Global Beat: Antibalas
It isn’t a secret that in fraught political times, music is often a source of solace, strength and inspiration. Duke Amayo knows the script intimately; as the British-born son of Nigerian parents, he grew up on the Afrobeat grooves of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, whose smoldering, funk-fueled excursions with his bands Afrika 70 and Egypt 80 were the weaponized soundtrack of resistance against a corrupt Lagos regime. To this day, Amayo still feels Fela’s influence as a benevolent spirit guide and father figure, while carving out a path of his own as the frontman for Antibalas, the 12-piece Brooklyn-based Afrobeat collective he joined back in 1999.
“Fela was the champion of the youth at that time,” Amayo says, reflecting on his childhood in Lagos, “so that was probably the most important time for me. But you know, the only reason why Fela was popular was because it was very personal for him. He was dealing with something real, so you could feel it coming out. Since we live in different times, you’ve gotta paint a different picture. Now, instead of going into a song with a blame game, you start a dialogue about political issues. Then you can get to the regular guy, to the factory worker or the war veteran or the teacher. You’re making it visual for the listener, and because you’re thinking long view, eventually, someone who wants to take a long drive will understand you. I always love that. It could take someone five years to figure it out—like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what he was trying to say!’ That’s how we marinate.”
Indeed, it’s been five years since Antibalas released their self-titled fifth album, which arrived on the heels of the band’s much-touted tenure with the Bill T. Jones-produced Broadway musical Fela! The album led off with “Dirty Money,” a Lagos-style dance jam that calls hyper-capitalism and income inequality into question, without sounding preachy.
Recorded by longtime friend and Dap-Kings cofounder Gabriel Roth and released on the Daptone label, Antibalas was meant to be a breakthrough. When critical acclaim didn’t translate into sales, it took another three years of occasional touring and special appearances (including stints as the house band at Carnegie Hall tributes to Paul Simon, David Byrne and Talking Heads, Bill Withers and most recently, Aretha Franklin) before the band members again found themselves in a recording studio in the spring of 2016, ready to begin anew.
Martín Perna, who founded Antibalas in 1997 and plays baritone saxophone in the band’s world-renowned horn section, comes across as sanguine when asked about the band’s fortunes. “I think because of where we are as a band—partially out of financial necessity, but also because we’re well-rounded musicians and we’re fluent in a lot of different musical languages— we do this other stuff and then we come back,” he says. “That informs how we play and maybe makes us a little bit wiser. Sometimes we bring it directly into the group, but to everyone’s credit, they also realize what belongs to someone else and what’s particularly important for Antibalas.”
In that context, Where the Gods Are in Peace, the band’s latest outing on Daptone, is a triumphant concept album with origins that meander back many years. In the typical Afrobeat tradition, the music boils over with improvisational fervor and Afro-futurist leanings, with the three-part epic “Tombstown” (which features guest backing vocals by Marie Daulne of Zap Mama) providing the lyric that gives the album its title. Tastes of hip-hop, funk and Latin souljazz rear up throughout—a constant reminder of the band’s thick Brooklyn roots.
“We’re always gonna be a Brooklyn band,” says bassist and co-producer Nikhil P. Yerawadekar, who originally joined the ranks as a guitarist in 2008 before switching instruments in 2010. “Personally, it’s a bit of a strange thing because, though the band started out in Williamsburg, today that area doesn’t feel like what I’ve grown up thinking Brooklyn is all about. What we’re trying to do with this band is the antithesis of toppling something down and building something brand new over it. It’s about allowing something to grow fully over time. But we’re making crazy-ass music in Brooklyn and, to me, that’s part of doing what we’re supposed to do as Brooklynites. We’re just trying to be really expressive.”
The album opens with the 10-minute workout “Gold Rush,” which started as an instrumental on the band’s 2012 tour and morphed into a call for social justice for indigenous people worldwide. The hypnotically funky “Hook & Crook” originally had a dancehall feel, inspired by one of Amayo’s visits to Lagos and, in particular, to the Permaculture Garden in the port town of Badagry.
The name “Tombstown” occurred to Amayo while walking past the Père Lachaise Cemetary in Paris and, prior to this album, the group tried tracking a version of the song for 2007’s Security. Amayo found the strength to revisit the song shortly after his mother passed away, transforming it into a roiling opera of lush green islands, alien cowboys, flaming chariots and distant lands populated by omnipotent gods. And throughout, all the musicians in the band play with their ears wide open and a natural, near-teleapathetic connection that comes from years of touring together.
“When we’re onstage, you can actually hear the communication going on with all the parts,” Amayo explains. “And the parts in the orchestra are the meat in the song. It’s like a teaching tool for us all because if you don’t go into that trance—even as a musician, when you’re playing—you want to get a point where you can play one or two notes, where you can get everything else. It’s sitting so nicely that you don’t want to go anywhere. We all get there, and when we do, it’s like, ‘I don’t want to play anything more.’ You’re feeling the oneness of whatever you’re doing. You’re locked in with someone, and you start understanding the limitless beauty of that.”
