Tony’s contribution on Afrobeat music
Here is a short passage from the Tony Allen’s autobiographical book (Michael Veal’s “TONY ALLEN an autobiography of the master drummer of afrobeat). You will read how Tony Allen creates his unique afrobeat patterns with the great orchestra of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s Africa 70 and how people reacted this unique patterns of afrobeat on the times that they are being played actively on Fela’s Shrime.
“… With all those tecniques I had brought back, it was too much for these drummers! Plus all those subtle things I was doing inside the groove matched up beautifully with that what Kofi was doing on the congas. Kofi played the congas with his hands and with sticks as well, and he was a master at getting all the different tones out of the drums. He played on the head, he played on the side of the drum, and he played on the rim. We sounded great together.
We were very disciplined. If you’re talking about discipline, it was very strong in that band. Even though nobody liked Fela’s system of finding them for mistakes, the point was to get his music right. That’s the way I looked at it. And I think the discipline was reflected in the music, because the music in that band (Fela Kuti’s Africa 70) was untouchable. Nobody in the country came near it. It was much too heavy for them! When “Shakara” and “Lady” came out, we went up to another level. But even that wasn’t the limit, because Fela just kept on writing and writing. And it was like that all through the 1970s. I really considered Fela to be a genius when it came to composing…”
Many tunes of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen are represented in
new book of Anil Sahinoz ‘AFROBEAT DRUMMING’.
This book is basically about decoding and notating the grooves of master drummer Tony Allen.