Tony Allen: the Afrobeat maverick who blazed a trail across the globe

Damon Albarn

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The Nigerian musician was a restless creator who embraced the physicality of drumming and innovated till the top

Few musicians can claim to have invented a revolutionary rhythm, however then few are fairly just like the late Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen. Brian Eno referred to as him “the best drummer that ever lived”, citing his fashion alongside James Brown’s funk breakbeat and the constant pulse of German band Neu! because the “three great beats of the 1970s”. Allen’s swirl of jazz, Yoruba and highlife was in contrast to anything the world had ever heard: a full-body polyrhythmic exercise that might give most drummers sore wrists just considering of it.

Allen came to prominence in Lagos alongside Fela Kuti. He began drumming within the late 50s while working at a radio station, trying to jazz icons akin to Artwork Blakey and Max Roach for inspiration as he taught himself to play. In 1964 he met Kuti they usually spent the subsequent half-decade fine-tuning their fusion of west African get together music and American funk and jazz, within the bands Koola Lobitos and, by 1969, Africa ’70. Whereas Kuti, who died in 1997, is more well-known than his musical soulmate, he stated that “with out Tony Allen there can be no Afrobeat”.

Related: Tony Allen: the Afrobeat pioneer's 10 finest recordings

Related: Tony Allen, legendary drummer and Afrobeat co-founder, dies aged 79

Associated: Tony Allen: Afrobeat’s master on Hugh Masekela, Damon Albarn and friction with Fela Kuti

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