Musically in-for-the-kill, forward-looking and dubwise; politically scathing. From 1985, when T was living in Harlesden. Aswad horns.

The first of his three Fela-produced solo LPs, from 1975.

From 1976, same golden year as Zombie. The A-side features Fela, playing saxophone; the B is dancefloor murder.
‘What I was saying was that, instead of fighting with Fela for money, I was trying to progress and create on my own. If I kept waiting around for money from Fela, I would still be in the Egypt 80 today.’

Carl Craig back on Honest Jon’s, in devastating form: nervy and urgent, epic and apocalyptic, kicking and funky. Lagos re-tooled in Detroit.

‘CD Of The Week… the best soul album — in the real sense of the word — you’ll hear this year… classic, blistering afro-beat’, Daily Telegraph; ‘as tight as a pressure cooker… fierce and fun’, The Wire.

This mix by Mark Ernestus — one half of the Basic Channel, Maurizio and Rhythm And Sound teams — kicks off our series of reworkings of tracks from Tony Allen’s Lagos No Shaking album.

Like a dream, but authoritatively, this remix from Jamaica magnificently crosses the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti with the grounation reggae tradition of Count Ossie.

Mid-seventies stoner afro-rock, slurring and moody, slathered in fuzz, from Kiwe in northern Zambia.

From the court of the Kingdom of Rwanda — abolished nine years later when the Republic was formed: the royal drums and courtly music disappeared along with the Mwami, or ‘king-shepherd’, after five centuries.

A bonkers, irrepressible amalgam of highlife, Twi rap, funk and disco, put over with the passion of a Prince record and the lo-fi charm of early Chicago house music.
The original cassette — self-released in Ghana and Canada in 1994 — was the inaugural post on the ATFA blog.

Griot music with delicate dambararou lute; ritual possession songs with gogue fiddle and gon and karou drums; and a women’s choir.