The
spirit moves…Lagbaja grooves
*Already, he his as famous
for his mask as he is for the unparalleled innovativeness
in his music, but with the release of his latest 12-tracker
aptly titled Africano, Lagbaja is going to be even more
famous.
*On Monday when the new
CD was presented at the MUSON Centre in Lagos, Lagbaja was
right in saying that he had stopped experimenting having
fully reached a point where he is able to define his music
and play by the rules that he has set for himself.
*But he must have been too
modest in adding that it would take more than one listen
to appreciate the music that took about six years to produce.
For anybody with a trained ear for music, Lagbaja’s
Africano does not take time to sink. But if the listener
has also been familiar with the so-called experiment that
the masked man began more than 12 years ago, then he or
she must be ready to be moved by the spirit (of the masked
man) and be grooved by his music. It is the type that cannot
be ignored.
*With his band, a consistent
group of talented and close-knit young men and a lady, Lagbaja
has metamorphosed into the custodian of groove, and nowhere
is this more noticeable in the album than in completely
substituting the western drum kit with wholly indigenous
drums. “I say categorically that there is no single
note of kick drum, snare or toms in the album”, he
said, adding that to demonstrate the power of the Yoruba
traditional drums, he has simply gone back to the basics.
“Ka dale ka tun sa”, he said. This, to him,
is the ultimate demonstration of groove. “The African
grooves is played only by traditional African drums. Each
groove an interplay of rhythms from these different drums.
It is the Yoruba groove in all its subtlety and complex
glory” he said.
*The general freewheeling
spirit of the CD tends to overcompensate for the untamed
and comically spontaneous vocals of the masked man; but
what certainly will not go unacknowledged or even applauded,
even while waiting for the already recorded twin album,
Africano Party, is the wit, energy, elegance and the explosion
of life that Africano represents.
Arts & Life,
Steve Ayorinde, The Punch, July 15, 2005
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