First of all, drummers are going to love this book. With so few autobiographies of drummers in print, the publication of
Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat is a cause for celebration. Co-author Michael Veal, author of
Fela: The Life and Times of a Musical Icon and an accomplished musician himself, brings to life the rhythm and emotional timbre of
Tony Allen's
speaking voice and the complex story of this singular,
Lagos-born-now-expatriate musician in a first-person narrative that
takes the reader through a particularly transformative time in West
Africa's post-colonial history. Most importantly, the book is a hell of a
lot of fun to read, although Allen's first-hand accounts of his
struggles with shamanistic bandleader and Nigeria's adopted "black
president"
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti will piss
off any musician who has had to fight to get paid for playing a gig. And
Allen's chillingly matter-of-fact recollection of the aftermath of the
1977 military raid on Fela's "Kalakuta Republic" compound, a raid that
involved beatings, rape, mutilation, and nearly burning the compound to
the ground, is truly terrifying.
Swinging Like Hell! Afrobeat, a musical genre
that Veal describes as Nigeria's "sonic signature," was born out of
Allen's mastery of what he describes as "a fusion of beats and
patterns," including highlife, rumba, mambo, waltz-time, traditional
music from Nigeria and Ghana, American R&B and funk and, not
surprisingly, jazz. On Allen's first U.S. tour with Fela's band Koola
Lobitos, a band that would be renamed Africa 70 upon its return to
Nigeria, Allen heard and met drummer
Frank Butler, who played drums with such musicians as
Duke Ellington,
Miles Davis, and
John Coltrane.
Allen cites the drumming techniques he learned directly from Butler as
"the final piece of the puzzle that just made everything catch on fire."
And catch on fire it did. In his vivid description of Allen's
drumming on the track "Fefe Naa Efe" from Fela and Africa 70's 1973
album
Gentlemen, Veal writes: "Like the great jazz drummers,
(Allen) keeps a steady conversation with the other instruments,
particularly the soloists...Like a great boxer, he knows when to jab
with his bass drum in order to punctuate a soloist's line, when to
momentarily scatter and reconsolidate the flow with a hi-hat flourish,
when to stoke the tension by laying deeply into the groove, and when to
break and restart that tension by interjecting a crackling snare accent
on the downbeat."
The book not only reveals Allen's methodical,
years-long development of a new way to play the drum kit and propel
Fela's compositional and political vision, it also shows Allen never
stopped developing his technique post-Fela and continues to bring "the
vitality of Yoruba artistic creativity" into new and innovative creative
contexts. Allen negotiated the "world beat" market of the 1980s and 90s
and experimented, like many African musicians recorded during those
years, with heavily electronic and dub production techniques. In recent
years, Allen has recorded and performed with American, French, and
British musicians from genres that may seem light years away from his
highlife roots. He saves some of his highest praise in the book for
Damon Albarn, formerly the lead singer and bandleader of the wildly
popular British band Blur and who has collaborated with Allen on several
projects. "The way Damon came into my life," says Allen, "it was kind
of like it had been written...not only did this guy make a big
difference in my career, but we are also very good friends."
After
many years of being underpaid and under appreciated for his
innovations, Allen is currently enjoying a creative renaissance. One of
the most moving passages in the book comes toward the end when Allen,
now in his 70s, describes how busy he is "touring all over" Europe and
what drives his creative work ethic. "I still want to play something
impossible," Allen writes, "something that I never played before."
allaboutjazz.com
'I still want to play something impossible': Meet Afrobeat king Tony Allen
The first thing he asked was 'Are you the one who said that you are
the best drummer in this country?' I laughed and told him, 'I never said
so.' He asked me if I could play jazz and I said yes. He asked me if I
could take solos and I said yes again."
That's how Tony Allen
details his first ever encounter with Fela Kuti back in the mid-1960s, a
meeting that was destined to trigger an explosive sonic collaboration
that a few years later gave birth to the
blistering Afrobeat sound -- arguably the most exciting period in the history of popular West African music.
