Aphrodesia: From the heart to the heart

"African music is the deepest music in the world. It's the foundation of all the other music I love - jazz, Cuban and Brazilian music, everything," enthuses Ezra Gale, bassist and co-founder of Bay Area Afrobeat juggernauts Aphrodesia. "I also love that it's such a part of life and it's inseparable from dancing. In our culture so much music is background. We're bombarded with it all the time to the point where we don't even notice it sometimes. And yet with so many West African rhythms and songs, there are specific times of the day and uses for them, and specific dances that go with them. It's connected to people's lives in a way that I think we could learn from here in the U.S."

Backing his words up with action, Aphrodesia embarks on a month-long tour of Ghana in early February. Their heady, body rockin' interpretation of African music mixes in gutsy '70s funk with contemporary African currents like Konono No. 1 and Tinariwen for a full-throated, pleasantly glazed onslaught that recalls both the JB Horns and the legendary Etoile de Dakar. Located on Africa's Gold Coast along the Western shore, Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country in colonial Africa to gain its independence in 1957.

"The rich cultural diversity all over Africa is mind blowing," states lead singer and co-founder Lara Maykovich. "I remember at the end of my year traveling, hitchhiking through Mozambique, thinking that even if I took ten more years I would still only know a small part of Africa. I really loved Ghana because I felt so welcome there, and the people were just amazing and so open. Ghana got their independence pretty early on so there are not the same tensions that still taint some of the other African countries. The Ghanaians really feel that they are free, and this allows them to keep their hearts open. Ghana houses over 65 tribes, each with their own language and music and drum forms, so it is incredibly diverse within itself. Ghana also really supports the traditional arts and strives to keep them alive and to share them with others."

Things begin at home with a raucous kickoff party/benefit at SF's Xeno Drome on Saturday, January 28th. Besides Aphrodesia, performers include Eric McFadden, Sila, Soulsalaam, DJ Vinnie Esparza, and DJ Oaty Love. There'll also be Ghanaian and Brazilian drumming, ladies' veggie oil wrestling (seriously), and a kissing booth (yes, seriously). The performers are playing for free, and all the proceeds raised will go to support the tour.

Though many shows are likely to happen through word-of-mouth at makeshift music halls all over the country, Aphrodesia does know how the trip will begin.

"The first show we play there will be the Bob Marley Africa Unite Festival (which also features Stephen and Ziggy Marley, Culture, and Morgan Heritage) for probably the biggest crowd we've ever seen in our lives - of probably almost all Africans. So yeah, it's going to be interesting to see people's reactions to us to say the least," Gale states. "I think there will be a huge curiosity factor for sure, since we'll be white people playing African music in Africa. After that, we have no idea - they might love us, they might throw things at us. But in a way, we're going specifically to get our asses kicked. I want someone to come up to me and say 'No no no, that is not the way you play that. Let me show you how you play that.' I think putting yourself through something really demanding always makes you better in the end, as a person and as a musician, and I'm overjoyed that we're going to have that experience as a band."

Aphrodesia

The oil wrestling at the benefit isn't entirely random. Aphrodesia uses a biodiesel tour bus and plans to use one while in Ghana. Guitarist David Sartore, who Gale describes as their "veggie oil mechanic/guru/evangelist guy," explains, "For the last two years, we've been touring in a bus that runs on biodiesel and recycled vegetable oil because we want to demonstrate an alternative to our country's dependence on petroleum as a transportation fuel. When we decided to tour West Africa, it seemed natural that we would at least try to do this there as well because the environmental and political effects of the oil industry in West Africa have been devastating. However, there is not really the infrastructure for biodiesel in Africa that there is here, so we might be lucky to get 50 gallons of biodiesel on this trip. We really don't know, but we are going to work with the Ghanaian Commission of Energy and the Department of the Environment on education. We will have a demonstration kit on how to make biodiesel and its effects on the environment at each show. Our representative from the Clean Fuel Caravan, Zach Carson, will be demonstrating this aspect."

Most Americans still think of Africa as "the dark continent" and treat it with fear. It's almost universally seen as a dangerous place, but that view comes mostly from an ignorant picture of Africa gleaned from old Tarzan movies and shock-obsessed news coverage.

"All I know is the people who have said to us recently, 'Be careful over there,' are white, and the people who have said, 'Oh, Ghana is a nice place. Nigeria is a nice place. You're going to have a great time,' are African," remarks Gale. "In the end, we will see for ourselves if many Americans' images of how dangerous Africa is are overrated or accurate. But we prefer to see for ourselves and not to let fear and misconception keep us under our bedcovers the rest of our lives."

Maykovich continues, "I don't really allow fear much input in my decisions. I think there are still a lot of misconceptions about Africa stemming from colonial mentalities. I lived in Africa for a year, and it was one of the most incredibly heart-opening times of my life. I find the concept of having and thus needing to protect what you have very draining. The African people were the most generous, open people I have ever met, and because they had so little, they were free to have so much love and presence. They had themselves, rather than a small part of themselves weighted under mountains of possessions and responsibilities."

Anyone who attended last year's High Sierra Music Festival can attest to the sparks between Aphrodesia and Ghana's African Showboyz. Wandering by their shared campsite at all hours of the day, one was swept up by their combustible energy. The Showboyz will be playing the whole month of shows in Ghana with Aphrodesia, and they couldn't be more excited about it.

