VA - Afrobeat… No Go Die! (Trans-Global African Funk Grooves) (2001)

Review by Nathan Thornburgh
The title of Afrobeat...No Go Die! says exactly what this album wants to prove: Three years after the death of Afro-beat pioneer Fela Kuti, the movement he started is alive and well. Fela, as he was popularly known, was a West African superstar, and his Afro-beat legacy appears on this album as a combination of Bob Marley's musical Zionism and James Brown's universal slickness. This album traces the complex legacy of Afro-beat by ranging in style from the melancholic tribute "Fela" by trumpeter Hugh Masekela to the crossover club hit "Beng, Beng, Beng" by Fela's son, Femi Kuti. Tony Allen, who was Fela's lead drummer in bands from Koola Lobitos to Afrika 70, is also well-represented with the rhythm-heavy track "The Same Blood." Although a couple of the longer songs later in the album inspire more tedium than trance, the Afro-beat here is clearly a superior alternative to the wave of American suburban groove music that would compete with this album.