The Buttshakers
Arcadia

APP. Accumulation of Profit & Power. The very essence of capitalism that sells, destroys and enslaves everything in its path, leaving behind only ruins exploited to the last grain of sand that can be converted into a bank note.Denounced and fought for decades by Fela and his warrior afrobeat, the evil has never ceased to spread. The last trumpeter of the warrior of Lagos, Muyiwa Kunnuji perpetuates the struggle, surrounded by a faction of rebels. Meditative and motivating solo, polyrhythmic attacks, synthesizers, call & response with the choirs, the influence of highlife coming from neighboring Ghana thwarts the attention of the guards to penetrate the fortress of the dominant.And, once the enclosure is crossed, the afrobeat roars and the fight begins.Continuing his journey, the last trumpet player of Fela Kuti releases his second album: APP (Accumulation of Profit & Power).Muyiwa Kunnuji and his band Osemako, which has been extensively recasted since Mo Juba O - had already laid the foundations of his afroclassicbeat - have had quite an evolution, and are eager to share a recipe that has been patiently elaborated and stewed, both on stage and in the studio.A complex mix of deep musical and cultural heritages as well as a claimed and combative Pan-African culture, APP sets the bar still one step higher in the message, but also and especially in terms of composition and polyrhythms. Inspired by Western African highlife as well as the purest afrobeat of the Afrika 70 era, and even incorporating elements of South African marabi or Central African soukous, the whole does not sound less perfectly personal, tailored, with a natural and disconcerting ease.But this easiness is only an apparent as Muyiwa devoted himself body and soul to the composition and harmony during the gestation of these tunes so widely inspired and yet intensely personal.APP will thus delight fans of African music in the broad sense as well as connoisseurs, and just as much fans of funk grooves or jazzy solos; it is a deeply plural album. Multi-influenced, multicultural, multilingual, a slice of life as much as an initiatory journey, on which hovers the spectre of Covid, which has also largely inspired this second ‘effort’. Standing against absurd sanitary rules or the accumulation of profits by the powerful of this world and other pseudo-philanthropists, APP, again, reminds us of the great Fela, as much by the use of an acronym to entitle the album as by the themes addressed or the mixing of genres. A warrior album, filled and full of revendications, but also of calls for open-mindedness. An intensely human, sincere, combative album, and however radically enthusiastic and optimistic.

ONE OF FELA KUTI'S MOST NOTORIOUS ALBUMS! The title track chronicles an attempt to charge Fela for possessing weed with some funny details. The Afrobeat pioneer was known for his bravery in confrontations with politicians and senior police or army officers. He was busted in 1974 when police raiding his home saw him swallow a joint. A succession of officers and goons tried to get him to fess up to no avail. Eventually he ended up in front of the head of Nigerian Interpol, who told him "I'm going to talk to you in my office...." "You get office?" Kuti asked sarcastically. "You foolish stupid bastard! You low-down sonofabitch, you dog, you goat, you....." Fela would spend the next threes days in jail while the authorities waited for him to produce an incriminating sample. He and his cellmates would swap waste buckets and the police were forced to let him go without any evidence. The track itself is a tough piece of Aforbeat that features extended solo from trumpeter Tunde Williams. On the flip is a cut that is worthy of a 12" on it's own. "Water No Get Enemy" is slower in pace but no less powerful. Fela is front and center with his trademark tenor sax and the rhythm section is tight as ever. Includes free download of the album.