"The Showboyz are kind and amazing artists," comments Sartore. "I got to spend time with the leader of the group, Napolean, in his house in Ghana. He takes care of his whole extended family by traveling the world and playing music. They're definitely struggling, but his strength is amazing. He is intent on keeping roots music alive and thriving. In West Africa, live music is dying. It's not what I expected before I went there, but we hope this tour wakes up some of those roots that have been under the ground for the past decade."

"I'm excited about completing the circle of the Afrobeat legacy," continues Sartore. "It started in West Africa and has taken root in the U.S. and in Europe over the past ten years pretty strongly. Now, we're honored to take it back there and to show the people how it has influenced our music. I'm also excited about confronting and breaking down some race and cultural issues. We don't even need to talk about this stuff. The language of music spells it out clearly. There is no 'us' and 'them.'"

In no small way, Aphrodesia travels to Ghana as musical ambassadors – showing Africans that all Americans aren't the mindless, imperialist blobs that television and presidential politics make us out to be.

"Music is the one thing in the world besides food that literally every human being on the planet has a relationship with. Even if you've taken a vow of silence and live in a cave, I guarantee you're hearing music in your head," enthuses Gale. "So yes, I see us as ambassadors because every culture has music, and people have more of a familiarity and a bond with music and musicians than they do with politicians or tourists or soldiers. I think America has a very complicated image and history in West Africa. Many people want to move here to have a better life economically. Yet, I'm sure we're also seen as materialistic by many people, and I'm sure our politics and our wars and our history of racial inequality are not popular with many people over there. So who knows - if people over there meet these white Americans who have taken the time to learn their music and to travel to their country, maybe it will put a more human face on all of us. Or not."

Maykovich is a bit brighter in her assessment, "I am really proud to be finally returning to Ghana. I feel it is the full circle of a 12-year cycle from when I first started performing African music, to going there and learning an incredible catalogue of music and dance, from creating a most interesting collage from my own resources and finally collaborating with Aphrodesia to make an even more unique music that certainly has some roots in Ghanaian music. I will be happy to give back something to a culture that I received so much from, and I'm also very interested to see the Ghanaians' humor and excitement in receiving this reflection from us."

She continues, "Africa holds a cauldron of ancient forms of magic and ritual that make it a supernatural place where the interaction with spirits and forces of nature are almost commonplace. In that way, African spirituality is so close to the earth that it feels as if you just might brush by a ghost in the marketplace. It is a very wild place. In African music, it is the fundamental rhythms, the most basic building blocks of music, that remind the listener that he or she is really a part of the musical experience. The music holds so much vitality and energy that listening, dancing, and participating really become a transformational experience. African music comes straight from the heart to the heart and thus creates a community experience for everyone."

jambase.com, written by Dennis Cook

Aphrodesia - Frontlines

Reviews

Afrobeat is one of my favorite musical styles. Highly danceable and politically charged, the genre possesses a rough-edged potency that's impossible to ignore. Still, I admit to being skeptical of Aphrodesia, an 11-piece Afrobeat group from San Francisco. It seemed unlikely that a mostly white, American act could tap into the polyrhythmic protest of vintage Afrobeat. To my surprise, they come pretty close.

Aphrodesia's latest, Frontlines, borrows the grinding pulse, gritty horns and spidery guitar licks of traditional Afrobeat for its own political agenda. Instead of protesting corrupt African regimes, they're bemoaning our own. Lyrically, the group focuses on protecting both the environment and the rights of people worldwide.

The band, which features ex-Burlingtonian David Sartore on guitar, is as tight as they come. Musically, they've got all the bases covered: buoyant low end, interlocking melodies and a percussion section that won't quit. Aphrodesia recently made history as the first American act to perform at the New Africa Shrine in Lagos, Nigeria, an indicator of their authenticity.

Vocalist Lara Maykovich is the band's energetic ringleader. The two years she spent living in Ghana and Zimbabwe in the late '90s likely affected her worldview, both musically and politically. "There's a war on drugs, a war on crime / A war on poverty, war all the time," she sings in the incendiary "Mr. President." "Well, I don't believe and I never did / My indoctrination as a kid," she continues, as blaring horns punctuate her melody.

"We Never Sleep" incorporates Cuban rhythms into a vibrant tune about a decidedly un-vibrant subject: death. "Snack Nation," finds Maykovich railing against consumer culture. The lyrics are decent, but her delivery -- a decidedly goofy half-rap -- leaves something to be desired.

The hypnotic ballad "Flat Tire" finds the singer on more familiar (and convincing) melodic territory. With its ringing, bell-like percussion and evocative bass line, the song shimmers like ocean waves reflecting sunlight. The disc wraps up with a modified version of Fela Kuti's "No Agreement." Featuring spoken-word samples of George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, the tune paints a chilling picture of governmental hubris. "Bring 'em on," taunts the Commander-in-Chief over a slinky beat. "No agreement today / No agreement tomorrow," is the band's defiant reply.

Aphrodesia uphold Afrobeat's musical and spiritual tenets without resorting to mimicry. By fusing its own observations and experiences with traditional motivations, the band makes a solid impact.

7dvt.com

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San Francisco's Aphrodesia Pick Up a Busload of Beats in Africa

We all know how great an Internet cafe is for travelers trying to make or change plans on the go. That was certainly the case last year for members of the band Aphrodesia -- without even using the Internet.

