VA - Shrine Presents Afrobeat (2000)

The 1960's, cultural turning point of the 20th century, was a decade of musical explosions. Musicians 'borrowed' the world shaking forms of Black America - jazz, soul, blues, r'n'b - and mutated them, mixing them up with local styles. In the UK, the Beatles and Stones lead the Rock revolution; in Jamaica, the Skatalites lead the Ska uprising; in South Africa, in the face of evil apartheid oppression, Mbaqanga roared out of the Townships. This album celebrates what happened when the music came home, when Fela Kuti and his mighty drummer Tony Allen, mixed jazz and soul with highlife, juju and rebellion and started an Afrobeat tidal wave from Lagos, Nigeria. This is the sound of a supremely funky musical insurrection sweeping across the African continent.

Miles Davis saw Fela's Afrobeat as one of the musical routes into the future, and here in the 21st century, we know he was spot on.