What Goes Up

Some years ago a collective of local musicians came together in a series of weekly jam sessions in a West Chicago loft to explore the spirit of Afrobeat and play Fela Kuti covers. The project grew as they developed their own sound and started touring and fully came of age when they invited Tony Allen to Chicago for a series of workshops. The culmination is this album, featuring Allen on drums and a series of guest vocalists who add soul, R&B and hip-hop elements to the Afrobeat template. The sound is tighter than Fela's sprawling jams: the horns are bright and blaring, the keyboards suitably cosmic, the guitars concise and clipped and the drumming as super-funky as you would expect. The guest vocalists are a mixed bag. The nu-soul of ‘Beehive’ and the mellow ‘No Bad News’ feature the silky voice of Kiara Lanier, who sounds not unlike Erykah Badu. ‘Race Hustle’ is another highlight featuring the sturdy R&B stylings of JC Brooks. But ‘Marker 48’, featuring Rico Sisney and Maggie Vagele of Sidewalk Chalk, is a little too polished, unless you like your Afrobeat sugar-coated with the sound of Philly soul. Overall, the collective are probably at their best when they simply go for the party mainline on tracks such as ‘Afro Party’ and ‘White Rhino’.