Femi Kuti & The Positive Force - Day By Day

Afrobeat at its finest

Seven years after Femi Kuti’s last album, Fight To Win, comes Day By Day, with the resounding sound of Lagos in every bass-heavy track, but now showing a lighter touch as jazz chords spring-up throughout the set. The slap-in-the-face full-on Afrobeat is still present with some great soloing from Femi on sax and trumpet, plus various hornmen and a very able lead guitarist. If anything, however, the jazz injection has shaped and remoulded the Afrobeat into an even more cohesive funk-fest of banks of brass and heavyweight bass.

Softer tracks such as the slinky Do You Know are almost completely instrumental, while the angry political stance that Femi has inherited from his father Fela comes to the fore in outspoken commentary on Tension Grip Africa and Oyimbo. All that aside, it’s the rhythm section which drives the album – and does it just! Femi’s Afrobeat is all about movement and shifting shades of sound on sound: sax on sax, keyboard and guitar trading off each other; it’s dance music, yet with a chilling message hidden in the rhythm speaking of the desolation of Africa and ruination of its people. Buy this and dance ’til you drop but, as Femi says, don’t forget Africa.

Wrasse | WRASS 228

Reviewed by Michael de Koningh
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