Search - Various Artists :: Danque: A Compilation of West African Funk

Mid '70s Heavy Funk - - Rare and nasty !

Eddie Landsberg | Tokyo, Japan | 01/31/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Although Jazz and Funk have both been heavily influenced by African rhythms and musical concepts, they truth is that in essence, Jazz and Funk are ultimately afrocentric Urban American and Afro-American art forms that happen to have had major impacts on the music around the world. - - The most notable impact of the music "coming home" to Africa being Nigeria's Fela Kuti.



This extremely funky compilation, however, demonstrates that Fela Kuti, Manu Dubango, Osibisa weren't the only American influenced African funkmasters - - but that there was a whole movement. Though some tracks due represent the Fela Kuti influence (the one called Natural Points most notably) - - other tracks let you know that these young musicians were also listening to JB, The Meter's and other American funk groups of the time (as well as Jamaica's Bob Marley.) Some tracks even remind me a bit of Bohannon.



All in all, expect to hear funky drums, driving bass lines, punchy JB like horns... and everything from wa wa guitars to funky clavs and funky organs, clavs and rhodes and more.



If you think you've heard it all in terms of heavy, rare and obscure funk... here's your chance to open a new door... Welcome to Africa !"