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This article originally appeared on ThirdCoastDaily.com

Friday, May 9

Chicago Afrobeat Project at Shank Hall

When one man basically originates and names a genre, as Nigerian legend Fela Kuti did with “afrobeat,” he’d be wise not to encage his creation in rules, and a major attraction of afrobeat is its funky elasticity as well as its jazzy, rhythmic complexity.

So it’s not wrong for Chicago Afrobeat Project to incorporate American sensibilities and styles into its particular version(s) of Kuti’s thing. And it’s quite right for the collective to have celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2013 with Nyash Up!, which rethought Led Zep, Radiohead, Fugazi and Kutihimself. Live, of course, CAP will get more elastic.

 

This article originally appeared on Vita.mn.

Price: $12 – $15

Together for over a decade, inspired by the late great Fela Kuti, the Chicago Afrobeat Project offers very big music for a pretty small room this week. You may have seen this group backing Fela’s wonderful drummer, Tony Allen, at the Cedar Cultural Center last summer. They’ve also backed Fela’s son, Seun Kuti, in the Windy City, and performed with other Chicago jazz, blues and rock heavyweights, including: Jeff Parker (of Tortoise); Howard Levy (of Bela Fleck & The Flecktones); Paul Wertico (of The Pat Metheny Group); and Sugar Blue (of “Miss You” fame). So, the Chicago Afrobeat Project obviously keeps good company. More importantly, they keep a mighty groove going, whether playing Nigerian music or unlikely covers — would you believe an Afrobeat treatment of System Of a Down’s “B.Y.O.B.”?

Tom Surowicz