The San Francisco-based group was on a trip to Ghana, home to much of its musical influence and where singer Lara Maykovich had lived for a time a decade ago. Thanks to Maykovich's contacts, in part, the band was having some remarkable experiences, playing shows at local clubs and events, being feted by the women of a small village where the singer had lived. Bass player Ezra Gale and guitarist David Satori headed one day to check e-mail and were regretting that after coming all the way to Africa, they weren't going to be able to visit the home of another hero: Nigerian Afrobeat emperor Fela Kuti. Lagos, where the New Africa Shrine honoring the late icon is located, is not really close or convenient to Ghana.

But the Internet café supplied a fantastic resource about the shrine -- a notable Nigerian musician with some serious contacts. "We sat next to a guy named Orlando Julius in an Internet cafe, and David starting talking to him and said we wanted to go to the shrine in Lagos," Gale recounts. Julius, it turned out, knows Fela's son and musical heir Femi, as well as Fela's daughter Yeni. "And he said, 'I can call Yeni, who runs the shrine, and make sure she knows about you. You should call her tomorrow.' And we did, and she said, 'Sure, I know about you. Why don't you come out here and play on Saturday.'"

That invitation, though, was just the start. The group had no way to get to Lagos -- with two nations of relatively rough terrain lying between Ghana and Nigeria -- and no real clue how to go about getting there.

"There was a lot of soul-searching," Gale says. "As white musicians, we were told that this trip was like going to Mordor from 'Lord of the Rings' or something. But we decided, 'We're invited to play at the shrine, and we're going to go.' We found a bus and a bus driver to go, and at the last minute even lined up shows in Togo and Benin, the two tiny countries in between, and made it across the border."

For any setback along the way, something good seemed to happen instead. Two planned shows in Benin with the terrific Gangbe Brass Band got canceled, but an associate instead talked the band's way in as a last-minute addition to the bill of an outdoor festival that happened to be going on at the time. And they made it to the shrine, where they opened for a Femi Kuti show. The once-in-a-lifetime trip is at the core of Aphrodesia's new album, 'Lagos by Bus,' explicitly in such songs as 'Bus Driver' (which includes some audio samples recorded on the trip) and implicitly in the overall approach to the music, which sees the accomplished band galvanized into a sharp unit that has internalized the collective experience and transcended the Afrobeat models to become a truly distinctive ensemble.

"It was a really special experience," Gale says. "To be able to travel like that as musicians meant we were relating to people more than if we were tourists. We were accepted into places we would never have been otherwise. At one time, we went to the north of Ghana to the home village of a group called the African Showboyz that we had met, a tiny village. They slaughtered a couple of goats for us, we had to go greet the chief, and they invited musicians from the next village and played all night. We didn't know what to expect in terms of reaction. I remember talking before we left, whether people might be pissed off to see white Americans play the music there. We didn't know. But people were really flattered and touched that we put so much effort into it."

Even Maykovich, despite her time living for nine months in Ghana and three in Zimbabwe in 1996 and '97, was a little wary about the trip, for some reasons that proved justified. It's always hard traveling in group situations, she notes. And though she had the most knowledge of the territory, due to cultural conventions regarding gender, she was not allowed to take an outward leadership role and in public had to defer to the men in the band. But that didn't spoil some truly magical occurrences.

"It was really emotional for me," she says. "I had stayed in one village for seven months and made a real connection with the women there. They used to make me omelets and sing, and later I learned they were all sister-wives of this one man who had left them. So this community of women, seven wives and their kids, totally remembered me. When we arrived on this trip, they came out saying my name. One of their daughters had even been named for me!

"We had a wonderful experience." she added. "We ended up playing music in situations we never had dreamed of." In truth, Gale did dream of such a trip, if not the full adventure that it ended up being. He recalls, "That's one of the things from when the band started: I can remember the first time we played in the shack in my back yard saying, 'Wouldn't it be amazing if we could take this band to Ghana?' "

But at that point it was a long shot. The group started when Gale and Maykovich (who had been in Afro-Caribbean drum and dance ensembles before and after her Africa stay) met while playing in an Afro-Cuban band. "It was just a serendipitous thing," Gale says. "I was really getting into Afrobeat nonstop and realized that she had this incredible repertoire in her head of African songs."

After a year or so of fine-tuning the concept with various other musicians in Gale's shack -- hence the title of the group's first album, 'Shackrobeat' -- the project took shape. With Maya Dorn joining to share vocals, the band took on a distinctive, often playful sound. Gigs started to mount around the Bay Area in clubs and festivals, one of the latter in 2005 proving a big window to the future adventure when they performed on the same High Sierra Festival bill with the African Showboyz.

"We became friends with them, played music with them, cooked chicken," Gale says. "At one point they said, 'You've taken care of us in your country, you must come to our country.' It was very vague and sketchy, but I realized this was our chance. So we jumped on it and really worked hard in planning. Basically, we had two gigs that were actually supposed to happen before we left, neither of which actually happened. But in the month there we must have played 18 or 20 gigs. That's the way it worked. As soon as we hit the ground, everyone knew there was this band from America, and within days we were on morning TV, then on radio, everyone saying, 'You must come play my club.'' You have to be open, take whatever comes. The things that happened to us, we'll never forget any of it as long as we live."

The 'Lagos by Bus' album is a big part of that. "That was the idea," he says. "It's a mix of thing either written during the trip or after, with a little written before we played there."

