Afro-Rock Volume One

by Various Artists

According to the fine people at Slinky Music (my favourite music shop in the Toronto area), this is the album that started the whole recent interest in Afro-funk in North America.  This collection, originally put out by Kona Records, and recently re-released by Strut, gathers the best of the little-known of 70s African funk.

The album starts with Jingo's 'Fever', a brilliant funk track.  From there, it rolls into music from groups like Geraldo Pino & The Heartbeats, Steele Beauttah, the Mercury Dance Band, and others from that era.  The musicians are from all over Western Africa, predominately Nigeria and Ghana, with some other places represented.

This compilation works quite well, with tracks fitting together very nicely.  There are some nice long pieces, broken up by shorter ones.  Particularly memorable is 'Yuda', a pro-Mobutu Sese Seko song from Dackin Dackino, which is great to listen to regardless of its politics.

If you are going to purchase one cd to sample the brilliance of afro-funk, it should be this one.