmly in place. The guitar/bass interaction is so tightly wound with the drums it's hard to know where one stops and the other begins,the organ solos are very jazzy in the sense of being very improvised and propulsive and the horns? Well again everything has something to do with rhythm. On "The Rat Catcher" and "Ibeji" the tempo is slowed down just slight and,of course when one does that,the funk makes itself all the more obvious as you now have to deal with the instrumentation being more sussinct. The album ends with the powerful "Sare Kon Kon",probably the number with the most heavily African flavor.

The album cover art is one of the most amazing I've seen for awhile,and actually attracted me to getting this. It depicts the band standing around a table of fruit whering masks of various African animals in a similar concept to Cameo's 'We All Know Who We Are' or early cover art by Mandrill or Osibisa. Now I've often talked with people about the funk era,and/or if there ever was such a thing. It appears there was. And it never fully went away either. And from it's artwork to the presentation of this music that funk era is what I hear on this. Antibalas have come directly from the Afropop world and upon arriving on Daptone,they ably showcase how important that genre was to the development of funk. It served a similar purpose as blues did with jazz,as a sort of "rue in the gumbo" as it were. So what you have here is high octane Afro funk played with a collective oriented live band with sparse vocals and either fast or foot stomping tempos. And it plays it's funk card with no regrets. And so it should.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Afropop is alive and well in Brooklyn November 19, 2012

By Jose Pelaez

Format:MP3 Music|Amazon Verified Purchase

I love the Afropop sound, and I recently discovered Antibalas (Bullet Proof) thru the podcast Tiny Desk Concerts from NPR (which I really recomend). Not since Osibisa, an African group from the 70's, had I heard a similar sound, though Antibalas sound is much tighter and tends to the Latin. They have a seamless integration of the brass and the percussion, and the vocals give them that African touch. They are some of the most talented musicians that I've heard in a long time.