Drummer
Tony Allen was the consummate rhythm machine, a veritable time-keeping code master of groove. The great drummer's hundreds of credits include driving the beat behind
Fela Kuti as well as fellow Africans
King Sunny Ade and
Manu Dibango; crisscrossing pop, funk, and dancefloor grooves with
Damon Albarn in
the Good, the Bad & the Queen and
Gorillaz; working with electronic producers such as
Moritz von Oswald and
Jeff Mills; and delivering funky jazz with
Ernest Ranglin and
Hugh Masekela, and especially on his own recordings including 1979's
No Discrimination, 2005's
Lagos No Shaking, and 2009's
Secret Agent. Further,
Allen and his trademark register-switching technique offered much potential to samplers. Among those who drew from his work were
J Dilla,
Common,
Missy Elliott,
Nas,
Mos Def, and Latin jazz drummer
Bobby Matos.
There Is No End is released on the first anniversary of
Allen's death at age 79. Beginning his work on the album in 2019,
Allen was enthusiastic about collaborating with a new generation of rappers and instrumentalists. He finished recording his beats for the basic tracks with French producer
Vincent Taeger (who produced the drummer's
Film of Life outing in 2014).
Taeger and co-producer
Vincent Taurelle then completed the set posthumously with previously selected musicians and vocalists.
"Stumbling Down" tumbles out of the speaker with
Allen's metronymic snare and hi-hat pulse with dubby breaks surrounding rapper
Sampa the Great's trippy delivery. "Tres Magnifique" features New Nepali rapper
Tsunami nearly whispering as if he were in a fever dream driven by popping tom-toms and kick drums. Kenyan rapper
Nah Eeto hovers above organic and synthetic beats and punchy keyboard bass on "Mau Mau" and adds poignancy with her steely lyrics. Swinging tom-toms frame
Koreatown Oddity's souled-out rap on "Rich Black." Check the multi-textured layers of guitar, bass, and keyboards that frame
Allen's martial snare and hi-hat attack on "Coonta Kinte" as
Zelooperz whines urgently into the din.
Danny Brown's reedy rap carries the foreground in the hallucinatory, dubby beat collision titled "Deer in Headlights," amid jazzy brass, swirling keyboards, and
Allen's phase-shifted drum kit. Closer "Cosmosis" is an outlier.
Allen,
Albarn, and rapper
Skepta had completed "How Far" for the
Gorillaz's
Song Machine when award-winning Nigerian poet and author
Ben Okri walked into the studio.
Albarn played a melodic hook, threading
Allen's polyrhythmic African groove through lush yet urgent Western pop.
Okri took the mic and delivered spoken word passages as
Skepta appended his lines with fiery rapping. The quartet recorded it together live in a single take.
Allen's inimitable playing style and inclusive approach provided him with an uncanny ability to embrace virtually every collaborator's approach and bring out their strengths without diluting his own trademark style.
There Is No End delivers more evidence of that.
Taeger and
Taurelle fully comprehended
Allen's musicality and embraced its kaleidoscopic dimensions. As such, it is rendered free of the misdirected, sometimes jagged and piecemeal conceits that litter other artists' posthumous offerings. ~ Thom Jurek
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