Listen to Tony Allen on Hip Hop

Listen to Tony Allen on Hip Hop

About Tony Allen

The drummer and unofficial music director of the late Fela Kuti’s band, Africa 70, from 1968 until 1979, Tony Allen (born Tony Oladipo Allen) helped create the sounds of Afro-beat. With his solo recordings, however, Allen has refused to remain stagnant, incorporating dub and avant-garde hip-hop influences into his modern African dance music.

A self-taught musician, Allen began to play drums at the age of 18 while working as a technician for a Nigerian radio station. Within nine months, he had embarked on a professional career as a drummer. Although Allen and Kuti had known each other since the early ’60s, when they performed on the Nigerian music circuit with different bands, they began playing American-style jazz together in 1964. Before long, they shifted to an African-influenced style of highlife jazz, which they continued to play for five years.

Forming Africa 70 in 1969, Allen and Kuti reached out to an international audience. A few months later, while touring North America for the first time, Allen was introduced to the music of James Brown, Max Roach, and Art Blakey. Despite critical acclaim, the group faced numerous obstacles, including financial difficulties, racial discrimination, and political oppression. Arrested during the first of a long series of government-sponsored raids of black townships in 1974, Allen spent three days in jail. The following year, he released his first album as a leader, Progress. After performing his last show with Kuti and Africa 70 at the Berlin Jazz Festival in 1979, Allen continued to play with his group Lagos until immigrating to Europe in 1984. After temporarily living in London, he settled in France the following year and worked as a session drummer for such transplanted African musicians as Ray Lema and Manu DiBango, and released Never Expect Power Always (N.E.P.A.) in 1985 …Read more>>>