This is year is slowly coming together for us starting with a few regional tours in February. The week of February 1st takes us to Lexington, KY, Birmingham, AL, and Athens, GA for an unusual Monday to Wednesday tour. Later in February we return to Detroit and Cleveland. In March we have shows in Minneapolis and Ashland, WI. With any luck, April and May will see us dotting around the U.S. based on some ‘too-early-to-drop’ developments in the works. The West Coast is on the horizon 2 or 3 times this year and an assortment of Eastern U.S. travel plans as well. We’ll be sure and let you all know.
Citybeat: “Preview: Chicago Afrobeat Project”
Setting contemporary Pop to an African beat is threatening to overtake baseball as the Great American Pastime (I’m talking to you, Vampire Weekend and Extra Golden), but there are plenty of practitioners out there who are hybridizing genres in unique and original ways (I’m not done with you yet, Vampire Weekend and Extra Golden). Among them is the Chicago Afrobeat Project. Formed in 2002, they honed their skills playing the Windy City’s loft party scene, earning a solid reputation as a complete live experience and accruing a rabid fan base.
Over the past eight years, CAbP has released three acclaimed albums — 2005’s self-titled debut, 2007’s (A) Move to Silent Unrest, 2008’s Off the Grid — and been nominated for a number of Chicago Music Awards.
Part of CAbP’s broad appeal is the diversity of their music, containing elements of Rock, Funk, Afro-Cuban music, Juju, Highlife, experimental Jazz and pure Afrobeat, a style that rose from the political and social unrest that gripped Nigeria in the ’60s and ’70s, characterized by the huge popularity and brutal persecution of Afrobeat innovator Fela Kuti.
Paying that debt forward, CAbP offers a similarly tempered ability to translate political and cultural concern into danceable, thinkable music (“The March of the Uninsured,” “116: The Hotter the Temp, the Longer the Wait,” “Tibet on It,” “(A Warm) Global Warning”) and celebrates its roots by combining their musical performance with frequent accompaniment from Chicago’s Muntu Dance Theatre.
Trade in your winter cap for your thinking cap, wear the tight pants so your ass doesn’t get lost when it’s danced off and prepare to be educated and entertained: The Chicago Afrobeat Project is here for your groove therapy. No insurance card required.