Global Beat: Amayo
Photo: Kory Thibeault
“So much has happened! The world has really changed.” Sitting in his sunlit kitchen in Atlanta, Duke Amayo says with a laugh at the understatement. It leads him to think of where he was a little more than five years ago, laying down the finishing touches on Fu Chronicles—a long-developing, groove-laced concept album that turned out, for now at least, to be his last and perhaps most celebrated recording with the renowned Brooklyn-based Afrobeat outfit Antibalas.
He was still living in Williamsburg, the neighborhood he’d called home for more than two decades, when the band convened some 17 players and special guests at Daptone’s famed House of Soul studio in Bushwick. “At the time, I was just trying to compartmentalize a group of songs that would work well together,” he says. “Fu Chronicles was just part of the natural order of how I was composing then, even though some of the songs on this new album were already coming along.”
In a sense then, Lion Awakes—his official breakout as a solo artist—takes up the Fu Chronicles narrative and expands on it. Amayo’s vision has always been to fold his lifelong martial arts practice into his various modes of creative expression; it’s a spiritual journey that began in his native Lagos, where he grew up steeped in the socially conscious music of Fela Kuti while learning the rudiments of the Jow Ga style of kung fu. With the support of his family, and in particular the guidance of the strong women in his life, he forged a path to America and the august halls of Howard University—leading to a run of seven critically acclaimed LPs and several world tours with Antibalas, plus team-ups with everyone from TV on the Radio to David Byrne.
From the opening horn punches of “Black Magic Sister,” it’s clear that the shared experience of the collective—or, more accurately, the family—is the glue that binds. “My grandmother was a shaman, a medicine woman,” Amayo explains, recalling the childhood years he spent with her in Takoradi, Ghana, during the Biafran War. “And in this song, I credit her with my foundation. That was the way it all began for me because she was the first person who taught me about collaboration. The entire concept of God, that’s all that is. All religions have the same thing. It exists on a spiritual level, and within us as well—I mean, even our internal organs are working together to keep us alive, you know?”
Just as water seeks its own level, Amayo won’t start the earnest work of making a new record without first feeling like his life will be out of balance if he doesn’t start it. “After the pandemic, I had a baby and I moved to Atlanta,” he says. “Once I was settled in for a while, it felt right to jump into a new chapter and a new change. And Tommy was the first person I called.”
Daptone fans know Thomas Brenneck as the stalwart rhythm guitarist of the now-legendary Dap-Kings, The Budos Band and Menahan Street Band. He’s also a noted producer and multi-instrumentalist in his own right, as well as half the brain trust—alongside former Dap-Kings drummer Homer Steinweiss—behind the Daptone subsidiary Dunham Records. After relocating to Los Angeles in 2017 and opening his Diamond West studio and label, Brenneck was eager to bring Amayo out to California to work on Lion Awakes.
“I flew out there and pulled in a few crew,” Amayo recalls, noting that Antibalas alums Raja Kassis (guitar), Ray Mason (trombone), Todd Simon (trumpet) and Brenneck himself contributed to the sessions. “It was mostly my friends and musicians that I knew from New York and Los Angeles—those who were available. We just came together in Los Angeles and banged it out in five days.”
It’s testament to the high caliber musicians on board that Lion Awakes sounds so impeccably performed and produced. The notion hits home on the epic nine-minute title track—a supremely funky workout, driven by the powerhouse rhythm section of drummer Tosin Aribisala and bassist Babatunde Fayomi, who channel Africa ‘70-era Fela with disarming ease. Amayo’s voice is front-and-center in the mix, recalling some of the more unconventional soul recordings Brenneck made with the late Charles Bradley.
“When I’m in Tommy’s studio, I’m thinking Charles, you know?” Amayo says. “On a spiritual level, from all our past hangs, I was trying to invoke a little Charles and maybe find a little bit of a better me.”
As Amayo preps for a return to Brooklyn to celebrate the release of Lion Awakes, he finds himself also returning to the idea of balance—between the known and unknown, the seen and unseen. It’s a warrior sage’s mentality that permeates songs like “Shadowless,” where the fluid forms of kung fu seem to emerge from the syncopated rhythms themselves, while Amayo punches through with soulfully rendered chants and his own undulating Rhodes keyboard lines. That same quest for balance through collaboration reaches its height during “Ascended Lion,” a hypnotic six-movement Afrobeat-jazz odyssey that finds each member of the band palpably dialed in, all flowing together as one. “If we are really looking deep, for these times, it’s about finding a way to stay in the moment, you know?” Amayo observes, running with the theme. “You have to find gratitude in living every day because, once you’re living in gratitude, you’re constantly looking at the things you have around you and being thankful about it. And that opens the floodgates to other kinds of blessings.”
