WORLD OF THE COOL
Within this realm of my highly personal “world of the cool”, also the music of Nigerian artist Fela Kuti belongs. I am mainly a Reggae fan – follow that most – but have a broad interest in Black and African music. Kuti with his creation of Afrobeat – not to be confused with recent AfrobeatS –, since the 1970s, out of influences from jazz, funk, highlife, and local Nigerian Yoruba and other traditional African music, therefore fits my taste.
Plus, I am a percussionist, sometimes trap drummer (or playing other instruments: keys, harmonica, strings), so a drum- and rhythm-oriented musician. Partly via Afro-Cuba, partly directly, I studied Nigerian (and Benin) Yoruba traditional hand drums- and other percussion (e.g. bell/agogo and shekere) patterns, increasing naturally my interest for Fela Kuti’s music. I liked the funky grooves and call-and-response aspects, but the lengthy, jazzy escapades and solos, on many of his lengthy songs, I got less into. The lyrics and vocals in turn did appeal to me. So, a bit mixed, but overall I was and am positive about the interesting music of Fela ‘Anikulapo’ Kuti.
During this sideline/semi-marginal appreciation of Fela Kuti’s work, I also soon found out who was that groovy drummer on many of Fela’s songs was Tony Allen, like Fela, a Nigerian, and who was from Lagos.
All this made it “cool” for me to read an autobiography of this drummer Tony Allen. It is called: 'Tony Allen : an autobiography of the master drummer of Afrobeat' (Tony Allen w. Michael E. Veal), and was released in 2013. What follows is a review, from my above mentioned perspective: “somewhat” a Fela Kuti fan, and knowledgeable, but far from all-knowing, about Kuti or Allen..
AUTO
A difference with other musical biographies I read, is the “auto” aspect: this work is an autobiography by Tony Allen, in conversation with music researcher and journalist Michael E. Veal, who wrote several interesting works, on Fela Kuti, yet also on Dub and Jamaican music, with depth.
This work is however based on what Tony Allen told himself, only worked out as a coherent whole by Veal, whose writing style I like.
I did enjoy the read from the start, for its musical themes, but also for wider social, educational aspects, learning about the Lagos, Nigeria context: the big city, daily living, nightlife (important for musicians like Allen), Nigerian history and politics, postcolonial developments, class differences, and the music scene.
DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIP
The story of how Allen entered Kuti’s life, to become one of his main musicians in the 1960s, proved by itself also of high literary quality, as is the developing relationship with Fela over time. Several dramatic layers, and manifested behavioural psychology.
That “developing” – and problematic – relationship with Fela Kuti, is one of the main threads in this work, even though Allen also discusses his own, other musical efforts before and besides with Fela Kuti.
The difficult relationship with Fela, stems from Fela’s dominant role in his band, as main (long: only) composer of all parts: even if Tony Allen had a special status, Allen explains in the book: his drum parts were not pre-written, and got free reign (and trust) of Fela, to make them hismself.
The friendship and trust that this implies, as between old friends, should not be exaggerated, Allen shows in this autobiography. Fela tended to be self-involved, and, as Allen tellingly states: “did not follow ideas that did not come from himself”. Fela could also be selfish and envious, and untrustworthy, such as with the money he owed his musicians, also to Allen, resulting in increasing irritations.
The love of the music seemed to keep Tony working with Fela, and all of his ego, despite personal issues and difficulties. They also shared an early passion for Jazz. So friends with things in common, but Tony Allen did not like or understand all of Fela Kuti’s behaviours, or life choices, - and even at times felt personally wronged by him -, but musically they seemed in line with each other.
This is always an intriguing contradiction, I find, as music comes from one’s soul and personality – one would think -, so could be hard to separate from the same person’s behaviour. I guess it requires an abstract level of thinking, and the isolation of art, from often easily corruptible and confused human beings, and their weaknesses.
MARIJUANA USE
Certain substances, as often in music scenes, played a role in behavior changes. Fela at first eschewed marijuana/weed smoking, fearing overall its effects on music making, yet later turned around and smoked it more throughout his life and career, even becoming a proponent of its legalization. This heightened Fela Kuti’s conflict with Nigerian authorities, which outlawed weed smoking harshly, with draconian punishments.
