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Tony Allen

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Tony Allen was born in Lagos in 1940 and began drumming at eighteen, while working as a technician at a radio station. He listened to juju and highlife, but also to American jazz. He studied the drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach in particular, closely. Through Victor Olaiya's highlife band he came to Fela Kuti in 1964, who invited him to join a jazz-highlife band that was being formed.

Music and breakthrough

From 1969 Allen was the musical director of Africa '70, the band with which Kuti developed a new, militant African sound: the heavy groove of soul, mixed with jazz, highlife and the layered rhythms of the Yoruba. Allen recorded more than thirty albums with Kuti and wrote his own drum parts. He played four rhythms at once, with hands and feet, and that gives Afrobeat its rolling, never-stopping engine. His first solo records were Jealousy in 1975, Progress in 1977 and No Accommodation for Lagos in 1979. After that he left Africa '70 and took many musicians with him.

Influence

In 1984 Allen moved to London and later to Paris. His work ran from Afrofunk to dub, electronics and hip-hop. He collaborated with Damon Albarn in The Good, the Bad & the Queen and Rocket Juice & the Moon. Kuti once said that Afrobeat would not have existed without Allen, and Brian Eno called him perhaps the greatest drummer ever. He died in 2020.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Jealousy and focus only on the drums: how does Allen sustain a pattern that feels tight and loose at the same time? Try to hear the separate layers of hands and feet.

Discography

Studio albums

Mentioned in other articles

Categories: ArtistsAfrobeat