But it is not merely a musical travelogue and certainly not a pale imitation of their African heroes. While there are parts that very much reflect the Fela Kuti influence in the baritone sax-anchored horn arrangements and insistently burbling rhythms, the experiences are filtered through a sensibility that is distinctly American and, within that, San Franciscan. The song 'Holy Ghost Invasion,' for example, uses proverbs ("All you have is all you need," "You don't have to suffer") taken from posters and street signs seen in Lagos but given a context that is very applicable to the band's home cultures. Gale sees personal and political relevance as essential to the music that inspires him.

"Afrobeat is a very conscious and political style of music, and the outspokenness and the message that's inherent in the music and lyrics of Fela Kuti speaks to a lot of people right now," he says.

"This is the traditional able to come alive," says Maykovich. "If you have studied the traditions, the function of the music is used in ritual and used to facilitate healing in a community. That is really alive in our music now. We need a lot! Hell yeah! We need it more than the Africans right now!"

spinner.com

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There's no end of worthy targets on this Afrobeat assault. George W. Bush, pharmaceutical companies, and the just plain lazy all get a well-placed rhythmic kicking. And while it would be easy enough to bask in the long shadow of Fela Kuti, Aphrodesia drops in all manner of strange bits on the fringes. They've got Fela's full lung sing-a-long thing down but woven together with a '70s funk-soul thread reminiscent of Donny Hathaway, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Fred Wesley's Horny Horns. They also kick up dust similar to modern African artists like Tinariwen, showing this large group has their collective ear on the Serengeti's contemporary developments. So many politically charged bands end up teetering off their soapbox pretty quickly (I'm looking at you Spearhead). Not so with Aphrodesia, who jangle our bones and let the ideas seep into the bloodstream through active transport.

jambase.com

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Aphrodesia, the Bay Area’s premier Afrobeat outfit, return with a fresh blast of Fela Kuti-inspired funk with their sophomore release, Frontlines. For those unfamiliar with the band, some have called them the Left Coast answer to Brooklyn’s own Antibalas. But while that’s high praise indeed, it doesn’t quite capture Aphrodesia’s unique sound, which owes as much to singer Lara Maykovich’s extensive studies in West Africa as it does to bassist Ezra Gale’s digging through old crates of African records. On Frontlines, the band is tighter and more polished than ever, with the rhythm section laying down a relentlessly percussive groove that Tony Allen himself would be proud of. The horn section, too, really comes into its own on this record, alternating between aggressive charts and gutbucket solos. Meanwhile, Maykovich puts across the always politically-charged lyrics with both sweetness and the occasional snarl. Standout cuts include “Progression/ Destruction,” “Mr. President” and a cover of Fela’s classic “No Agreement.”

globalrhythm.net




Tracklist

1 Frontlines 6:31
2 Trouble 9:33
3 Mr. President 4:52
4 Rebel Motion 7:52
5 We Never Sleep 8:33
6 Snack Nation 5:56
7 Flat Tire 5:01
8 No Agreement/MLK 10:24

Aphrodesia returns to Afrobeat roots

Aphrodesia returns to Afrobeat roots

"I'm very attached to these boots. They've been with Aphrodesia since the beginning," says singer Lara Maykovich, wrapping duct tape around a pair of high-top black leather shoes with lug soles that have seen better days.

In the Bay Area's funky, urban environs, women wearing big, heavy boots don't raise many eyebrows. But when she arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, Maykovich recalls Femi Kuti's dancers telling her, "Take off your boots. You are in Africa."

Aphrodesia - a San Francisco world-beat band, which includes 10 to 15 musicians on any given evening - has been known to tour in a vegetable-oil-fueled bus. The group has made a commitment to alternative energy, bassist-bandleader Ezra Gale says.

More recently, Aphrodesia made a commitment to deepen its sound by returning to the music's roots. While touring West Africa in a lime green and purple bus (gas powered, unfortunately) last year, the band became the first American group to play the New Afrika Shrine, Kuti's combination compound and performance space in Lagos. And with the release of its new album "Lagos by Bus," Aphrodesia has staked its claim as not only the area's most original Afrobeat outfit, but also as one of the leading proponents of the genre's resurgence.

These days, Afrobeat - an intoxicating mix of funk, jazz and traditional African music - is more popular in America and around the world than it ever was in the heyday of Fela Kuti, Femi's father and the genre's founder, who died in 1997. Yet, back in 2002, when Aphrodesia started out, "it was us and Antibalas," says Gale, referring to the popular Brooklyn Afrobeat orchestra. Recently, he's discovered that "every city we go to has an Afrobeat band." However, most of those bands end up "sounding like Fela, all taking from the same blueprint."

Not Aphrodesia. "We're not strict Afrobeat," explains Gale, who says the genre is a "living, growing style of music." What sets the band apart from similar groups is its diverse musical influences - and the fact that the group is probably the only Afrobeat outfit around with female lead singers. Before co-founding the band, Maykovich spent a year abroad studying traditional folk vocal chants in Ghana. Vocalist Maya Dorn went to Cuba to learn the finer points of Afro-Cuban music. And Gale was previously in the Miles Davis-inspired, jazz-fusion outfit Bitches Brew. "We've played jazz. We've played metal. It's not just Afrobeat," he says.