Allen points in this book at different effects on different people of weed smoking, noting an extreme one on Fela, in that Kuti changed totally when he started smoking it (relatively late in life, and later than his band members), and that the “old Fela” since then even seemed gone. Tony Allen himself smoked weed regularly, he tells in this autobiography, though had to hide it sometimes. In earlier years, Kuti forebade and fined weed use by his musicians during gigs, but – again – made an exception for his friend Allen, whose weed routine Fela dared not touch. Fela told Allen that the weed to his surprise did not affect Allen’s drumming, and Allen argued in response that it even improved his drumming, in some sense.
I think the latter is open for debate. I personally think (and experienced) that “sense of rhythm” outweighs at all times physical or mental conditions (good or bad: joy, illness, sleep deprivation, drugs, etc.).. It’s too basic a natural thing.
YORUBA
An interesting thread in this autobiography, I find the Yoruba cultural heritage Fela and Tony shared. Allen’s mother was originally Ghanaian (Ewe ethnicity), but grew up in a Yoruba environment too. Both Fela and Tony came from middle classes, so received more European/Christian influences than others. Fela even more than Tony, but later – under influence of Black Power and African pride movements, picked up when the band was in Los Angeles, US, in the late 1960s, - Fela returned to that African heritage, to take distance from (neocolonial) European and British dominant influences. Culturally, spiritually, in life choices, political stances, lyrics, etcetera. Name changes, and open polygamy (he openly married several wives, living with them in a communal setting at the Kalakuta area, singing with him), followed, as became quite known.
Tony Allen did not go along so much – in all aspects - with this contextual “Africanization” process, as Fela perceived it, but still made music with him, and remained his (critical) friend. The original Yoruba religion or faith, (with Babalawo priets) was predictably one of the things Fela “returned to” for African revival. Allen knew those traditional beliefs in fact better than Fela, from his upbringing, but seemed more skeptical and critical about them than Fela, but that could relate to a stronger Christian influence on him.
What is therefore interesting, is that when Tony describes his trip to Bahia, Brazil, later in his life, he still appreciated that the religious culture of Yoruba descendants there (of Afro-Brazilians) – Candomblé, related also to Santería -, still seemed quite similar to that in Yorubaland itself. He especially praised the “polished”, but artistic version of the Yoruba spirituality, expressed in Candomblé, as less wild and “bloody” affairs than in Nigeria.
Whatever his stance on local traditional culture, with a Yoruba (and Ewe) background and cultural influence, the traditional “hand drum” and percussion patterns helped shape his rhythmic and trap drumming style, fitting a genre like Afrobeat, “Africanizing”, so to speak, Jazz and Funk (a.o.). Local African “pop” genres like Highlife and Juju (in turn of course influenced by African traditional music), also shaped his drumming from early on.
This Highlife was made with his band Koola Lobitos in the 1960s, around the period when he first met Fela Kuti. With Fela Kuti he was in Koola Lobitos making Highlife. I heard some of these late 1960s songs, and found them appealing and groovy in a “mellow” way, often lasting about 3 minutes, and not “long-ass” songs Fela would make later.
DRUMMING TECHNIQUE
Allen explicitly says in this autobiography that he kept traditional African aspects in his drumming, besides his adoration for US and other Jazz and Funk drummers, some of whom he met or worked with over time. The “Jazz” was mostly added in time, after the Koola Lobitos period, as a process of living and learning, and new inputs.
The relationship with Fela and other musicians – the environments, so to speak, - including of live shows in different places -, take more space in this book that his actual drumming as technique, but it receives some attention. Allen shows an interest in possibilities of the “hi-hat” - as part of drum kits - as influence from Jazz, adding texture to his drumming. As a separate rhythm on hi-hat is part of African polyrhythm structure and of African origin, it returned back within the diaspora, so to speak.
