Kokoroko @ Cheltenham Town Hall - May 2

Sheila Maurice-Grey (co-bandleader, trumpet, flugelhorn, vocals); Onome Edgeworth (co-bandleader, percussion); Noushy Nanguy (trombone, vocals); Tobi Adenaike (guitar, vocals); Yohan Kebede (keyboards, synthesizers, vocals); Duane Atherley (bass, vocals)

I really liked Kokoroko’s first album (second is out soon) for the way that it brought high stepping Nigerian funk into something approaching the mainstream. It was loud, fun, even overwhelming, and the group’s very existence told the story of how people from Africa and their descendants had, by various routes brought their music to the UK. If that makes it sound dry there have been few academic achievements that have had a greater impact on your feet than your mind.

I hadn’t seen them before but was hoping they would bowl me over in the way that Ezra Collective had a couple of years back, however…. When you come to a gig expecting some blazing Nigerian Afrobeat it’s a little disarming when the lights go down and the hall fills with an ethereal, electrical, floating tone. Thankfully, the strident brass kicked in and it all started to lift off. The brass lines had their roots in Jamaica with huge hints of Don Drummond and Third World in their early days. 

All this was backed up by absolutely stonking drums. It was hard to tell where one piece finished as the drums carried into what I thought was another tune that may have been a quick change into a second part of the first. In any case, that Afrobeat fire was there supported by beautiful long bass notes with only a bit of seventies synth striking an incongruous note. From there we moved into a piece of travelling urban funk with a strong Jamaican root. It was quite overwhelming with the brass throwing heavyweight punches over detailed guitar picking and the drums kicking it all along. It was a solid edifice, with no gaps and no room to breathe.

We drop down through the gears for a bluesy ballad led by a rich trumpet sound and more of that finely detailed guitar before the brass rings out and all the voices combine beautifully; the bass player, Duane Atherley has the look of a man who knows that he’s the one holding all of this together. The soulful Special Kind of Love suffers badly from a long dose of feedback. When that drops away we are left with a delicate filigree of guitar lines echoing into a near silence of minimal backing. Shine A Light(?), a bit of Lovers’ Rock, is led by bass and drums and the bass bubbles and rides the vocal line, embellishing and embroidering it.

Sheila Maurice-Grey takes up the flugelhorn for My Father’s Prayer (?) and plays in perfect harmony with the vocal line; the 1980s' synths fit better here. The piece allows for some freedom and abstraction with the bass holding it all together again. Never Lost is a big high life sound with a solid bass groove out of which Maurice-Grey’s trumpet takes flight.

The band followed this with a couple of songs that owed more to 70s and 80s' soul and funk, one even had a bit of a Jam & Lewis production feel to it. Being a bit of a snob about such things, I started to feel that they had lost their edge. Ironically, what they were playing was really good; it just wasn’t what I expected. Sometimes I forget that it’s not my music but theirs.

The Afrobeat kicked back in for Speak to Make My Heart Beat, a mighty piece of high life shuffling funk with solid, full-screen drumming. Another ballad and the Something’s Going On was the encore. It was more of that shuffling 70s' funk, like the backing for a piece of militant Gil Scott-Heron soul.

So, I wanted my version of Kokoroko, not theirs and got a bit of a snit on when I didn’t get it. Those with ears to hear would have enjoyed it. Dave Sayer