#Mr Lakaaye

Lekan Babalola has an impressive track record as a musician (percussionist and composer/arranger) and filmmaker. One of Nigeria’s outstanding jazz musicians, he’s worked on two Grammy-winning albums: Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté’s In the Heart of the Moon and Cassandra Wilson’s Loverly. He’s played with a host of luminaries including Art Blakey, Prince, Tony Allen and David Byrne. He’s also the founder and creative director of Ifa-Yoruba Contemporary Arts Trust – in his youth, his grandmother who was an ardent follower of the Yoruba Ifá faith, took him to her priest for regular divinations. So it’s not surprising that he describes his new album as an Afro-futurist re-imagination of Ogun, a primordial Yoruba orisha. That’s who #Mr Lakaaye is.

Something of a mixed bag, most of the album has a very full sound, created by a nine-piece band, three backing vocalists, two rappers (Rykal and Jay L’Booth) plus lead vocals by Lekan and Kate Luxmoore. It’s a quality production with some storming brass ensemble sections, but the arrangements somehow come across as a little dated. The styles they play vary from South African marabi jazz (‘Time Come’) through the Afrobeat of his tribute to Fela Kuti (‘Your Highness’), to Caribbean jazz (‘Wet Nurse Trad’). Then there’s three arrangements of English folk songs, which puzzled me, particularly the choral version of ‘John Barleycorn’ with a blaxploitation movie-style backing. But my favourite is the placid beauty of the final track, ‘Omi’ (Water), a song for the Yoruba river deities, which leaves the band far behind and features ethereal vocals, percussion and the real sound of water.