HI-HAT
That instrument, the “cymbals, is said to be originally from China, and via the Turks and Armenians travelled westward, and in time was incorporated by European folk groups, and finally entering pop music in the US, including Black music, mostly via New Orleans, by the early 1900s, when “modern drum kits” as we know them first appeared (around 1906). The playing styles of cymbals differ of course between Chinese/Asian, European fanfare music, and Black/African genres, showing an interesting grounding role of culture, and of mind over matter.
Tony Allen made the hi-hat more used and known in Nigerian drumming, especially as Fela Kuti became more famous, even worldwide, and Tony Allen helped shape the Afrobeat genre as such, by the 1970s. The famous Jazz drummer Max Roach was a main influence on his adding hi-hat, including lessons in the US (in Los Angeles), in the Late 1960s, by the famed jazz drummer Elvin Jones.
The hi-hat is a somewhat underestimated aspect in Black music, I think, or in music in general. Also, in most of Reggae music since the later 1970s up to the Reggae from “now” – especially from Jamaica – the hi-hat use in drum kits is crucial in the groove and riddims. In Bob Marley’s Reggae this was not so obvious yet, but hi-hat variations increased since then in Reggae. From current artists like Tarrus Riley, Luciano, and Beres Hammond, to Sizzla and Anthony B. Also the “crash cymbal” is now taken to artistic heights in dance-oriented Jamaican Reggae.
(I spoke recently with a Reggae drummer in the Netherlands - when jamming with my percussion with him on stage -, and who usually drums with Jampara and his BatalLion band. He confirmed how for Reggae in fact several “crash cymbals” tend to be required for drumsets, while the “ride cymbal” is in Reggae used less, but the hi-hat all the more.)
The hi-hat (and often crash cymbal) sometimes gets “lost in translation” when non-Jamaicans (like in Europe) drum Reggae (even if further quite apt), almost like a remaining “inimitable” Jamaican trade mark of Reggae, haha.
Tony Allen used the “ride cymbal” in turn relatively more (than usual in Reggae), while his jazzy, mellow groove, called less for the climactic “crash” cymbal, than in Reggae.
INIMITABLE
Not without self-aggrandizing, Tony Allen, also states that his developed Afrobeat drumming style – under as said various influences (African, jazz, funk) - could not be copied, for instance when drummers had to replace him.. and after he left Fela’s band (in 1979). Allen found it significant that after he left Fela’s band, Fela needed more percussionists alongside the trap drummer, only to achieve that “Tony Allen” rhythmic feel: so four musicians replacing what Allen could do alone.
He worked for 16 years with Fela: longer than with anyone else, Tony Allen states in this book. With ups and downs, and regular doubts about continuing. When Fela’s conflicts with Nigerian authorities increased, or when Fela’s behavior became difficult – payment avoidance - or an ego trip, even others around Tony advised him to leave Fela Kuti’s band, and further his own career. He hung on in there, mostly for the love of the music by Fela, and because they “went far back” as friends.
There is something both beautiful and tragic in this troubled relationship.
AFTER FELA
Even after leaving Fela Kuti’s band, in 1979, Allen remained friends with Fela, and met him regularly. He even visited shows of Fela with other band members, noting how Fela still came with new, good music, but that the drum part became a bit weaker than the sound he shaped with Fela for years. These later drummers with Fela used even patterns borrowed from Allen, on earlier songs, but never reached the same height, at least according to Allen, and some critics. Even Fela at times asked Tony to come back as band member, or play with him once more.. “Not that again”, was the main feeling of Allen at that point.
MIGRATION
The period “after Fela” of Tony Allen, is also a “migration” story, as Allen eventually settles in Europe, a while London, and more definitely in Paris, where he finally remained residing until his death at the age of 79, in 2020. Until 1984 he still lived in Nigeria, where political problems recurred.
He later married a French woman in Paris, and further continued making music, collaborating with various other musicians, active in other genres, but who admired Allen as founder of Afrobeat, when with Fela Kuti. He worked with African big names like King Sunny Adé, Manu Dibango, Hugh Masakela, but also with European and US artists, like French artists, Blur’s Damon Albern, the Clash’s Paul Simonon, Parliament/Funkadelic members, and several others.