This anecdote, and many more others, are featured in the
newly released autobiography of Allen,
the iconic Nigerian drummer who's left an indelible stamp on the
history of world music with his distinctive style and pioneering
grooves. Brian Eno has hailed Allen as the "greatest living drummer."
Co-written with Michael
E. Veal, "Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of
Afrobeat" follows Allen's life from his early days growing up in the
heart of Lagos Island, though his struggling first steps as a badly paid
freelance musician, the meeting with Fela and the heights of their
"Africa 70" band, to his departure from the group and his relocation to
Paris in the mid 1980s.
Master drummer
Born in Lagos in 1940 to a
Nigerian father and a Ghanaian mother, Allen was the oldest of six
children. His first gig came in late 1950s when he started playing clefs
in a highlife group called "The Cool Cats," before taking over the
band's rhythm section.
From then on, Allen went
on to hone his self-taught drumming skills by dipping into different
styles as a member of several other Lagos bands -- including "Agu Norris
and the Heatwaves," "The Paradise Melody Angels" and "The Western
Toppers."
In 1964, Allen met up
with Fela and his career took a different, more exciting path. Over the
next 15 years, Allen would be the rhythmic engine for the Nigerian
multi-instrumentalist and political rights activist, first for the
highlife-jazz outfit "Koola Lobitos" and then for the seminal "Africa
70" group.
It was after the band
returned from a 10-month stay in the United States in 1969 that Allen
created the potent drumming concept of Afrobeat, fusing the different
beats and patterns he'd heard while growing up with the new techniques
he'd mastered as a professional drummer -- everything from highlife and
traditional Nigerian music to Western jazz, funk and R&B.
"I was looking for
something," Allen says, from Paris, where he is currently based. "I
wanted to be myself," he adds. "I played like everybody already but
there was no point in continuing doing that because I'd be bored
completely."
Allen, the only member
of Fela's band allowed to compose his own parts, could famously drum in a
different time signature with each of his four limbs. Driven by his
fluid and steady drumming, Africa 70 went on to record a string of
highly successful and politically charged albums, which turned Fela into
a huge musical and countercultural icon in Nigeria and abroad.
But it was onstage where the full force of Afrobeat's intoxicating sound and the talents of Fela and Allen really shone through.
"With me and Fela, it's a
question of telepathy," Allen says of the musical closeness he enjoyed
with "Africa 70's" firebrand leader.
"That is why I was able
to stick around this guy for 15 years -- you know, I never did that with
anyone before; the maximum time I stayed in a band was one year," adds
Allen.
"Since I met him I knew
that this guy had something, this is the type of challenge I needed ... I
just believed that I am meeting a genius and it's great to work with a
genius."
Life after Fela
This deep appreciation
of Fela's musical brilliance oozes through the pages of Allen's
autobiography. But the narrative is also filled with wrangles over
payments and recognition. In the end, Allen says it was not the ongoing
pay disputes but the increasingly volatile situation around Fela's
political activism that led to Allen leaving the group in 1978 -- events
like the army attack on Fela's compound in 1977.
"The only thing that
happened was that it became a package of madness," Allen says. "I stood
it for a while too, I was inside it -- I had been arrested, I had to
submit myself because he is like my brother."
Allen's departure left a
big void in the heart of the Afrobeat sound. Fela, who replaced his
polyrhythmic sideman with four drummers during live performances, once
said that "there would be no Afrobeat without Tony Allen." The two
remained friends until Fela's death in 1997.
After leaving "Africa 70," Allen went on to form his own bands in Nigeria before relocating to Paris in 1985.
Since then, he's
released several well-received albums. A musician committed to
innovation, he's joined forces with an eclectic roster of both African
and international musicians over the years-- including Damon Albarn,
King Sunny Ade and Jimi Tenor.
Today, at the age of 73, Allen still remains as active as ever.
"I don't see the end of
exploring," says Allen, who is currently working on a new album. It's a
sentiment echoed in his final remarks in the book.
"I still challenge
myself every time with my playing," Allen writes. "I still want to play
something impossible, something I never played before."
