About Antibalas
Antibalas is an American, Brooklyn-based afrobeat band founded in 1998 by Martín Perna. Initially inspired by Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band and Eddie Palmieri's Harlem River Drive Orchestra, the music generally follows the musical architecture and language of afrobeat and incorporates elements of jazz, funk, dub, improvised music, and traditional drumming from Cuba and West Africa.
As "Conjunto Antibalas", the group first performed on May 26, 1998, at St. Nick's Pub in Harlem at a poetry night organized by visual artist Xaviera Simmons. Over the next few months, the group solidified with a core of eleven band members and expanded their repertoire of original songs. For the first year of the group's existence, they performed exclusively at non-commercial venues such as block parties, lofts, and public parks, before securing a Friday-night residency at the now-defunct NoMoore in August 1999. Called Africalia!, the residency lasted from August 1999 till April 2001, when the club was shut down by fire officials during the Giuliani administration's crackdown on nightclubs and cabarets. Along with Perna, guitarist and producer/engineer Gabriel Roth wrote several of the earlier tunes and oversaw recording and most of the production of the first three records.
Over the next few years, the band's presence grew; by summer 2000 Antibalas had released their first album, Liberation Afrobeat Vol. 1, and had toured twice in England, while continuing to play at venues throughout New York City. Recording with the group in the early days was Cameroonian drummer Jojo Kuo, who can be heard on the studio recordings of "Uprising" and "Machete".
By early 2002, the horn-driven outfit had released their second album, Talkatif, and continued to tour throughout the United States and Europe. In summer 2004, they released their third studio album, Who is This America? on Ropeadope Records. Of the album, Pitchfork writes, "Indeed, where Antibalas' previous works were abridged for accessibility, here they've clearly become more comfortable with their staying power, and more confident with their voice."
The group returned to the studio in the summer of 2005 to work with producer John McEntire in Chicago. Antibalas's album Security, produced by McEntire and released on the ANTI- label in 2007, was "a clear turning point for the band," and Spin notes "they've practically become their own genre."
Antibalas has performed in 35 countries, including Japan and Australia, and throughout New York City, from Carnegie Hall to Central Park Summerstage to the Rikers Island prison facility.
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