La BOA Meets Tony Allen

This is at least the sixth album to feature the irresistible rhythms of Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen since his death in 2020, and you could be forgiven for thinking the profusion of these posthumous ‘collaborations’ is starting to feel a little exploitative. If so, you’d have to make an exception for this set, which reframes his timeless drumming in the fresh context of Colombian funk. Built around Allen’s recordings from the Afrobeat Makers series on Eric Trosset’s Parisian imprint Comet Records, the album’s eight tracks reimagine the music’s Lagos roots through the brassy grooves of Daniel Michel’s band La BOA (La Bogotá Orquesta Afrobeat). The massed horns riff majestically, the Afro-Colombian chants are hypnotic and there’s plenty of diversity to the tropical fusion, from ‘Cuento (feat Bejuco)’ with its salsa rhythms from Colombia’s Pacific coast to ‘Tarifa Plena’ featuring Bogotá emcee N. Hardem and the dub mash-up of ‘La Maquina de Tony’.