That cultural training came in handy in Ghana, where the group won over native crowds with its original songs, sung in English along with traditional Ga and Ewe folk melodies. Singing to Ghanaian audiences in their own tribal languages earned Aphrodesia a level of respect rarely granted to Westerners. Maykovich recalls being told, "it is very hard for a white girl to sing in Ga." The Ghanaian excursion, she notes, was her favorite part of the trip.

For the band members, touring Ghana and Nigeria was a dream come true. "The first time we got together - four, five years ago - we said it would be great to go to Africa," Gale says. An invitation last year by the African Showboyz (a Ghanaian band Aphrodesia met on tour) to join them in their homeland provided the opportunity. "Details were sketchy, but we decided to go for it," Gale says, with a smile. After playing Ghana, their plan was to make a pilgrimage to the Shrine - a venue dedicated to the iconic Fela - to "soak up from the source," as Gale puts it.

The band members were surprised to find gas prices were roughly the same in Nigeria as in the United States. It took them 12 excruciating hours to make it past the Nigerian border, one checkpoint at a time. Along the way, musicians witnessed soldiers apparently beating and robbing people at random, a fate Aphrodesia escaped by handing out cassettes to the border guards.

"If you want the Africa of gazelles and zebras, you don't go to Lagos," Gale says.

"It's pretty crazy," Maykovich adds.

Although they had never met before, Kuti's manager and crew helped them make the border crossing, Gale says. "These people put their lives on the line for us," he marvels.

Once in Lagos, whose estimated population ranges from 8 million to 25 million depending on whom you ask, the band encountered the extreme disparities of wealth one would expect in a developing nation, but also a certain kind of genuineness from the Nigerian people. "The warmth we encountered was incredible," Gale says. "It was awesome playing with Femi," Maykovich adds.

The band found many positives to its African journey, but "the level of poverty is shocking," Maykovich says. It didn't take long for the band to realize the role music plays in an upside-down society still plagued by the greed and corruption Fela famously railed against, yet with a deep spirituality largely unknown to the West.

"The people, they need music to survive," Maykovich says. As Gale explains, "there's a level of survival there we don't really deal with (in America). ... It gives them the strength to get by. I think that feeling carried over."

The time in Africa had a profound effect on the band. Since returning, "we're more connected," Maykovich says. "It made it more relevant for everyone."

Most, if not all, of the songs on the new album were directly inspired by Aphrodesia's African experiences. Maykovich jotted down seemingly syntax-challenged phrases from street signs in her journal, like "Holy Ghost Invasion" (a commentary on African Christianity). Several other new tunes grew out of the sights and sounds the band members encountered on their way; the drive into Lagos, for instance, resulted in "Bus Driver," one of the album's most anthemic tracks.

While not a travelogue per se, Gale says the album flows better on the whole than anything the band has done in the past. Previous efforts were somewhat of a hodgepodge of various influences and styles, yet both the songwriting and playing on "Lagos by Bus" seem more focused. "This album's a bit more thematic," he says. "It made more sense this time."

It was hard to argue that point during Aphrodesia's album-release party at San Francisco's Independent nightclub last month; all night, the band remained locked into a super-funky global groove. Originals from the new album such as "Every Day," "White Elephant" and "Ochun Mi" showcased the band's strengths: a powerful rhythm section, vibrantly brassy horns and strong call-and-response female vocals. And though excursions were made into Ghanaian and Zimbabwean sounds and melodies, the group also paid its respects to traditional Nigerian Afrobeat with covers of Fela classics "No Agreement" and "Mr. Follow Follow."

Any initial shock from seeing white women singing and dancing like natives of Africa quickly subsided. The band proved as fluid in its playing as the vocalists did in their harmonies and their dance steps. As a front woman, Maykovich seems absolutely fearless, whether telling the audience "in our hearts, we are free/ in our minds, we are free" or plucking traditional melodies on an mbira (African thumb piano). No one seemed to mind her taped-up boots, maybe because they were too busy dancing.

With its emphasis on complicated polyrhythms and seemingly ritualistic quality, African music can seem overly exotic and difficult to appreciate for Western ears. But in Aphrodesia's hands, it comes off as more universal than alienating. As Maykovich explains, "What we give people is not just an opportunity to dance, but to connect."


By Eric K. Arnold, Special to The Chronicle, January 7, 2008

Aphrodesia - Lagos By Bus

Reviews

Watching a large van of gesticulating American musicians in hot pursuit of Nigerian soldiers is an uncommon site in the city of Lagos. But the members of San Francisco band Aphrodesia had no choice. The band’s new album, Lagos by Bus, (Cyberset Music)—which uses Afrobeat as a backbone but also draws on Afro-Cuban music, Ghanaian Highlife, and jazz—is named after this harrowing experience. Unlike most of the current wave of Afrobeat bands in the U.S., Aphrodesia does not simply pay tribute to Fela Kuti, the father of Afrobeat, but seeks to create original music, with a diverse set of influences. They also have the rare trait of being led by, not one, but two women vocalists, whose hard-hitting songs alternate from chant to melodic song and tantalize the dance floor. And this time they went back to the source. Audiences will have a chance to hear this unique take on Afrobeat as Aphrodesia launches the Lagos by Bus tour, July 20 through August 8 hitting the Northeast, Midwest, Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon.

