Dele Sosimi and his Afrobeat quartet at The Blues Kitchen, Manchester (27/05/21)
Dan Addleman takes us for a night of Afrobeat at Manchester's Blues Kitchen
After being deprived of the opportunity to experience live music for over a year due to Covid restrictions, when the opportunity arose again this May under the condition you remain seated and socially distanced, I was not complaining. It had felt like an eternity since I had last enjoyed live music with a pint in hand.
On top of this, I returned to none other than Dele Sosimi, the UK’s unofficial Afrobeat ambassador, playing Manchester’s Blues Kitchen. This was gladly not the unnerving experience of DBS ready-meal jump-up at Bristol’s Lakota to a sat down, socially distanced crowd. Having said that, once Dele and his fantastic quartet (consisting of the man himself on keyboard and vocals, a bass guitarist, percussionist and drummer) began their superb set of funk-laden afrobeat, it was hard to resist the temptation to get up and move to it. Mr Sosimi himself, in friendly and amusing form, even had to instruct the crowd to keep bums on seats, and simply move them on there. As a personal favourite genre of mine, afrobeat’s combination of danceable, intensely rhythmic grooves and wild, jazz-influenced experimentation make it a musical style of unparalleled joy and brilliance, and Dele’s set indeed lived up to my high expectations.
Having played the keyboard for the Godfather of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 band from 1979-1986, Dele provided jazzy brilliance and a progressive synth-led sound to Fela’s records during this period. He moved to London from Nigeria in 1995 and has since become the de facto ambassador of Afrobeat in the UK. His star has since risen even more, off the back of a number of exceptional solo records through the new millennium. Some of his most successful have been collaborations with Fela’s son Femi, as well as the legendary drummer Tony Allen. Many of Dele’s new records display his clear interest in house, techno and dub. The interplay of these electronic sounds with the jazz and funk-inspired afrobeat - which Sosimi has purveyed for so long - can be heard on 2007’s Identity and 2015’s You No Fit Touch Am, both superb LPs.
Dele’s discography over the last 15 years features remixes from dub-legend Scientist, as well as Deep House DJs Pataki and Medlar. The ever-mercurial O’Flynn’s edit of E Go Betta is a recent highlight. As the epitome of a contemporary, UK house/techno artist whose love of African music defines the brilliance of his output, O’Flynn is the perfect example of a DJ inspired by the music of Sosimi’s heritage, as can be heard on excellent tunes of his such as Mesablanca, Desmond’s Empire and Talia. This bridging of 70’s and 80’s afrobeat and more modern sounds, that enrich this music’s irresistible grooves, was a hallmark of Dele’s set. Fela Kuti classics such as Kalakuta Show, Opposite People, Water No Get Enemy and Lady were peppered among more recent material. Spoken word from young members of a local poetry society, who Dele had encountered earlier that day and invited to join him, was also delivered over various songs in the set. While I initially felt a level of scorn to what I imagined would be a slam-poetry wankfest of corny over-sincerity, I could not have been more wrong. The combination of the afrobeat quartet’s tight, percussive grooves and smooth spoken-word evoked hip hop with a sublime West African flavour.
The lyrical content of this spoken word also provided a good indication of Dele’s appetite for social justice. Over Fela’s infectiously rhythmic Opposite People, the matriarch of the society spoke of female sexual empowerment and body positivity, as Sosimi, of course, ran riot on the keys. To Lady - one of Fela’s best - a young woman from the society delivered a powerful rebuttal to the misogynistic overtones of the song. Time-honoured call-and-response vocals were deployed to echo “fuck the patriarchy”; Dele enthusiastically chimed in, encouraging audience participation as he went.
One could view Fela’s lyrics in songs such as Lady as isolated examples of misogyny from a complex individual, but they reflected a cultural environment in which such views were commonplace. Sosimi represents a progression from this milieu. He repurposes ‘Lady’ to attack misogyny, rather than promote it. This is indicative of his approach to Afrobeat; one which still pays homage to the greats even if it recognises their flaws, striving for a genre which is, above all, modernised and more inclusive.
With the essential components of traditional afrobeat being its use of an intensely rhythmic, repetitive beat as the backdrop to grooving basslines, James Brown-esque horns and jazzy experimentation, its synthesis musically with modern dance music is not exactly far-fetched. As long as it still grooves in that funky, instantly recognisable, Tony Allen-indebted way, afrobeat can incorporate contemporary house and techno music, or celebrate progressive views of gender, or indeed do all of these things simultaneously. Seeing Dele Sosimi live is a must to fully experience this enriched modernisation of arguably the finest genre the world has heard, and would be something I’d thoroughly recommend to all.