He also recorded on albums of artists like Zap Mama (Belgian artist, born in DR Congo) and Charlotte Gainsbourg, to give more examples.
EXPERIMENTATION
Allen proved to be open for experimentation in this later musical stage, saying explicitly he wanted to renew and be challenged, and some albums were influenced by more modern, electronic music, Dub, Funk or Rap. That electronic music/techno was at first not a success, in Allen’s own views, as French “technical guys” used his patterns to trigger synth/electronic sounds from them, thereby violating and subduing his live trap drumming.
Later, with others, he found a better balance, with his own Afrobeat style kept more intact, with added electronics or Dub elements, such as for the NEPA and Black Voices (1999) projects/albums. On some songs of these albums you notice a vague Reggae touch, more often – though – the Dub aspects are in the echoing “technique” and production (mixing in and out/fading), rather than in a Reggae groove, with which Dub once originated. An interesting mix, nonetheless, of Allen’s subtle yet vibrant Afrobeat grooves, with modern electronics and genres.
Maybe, like European Dub as separated from Reggae, - or “jazz-rock” (like by Weather Report) - some songs on this album bring to mind - not everyone’s “cup of tea”, but at least Allen’s exquisite “rootsy” and groovy drumming ensured that such mixed albums maintained musical quality, and a solid, “rootsy” rhythmical base.. I personally am sometimes in the mood for such “Afro-jazz-rock” experimental instrumentals (like I sometimes am for a band like Weather Report), though maybe not always or every single day.
Such musical projects, and involved people, get much attention in this work, but also his personal life. The difficulties of migration and legal residence in France, and – as more often in musicians’ biographical works – substance abuse, beyond the marijuana/weed Allen was smoking for a long time already. Allen later had a problematic “heroin period” in France, with some hardships of getting rid of his heroin addiction’s draining effects on his body and mind. He achieved this, luckily, and began to feel “full of life” (libido, energy, etc.) again, after becoming clean.
He remained active as musician and performer up to his death at 79, in 2020, working with international artists.
ON BALANCE
Personally, I learned some new things from this autobiography, rendering it in this sense useful for me. I imagined a Yoruba influence on Tony Allen’s drumming, but there was apparently also a Highlife influence (and from Ghanaian, Igbo and other music), and how Jazz aspects were added more and more to his style, with the hi-hat as focus.
In the early part of the autobiography, an insightful part is when political troubles within Nigeria, interethnic tensions between Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo, and the separation movement through Biafra of the Igbo, after oil discovery in SE Nigeria (around 1967). After independence from Britain (1960), these tensions slowly arose. Allen argues that politicians – still under economic control of Britain, by the way - stimulated this tribalism and interethnic tensions, hardly there before.
In the band of Allen there were Igbo and Yoruba. Around the mid-1960s an anti-Igbo rhetoric developed in the North of Nigeria among the Hausa, related to power grabs/coups of northerners and Igbo alike, and other power issues, taking among leading Hausa even racist-like, anti-Igbo, dehumanizing forms (comparing Igbo to animals like snakes), as racism usually does. When performing during this time in the North, with some Igbo band members, the Yoruba band members, like Allen and others, served as a “protective shield” for them, Allen relates.
These kind of 1960s stories of Lagos and Nigeria, by a touring musician, I found educational and vividly told, even if they were apart from the music itself, of course. On the strictly musical side of things, I got better insight into how Tony Allen helped shape this style known as Afrobeat in the 1970s, recording many albums with Fela Kuti’s Africa 70 band.
ORGANIC
It was – as with many genres – an organic and gradual cultural and personal process, living and learning among various musicians, musical changes and new influences, mixing or “synthesizing” these into new forms.
It is comparable to how Reggae developed from Ska and Rocksteady in the late 1960s, Bossa Nova mainly from Samba and Jazz, Cuban Son and Rumba from Congo and Yoruba (and Spanish) patterns, later Cuban Timba (1990s) from Salsa/Son and Funk, Rock & Roll once from R&B mixed with “white” Country music, Soul once from Gospel and R&B.
