Tony Allen — Secret Agent
Secret Agent · 2009
Label: World Circuit · Genre: Funk / Neo-Afrobeat · Country: Nigeria · From: Lagos, West Africa
Tony Allen was Fela Kuti’s drummer for twelve years and is widely credited as the co-creator of Afrobeat — building the polyrhythmic, jazz-inflected drum patterns that gave the genre its spine. After leaving Fela’s band in 1978, Allen pursued a solo career spanning five decades, releasing records in Paris, Lagos, and London, collaborating with Damon Albarn, Hugh Masekela, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Secret Agent, released in 2009 on World Circuit, was described by Brian Eno as making “everybody else’s drumming sound a bit ordinary.” The title track opens the album with a slow-burn groove that demonstrates why Allen was considered by many the greatest drummer alive. He recorded more than twenty solo albums before his death in Paris in 2020.
Did you know: Brian Eno said of Tony Allen that he was “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived.” Fela Kuti, more provocatively, once said that without Tony Allen there would be no Afrobeat. Allen himself deflected both claims, insisting the music was a collective invention. He continued recording into his late seventies, releasing an album with Hugh Masekela just two years before his death.
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