The trip to Africa gave Aphrodesia new inspiration for their latest album. A series of poetic and humorous hand-painted signs on stores all around Nigeria became the lyrics for “Holy Ghost Invasion,” which practically wrote itself. “Bus Driver” is an anthem to world unity while paying homage to the man who gave them the strength and the ability to get around Africa. Other songs draw on Afro-Cuban and Zimbabwean music, and many of them alternate between firsthand experience and socio-political messages. The album takes listeners for a ride of chance meetings and pan-global inventiveness with both political edge and danceable immediacy.

The American band had always talked of going to the origins of Afrobeat and Highlife together. Thanks to an invitation from Ghanaian band the African ShowBoyz, whom they met and played with at U.S. festivals, Aphrodesia decided it was their big chance to go to the well. By the time of the car chase, they already had a grueling day getting across the border from Benin to Nigeria.

“We had to bribe our way through the self-appointed gatekeepers, who sit there with two big oil drums and a big pole across the road,” explains band co-founder and bassist Ezra Gale. “We would pay and they’d lift the pole and then we’d drive 40 more feet and there’d be another guy.” This went on for most of the day with a lot of waiting in between. When they finally made it across the border, Nigerian soldiers stormed onto the bus demanding passports. “What happened next was like something out of the A-Team, speeding after them on a highway, motioning them to pull over.”

“At one point, they had us lined up outside the bus and we’re thinking, ‘What’s going to happen?!’” says Lara Maykovich, vocalist, songwriter, and the other band co-founder, who had spent two years in Ghana in the late ’90s learning many of the melodies and rhythms the band has built into their repertoire. “We finally got them to pull over and told them we were a band. We got our passports back by trading cassettes for them!” laughs Gale.

They hadn’t planned to press cassettes for the trip until trumpet-player Todd Grady coin­cidentally sat on the airplane by a Ghanaian businessman who had a cassette-pressing plant. The tapes came in handy on several palm-greasing occasions. The trip was full of chance meetings.

Prior to leaving for Nigeria, the band sat at an Internet café in Accra, Ghana. They still wondered how they could connect with Femi Kuti, the son of Fela, with the hopes of playing at his new music club, The Shrine, named after his father’s legendary club and furnace of Afrobeat. A man sitting next to them struck up a conversation and ended up giving them the number for Femi’s sister Yeni, who runs the club. They called her right away and she said, “Oh yes, I have heard of you guys. Why don’t you come over and play next Saturday.”

“We got there and Femi was just the picture of hospitality,” remembers Gale. “Though we were late because of crazy Lagos traffic, he insisted we sit down for a big chicken dinner and relax. Besides being completely exhausted from the armed soldiers and border stuff, the audience was standing around looking at us with folded arms. Three or four songs into the set, Femi joined us on stage to play, and as soon as he did, that was like the seal of approval we needed and everyone loosened up and had a good time, with Femi going off into the crowd to dance with them.”

While the adventures were thrilling, the trip to Africa is not unexpected for a band whose cofounders have been exploring gritty music from all corners for their entire adult lives. From 1996 to 1997, Lara Maykovich lived in the small Ghanaian fishing village of Kokrobite, where she was taken under the wings of a family of singing sister-wives who had been abandoned by their husband. “The town had no electricity or running water, so every night there would be a circle of candlelit tables where people would sell different things,” recalls Maykovich. “There was this woman with a gorgeous voice who would sing as she fried up and sold omelet sandwiches. I would go every night and it grew into this singing circle with all of her sisters and daughters teaching me to sing in Ga and Hausa.” When Aphrodesia went back to Kokrobite earlier this year, Maykovich found out that one of the granddaughters had been named after her.

Maykovich also traveled to Cuba in 1999 to study Afro-Cuban traditional music, whose influence can be heard on “Agayu,” which praises the spirit of the volcano. “I went to Matanzas, which is the spiritual mecca of Cuba,” Maykovich explains. “A lot of the old traditions came from there. I went every single night for three weeks. Since I already had learned some of the songs before I got there, the ceremony leaders would not let me off the hook. Even if I didn’t know the songs, I had to pretend to know them. I became instantly employed! When I first started singing these songs, particularly the orisha and nature spirits, I felt like I didn’t actually seek it out. They found me in a way. I just felt like it was part of my creative payback. I know this sounds totally wacky, but these nature spirits claimed my voice.”

Around the same time, Maya Dorn, who shares songwriting duties in the band, went to Cuba and the two continued to share their love for Cuban music and dance. “I had already been writing songs and I shied away from the scene at first because how could I write songs in another language?!” remembers Dorn. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to get involved. But the seed had already been planted. And when we all went to Cuba, we were infused with this passionate desire to explore more about Afro-Cuban music.” Dorn’s prior songwriting has brought some structure to the band’s writing, bridging their diverse influences into accessible sounds.

As a music journalist writing for newspapers and magazines, Ezra Gale says “All this Afrobeat and Afropop and traditional African stuff invaded my stereo system and wouldn’t leave.” When Maykovich and Gale met they began arranging music in Gale’s backyard studio “shack.” As their arrangements became more complex, trying to recreate the multiple layers and interlocking guitar parts of the Afrodiasporic sounds they loved, the band went from a foursome to needing a horn section, another guitarist, and then a percussionist. “Before we knew it, we were an 11-piece band,” says Gale.

“A lot of the parts are very simple,” explains Gale. “But the parts together are intricate and hard to play together. When we train a substitute guitar-player, everything will go fine one-on-one, but when we try to put it all together, within the larger context it can be hard to see where things fit in. If you are missing any parts it doesn’t sound the same. The sum is greater than the parts.”

