La Bomba: Togo All Stars

Togo All Stars bring their infectious highlife grooves and iconic afro-funk rhythms to Lost Horizon. Catch them touring their brand new album FA. You can find that here: https://open.spotify.com/album/5wzIzQtDmr8csPnkbZkDHZ?si=56e5028471734387 Take a good look at the map of West-Africa and search for the city of Lomé, and imagine what the music of this place must sound like. A hundred miles to the West lies Accra, Ghana, where highlife emerged in the 1950's. Another 100 miles to the east lies Cotonou, hometown of the famous Orchestre Poly Rythmo. And yet another 50 miles further, you will enter Lagos, where Fela Kuti created his Afrobeat. All of these aforementioned influences can be heard in the music of one of Lomé's leading bands: The Togo All Stars. But there is more to it than that: a distinctive Togolese sounds drenched in afrofunk and voodoo-rhythms. The band combines the best of two generations. Lead singer Aguey Cudjoe was an afrofunk pioneer in Accra back in the 1970's – when the music of West-Africa was at a creative high – and influenced by American jazz and soul. Next to him you will find the young Awumakuga Otu Rodrigue. As the most talented young singer of Lomé he has made it his mission to carry on the Afrobeat legacy of his idol Fela Kuti. If you want to hear the original rhythms of the most funky gods on earth, you will have to take that map and find Togo. Or you can go and see the Togo All Stars, who honour this musical legacy.