LE SUPER BORGOU DE PARAKOU
The Bariba Sound
Analog Africa 071

www.analogafrica.com
 

During the ’60s, like the USA and Britain, Africa was experiencing an explosion of young, modern, cutting-edge bands, all of them seemingly poised with one ear to the ground and the other pricked toward any fetching international tune that passed through. Nigerian psychedelia, Ethiopian R&B and Ghanaian soul were just a few of the resulting amalgams, to which we can now add, thanks to the Frankfurt-based Analog Africa label, funk from Benin. Le Super Borgou de Parakou served an apprenticeship covering the Independence-era Congolese Rumba ubiquitous at the time, but were soon drawn back into their own Bariba tribal traditions, onto which they grafted whatever felt right. The result was a sexy, slinky, broad-bottomed groove that will sound strangely familiar to many Westerners, but also startlingly original. The first track, “Gandigui (Bariba Soul)”, with its circular bass line and full-throated guitars, is a funhouse image of Santana’s “Black Magic Woman,” while the neat-handed, propulsive picking on “Me Ton Le Gbe (Pachanga Fon)” is clearly an homage to the band’s Kinshasa-based beginnings and Docteur Nico, that era’s widely-emulated guitar god. “A Na Gan Garo Ka Nam (Afro Beat Bariba)” features brisk, tinder-dry drumming underneath a gloriously low-end electric organ. Yoruba folklore rears its primal head on “Ko Guere (Folklore Bariba)” and sunny echoes of Ghana’s mellow Palm Wine music gild the sweet/sour, horn-crowned shuffling of “Abere Klouklou (Cavacha Dendi).” As well, the group’s penchant for pitch-dark, humid melodies, call-and-response vocals, meandering keyboard riffs and braying brass presage Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat shenanigans.

— Christina Roden