With such a diverse array of influences, Aphrodesia’s sound represents the next generation of the American Afrobeat movement, where respect is paid to various music forms, but with fluid migrations between genres and cultures, all with the intention of making people move: heart, soul, and feet.

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There's something tenaciously organic about Aphrodesia's latest sensuously funky slab, Lagos By Bus (Cyberset). Long excellent purveyors of African influenced slinkiness, their sophomore studio album erases any notion of mere homage, to Fela Kuti or otherwise, and delivers a tactile, fully fleshed sound of their own that handily bridges the New World and the Mother Land.

With a title that either intentionally or subconsciously references Bob Marley and the Wailers seminal live album Babylon By Bus, Lagos is at least partially the offspring of Aphrodesia's 2006 tour of Africa. For a largely Caucasian band from San Francisco to perform in front of Africans is a big deal, and the experience clearly put a cool zap on their heads. On Lagos they've arrived at a wholly original territory, sinewy with the flavors of Ghana and Nigeria but also touched by the pan-global Africanism of '70s experimenters like Lonnie Liston Smith, Gary Bartz Ntu Troop and The Daktaris. It's as if visiting Africa awakened in them an awareness of the good things in American soul, jazz and R&B.

Unlike the better known & celebrated Antibalas, who always seem to be trying too hard, this rolls like a healthy, active circulatory system. You see the flush of their skin, feel the splash of their sweat, taste the salt on their harmonizing lips. Call it "Thank You For Talking To Me, America," where the Africa of '70s James Brown, Earth, Wind & Fire and more joins their grasp and facility for traditional African music to create an truly international sound, free from the straightjackets of culture, race, nationality, genre, etc.

"Agayu" is a robust, horn-driven Afro-funk of the highest order, a lean beast stalking its prey in the tall, blond grass until bursting into a sophisticated trumpet section that recalls the best early Chicago or Blood, Sweat & Tears. Opener "Virgin of the Sun God" simmers with languid heat until bursting into light. "Ochun Mi" and "Every Day" show modern French/European influences common in African pop. Closer "World Under Fire" is a deliciously slippery roll, the sound the Talking Heads might have arrived at if they'd ever fully given themselves over to their Afro leanings. They rise and punch with extraordinary power on "World," where the band moves as one rippling animal in a fitting conclusion to one of the most exciting cross-continental hybrids to drop in ages.

Throughout the playing is sweetly together but flexible, full of movement and forward thrust but never stiff. Aphrodesia takes you places on Lagos, an album haunted by road signs and spectral figures from a continent most of us will only experience through books, TV and legends. That they've merged those myriad deep currents with the best parts of domestic African flavored music is a testament to their drive to create their own voice in a field where aping giants is the easiest path. By going their own way, doing the introspective work of forging something both personal and far reaching, political and ecstatically emotional, Aphrodesia have created their best work yet.

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The influence of Fela Kuti continues to be felt today in the music of Aphrodesia, a large ensemble highlighted by two female vocalists, a jazzy horn section, and some very tight rhythms. For a group of predominantly Caucasian folks from San Francisco, their Afrobeat often possesses such a deep and funky groove that it’s easy to find yourself transported to 1970s Nigeria. Much more recently, Aphrodesia actually made a pilgrimage to that birthplace of their chosen music. The CD’s title, Lagos by Bus, should be taken literally. The mementos from their trip to the Nigerian metropolis of Lagos are scattered all throughout the band’s songs. Most obviously, the reggae-tinged and slow-grooving “Bus Driver” is a tribute to the man who ferried Aphrodesia around during their African odyssey. Most of what rubbed off on the group, though, comes pouring out of their best songs, like the extended and upbeat grooves on “Ochun Mi” and the especially funky “Agayu”. Occasionally, Aphrodesia get just a tad cheesy. Whenever they stray (even briefly) into jam band territory, the illusion of being in Africa is broken. For the better part of Lagos by Bus, however, we are carried along on a sweaty, dusty, steamin’, red-hot ride through the heart and soul of Afrobeat.

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The 11 California-based musicians of Aphrodesia are part of a new wave of US-based Afropop bands who don’t simply draw inspiration from recordings but are driven to travel and learn from their sources. The group’s principals are two women with experiences in Ghana and Cuba and familiarity with Shona music from Zimbabwe. Aphrodesia’s new CD commemorates the band’s collective — and intrepid — overland trip from Ghana into Nigeria, where they opened for Femi Kuti at the legendary Lagos nightclub the Shrine, home of Africa’s most widely imitated modern genre. Afrobeat, with its funky grooves, trenchant brass arrangements, and feisty call-and-response vocals, is the glue that binds these nine original tracks. But along the way, we get traditional mbira (hand piano) and guitar-driven boogie from Zimbabwe, an Afro-Cuban homage to the healing saint Babalu-aye, and, on “Everyday,” the two lead women singing in Ghana’s Ga language over a funky brass-and-electric guitar backbeat. The band are tight and fluid, and their command of far-flung languages and musical genres is sure-footed without being reverential.