The Ghanaian Highlife in which Allen more or less started playing in the 1960s, itself also mixed Akan/Ghanaian and African traditional elements with elements from Palm Wine music in British colonial Africa, Calypso, Cuban “guajeo” (a repeated semi-rhythmic guitar pattern), and European music.
Interestingly, with the addition of a strong (US) Jazz influence to the highlife and other genres – a shared passion of Tony Allen and Fela Kuti – Afrobeat developed in the 1970s in Nigeria, but besides a logical outcome or, “sign of the times”, also individual attitudes and creativity played a role, besides being a Jazz fan.
Though Tony seemed less a “wild and crazy” creative artist-type than Fela, and more technical/practical and level-headed as a person, Allen still gave way to his individual creativity – as said allowed by Fela – in his drum additions, shaping Fela Kuti’s albums’ Afrobeat sound.
What set this apart, and made Tony Allen thus so unique – and influential! - as trap drummer, even across genres? Well, Allen says about this (quoted from this autobiography):
“Forget about this fight you want to put on the drums. Don’t fight the drums, just deliver coolly. I don’t like using force to play the drums, , because I know when I have to hit them hard. I know when I want something to be stronger. So I’m playing in between – it’s like a kind of caressing..”,
Later on:
“When I was learning to play highlife from Ojo, I decided that I wanted to be a smooth drummer, not a noisemaker…” “ I saw that the drums had different tones. And you must make those tones relate – it’s just like singing”.
SMOOTH OR PUMPING
Indeed, it is this “smooth” sound, mixed with a jazzy “conversational” style (dialoguing with other instruments, from the local polyrhythmic tradition), which makes Allen’s drumming style “subtle” when compared from what we know from other African Diaspora/Black music, sounding more, well, “pumping” – for lack of a better word -, groove-wise.
As a “rhythm” musician (percussion, drums), I found it still interesting, and of course also tried Tony Allen’s drumming patterns out myself, to get in that type of Fela-like Afrobeat groove. I enjoyed that subtlely and finesse sometimes.
Yet, I myself - while having had jazz influences – have been overall more used to “pumping” (for lack of a better word) grooves from Reggae, straight-up James Brown-like Funk, Afro-Cuban Rumba, and “pre-jazzified” Yoruba and Igbo traditional music (conversational/polyrhythmic, but more “thunderous” than “smooth), that influenced my percussion playing. Allen’s drum was, by the way, also often “softer” in the sonic mix than in these other genres.
The drumming in Reggae, for instance, has a direct relationship with the Bass guitar (usually the chording instrument), as a “marriage” which involves conversation, but as much “coming together” and unisono. In a practical sense: bass line accents and drum accents fall on the same count, to keep that pumping groove going, similar to how “the one” (of 4/4) functions in James Brown funk (accentuated by main instruments), though in Reggae, that accent is often also on the Third (or Second, in double time), and often a bit on the One.
There are different drummers within Reggae too, with different drumming styles. Interestingly, Bob Marley’s and the Wailers drummer, Carlton Barret, had a style more similar to Tony Allen (more jazz-like shuffle), - smoother, less “pumping” - while other equally great drummers in Reggae had more “straight” rhythms, alongside these shuffle/swing aspects (Style Scott, Sly Dunbar, Santa Davis, Horsemouth), more as in the Congo tradition.
The wide variety in Black/African Diaspora music, let’s just say. The difference between the Swing (originally Guinee/Mali region) and Straight Rhythm tradition (Central Africa, Congo, “forest Africa”), influencing to differing genres the various Afro-American genres. I discussed this before on this blog.
Yorubaland is more in that “straight rhythm” (“forest Africa”) tradition, originally (like Congo/Central Africa), but the strong Jazz influence (shuffle, swing) on Tony Allen, and his personal roots and interpretations, rendered his drumming indeed of an unique style, which he maintained up to his death in 2020, and influenced others, also outside of Afrobeat. Jazzy and smooth, yet groovy.
Recommendable reading.
