Tony Allen – An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat by Michael E. Veal (Part 2)

Fela Kuti’s High-life Jazz Band

“…Tony Allen was at the epicenter of Fela’s music, from their mutual fascination with straight-ahead jazz in the early 1960s, through the swinging, good-time days of dance-band highlife in post-independence Ghana and Nigeria at mid-decade, through the funk and Black Power epiphanies in Los Angeles at decade’s end, to Fela’s countercultural “Kalakuta Republic” in 1970s, and on into the early years of African music’s global presence in the “world beat” market of 1980s and 1990s. Their story began as one of friendship and collaboration, and later degenerated through a series of misunderstandings that provided yet another vivid example of the destructive impact of fame and the sobering effects of personal tragedy. Continue Reading →