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Without going all Pollyanna/Julie Andrews on you, it truly is a global village we live in. Blues is in Mississippi, Britain, and Mali; bluegrass bands originate in former Soviet republics; and Afrobeat has a prime mover in the Bay Area with Aphrodesia. Afrobeat originated with iconic Nigerian singer/bandleader Fela Kuti, who pioneered the style by combining the horn-laden, churning funk of James Brown with West African sounds. Aphrodesia (more than fifteen musicians and singers listed) aren't dilettantes — they are dedicated, good enough to open for Femi Kuti (a son and musical heir of Fela) on their Nigerian tour (hence the disc's title). The members don't settle for Afrobeat's basics — the chant-like vocals, sparkling guitar riffs, dramatically exultant horns, and insistent funk-flavored rhythms; they up the ante by bringing some personal touches to the table. The pensive, Peter Gunn-goes-to-Africa instrumental "White Elephant" has jazz overtones, especially with Charlie Gurke's sly, bluesy baritone saxophone solo, while "Bus Driver" and "World Under Fire" are subtly supplemented with reggae rhythms. Toward its conclusion, "Agayu" powerfully builds up steam in a manner recalling both electric-era Miles Davis and Fela at their respective bests. The only downside of Lagos is the choral vocals occasionally sound a tad ... anemic. Aside from that, this dandy disc serves as a tidy teaser for the rave-up that Aphrodesia is no doubt capable of live.

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Tracklist

1. Virgin of the Sun God (5:03)
2. White Elephant (3:34)
3. Holy Ghost Invasion (1:55)
4. Bus Driver (7:39)
5. Ago Mado (1:33)
6. Ochun Mi (6:26)
7. Every Day (7:08)
8. Agayu (6:21)
9. World Under Fire (7:49)

Aphrodesia - Precious Commodity

Information

It's been quite a ride for Aphrodesia since their birth in 2003: a pilgrimage to the legendary Shrine nightclub in Lagos, Nigeria in 2006, a cross-country voter-registration tour in a vegetable oil-powered bus in 2004 and accolades everywhere from National Public Radio to USA Today. Through it all the San Francisco-based 11-piece ensemble has won audiences over with an eclectic, unique sound- a blend of rich, female lead vocals and slamming horn-laden polyrhythmic funk that Global Rhythm Magazine called “a Pan-African mash-up.”

While the members of Aphrodesia are admirers of West African styles like afrobeat and Highlife- enough so that the group spent a month performing and living in Ghana in 2006, in the process journeying through Togo and Benin to Nigeria to perform at the Shrine with Femi Kuti- the group's sound has always included touches of funk, dub, Zimbabwean trance, hip-hop and global pop. The band's third studio album- “Lagos By Bus” released in November of 2007 and packed with songs written during and about their month in Africa- further solidified their diverse sound, with Global Rhythm Magazine calling it "their most patient and incisive effort to date." The new "Precious Commodity"- unquestionably the band's hardest-hitting and most diverse record yet, with the now-trademark thight rhythm section and dual lead vocals of Lara Maykovich and Maya Dorn augmented by squealing guitars and distorted thumb pianos (the latter perhaps a nod to Konono no. 1, whom Aphrodesia shared a bill with in 2008).

Birthed in 2003 in the backyard shack of bassist Ezra Gale, Aphrodesia quickly recorded “Shackrobeat Vol. 1”, a disc heavily influenced by singer Lara Maykovich's experience living in Ghana and Zimbabwe which was picked as a top record of 2003 by the East Bay Express. The following year the politically outspoken group launched the “Just Vote Tour”, a cross-country swing-state voter registration tour undertaken in the group's vegetable oil-powered bus that landed in New York City during the Republican National Convention. The group's second album, “Front Lines”, was recorded soon after and featured the layered lead vocals of Maykovich and Maya Dorn, several bold originals penned by the group and eclectic guest performers ranging from Tom Waits sideman Ralph Carney to former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach. Featured on National Public Radio, the album was also ecstatically reviewed by outlets from Global Rhythm Magazine to the Village Voice.

Meanwhile, the group's reputation as a show-stopping live act continued to spread. With a lineup that includes singers Mayokovich and Dorn, bassist Gale, guitarists David Sartore and Chris Mulhauser, the horns section of Henry Hung, Liz Larson, Mitch Marcus and Sylvain Carton, percussionist Paul Sonnabend and powerhouse drummer Jason Slota, Aphrodesia delivered stunning, high energy sets at the 2004 and 2005 High Sierra Music Festivals, the 2005 Earthdance Festival, the 2005 and 2006 Aspen Jazz Festival, the 2006 and 2007 Harmony Festival and many more. The group's near-constant touring saw them build a fan base all over the U.S., playing venues from San Francisco's Fillmore to New York City's S.O.B.'s, while opening slots for Maceo Parker, Steel Pulse, the String Cheese Incident, the Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars, Konono no. 1 and several others broadened their reach even further.

Aphrodesia’s music carries with it a strong sense of social justice, and the band’s commitment to social change extends offstage as well. Having headlined numerous benefits for causes ranging from AIDS prevention to Tsunami Relief to anti-Iraq War organizations, the group has also made a point of traveling on alternative fuels like biodiesel and recycled vegetable oil. It may be a small start, but the group believes that its actions, like its music, can have a huge effect.

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Tracklist

01. November 5 (Part I)
02. Special Girl
03. Make Up Your Mind
04. Think/Suffer
05. Friday Night
06. Say What
07. Ayala
08. By The Iron
09. Merit Badge
10. Caminando
11. November 5 (Part II)