Gig: "Celebrating Africa’s First World Cup"

"Celebrating Africa’s First World Cup" (feat. Afrafranto, Njacko Backo and the Toumkak Drummers, Jacques Yams, CanAfric Theatre)

Gladstone Hotel Ballroom. Friday, February 5, 2010.

At the close of the Masaisai show, walked out the door and over to the ballroom to take in the second Music Africa event of the night, a special soccer-themed event celebrating South Africa's World Cup and the participating African teams. I'm not much for the footie, but I was easily pulled in by the musical talent on hand. Inside the ballroom sort of a relaxed rec-room vibe, with a smallish crowd in the early going as people slowly filtered in. There ended up being a respectable crowd, but there was certainly room for more.

Starting the evening off was the CanAfric Theatre led by the voice and powerful presence of Justine Gogoua (often seen of the Afrofest stage as one of the event's hosts). Starting with the drum — the root of it all, after all — Gogoua's accompanying trio did three pieces with percussion and voice as the framework for some enthusiastic dancing. With lots of room on the dancefloor, the performers jumped down from the stage to show off their moves, their energy a nice spark to the night.

And then a short set from Jacques Yams, decked out in the green jersey of his native Cameroon's Indomitable Lions and playing acoustic guitar and backed only by a single percussionist. I wasn't familiar with him, but was quickly impressed by his lightly skipping guitar work and plaintive french-language vocals. Playing just a very short three-song set, it was enough for me to file the name away for future reference. Hunting around a bit, it looks like he works with a couple bands, so keep your eyes open for a chance to see him.

And then genially earnest Music Africa president Michael Stohr (wearing a layered succession of African World Cup jerseys that he proceeded to pull off in turn throughout the evening) drew names from a hat for some soccer-themed giveaways as things were gearing up on the stage behind him for Njacko Backo and the Toumkak Drummers. Backo, who also performs solo and with his other group Kalimba Kalimba, is equally well-known and well-regarded as an entertainer and a teacher, and is a master thumb piano player and percussionist. Here he was backed by his five piece Toumkak Drummers, a mostly-percussion ensemble, with members rotating through a variety of drums and percussion instruments, plus kalimba, flute and ngoni.

Playing to the night's theme, Backo advocated a pan-African solution to winning the World Cup ("Cameroon doesn't have to win — Africa has to win. We're going to get all the juju men together..."), invoking everyone to stand up and devising an impromptu clap-along chant for all of the African World Cup teams — and then stopping the beat when not enough people were shaking along to inveigh against the non-participators, only to resume the beat in double time. Never afraid to ham it up when required, to make faces and shout at the crowd, Backo donned the hand-made makarapa that was on display to whip up the crowd. Even after that he was still not satisfied with the amount of dancing, and said to his band, "let's make it funky — James Brown!" Which I thought, as the percussion kicked back in, was a sort of a figure of speech. But soon, ngoni player Chip Yarwood was kicking out some "Sex Machine"-like riffs to a woodblock-tapping rhythm and it was James Brown. A fabulous, high-energy end to a set that was a lot of fun to watch and move to.

Listen to an excerpt from this set here.

Next up was the biggest reason that I was out for this show — to have another chance to check out Afrafranto. When I saw them last summer, they were playing an opening set for Vieux Farka Touré, and despite being totally off my radar, proceeded to totally impress me. Though they seem to keep a fairly low profile, internet wise, I've been keeping an eye out for them since. Sadly, it seems that their rep isn't as sizable as their talents, as by the time they took the stage, the already-smallish crowd had withered away some more. Those who remained, however, were in for a treat, and pretty much everyone was dancing from the get go to their palmwine rhythms. Palmwine — the forerunner of the more widely known highlife genre — has a hint of calypso rhythm added to its West African shuffle, adding that extra zing of jump up to the music's insistent groove.

The band played for nearly forty-five minutes, stopping for breath only once in the middle — otherwise the band, led by vocalist Theo Yaa Boakye, segued continuously from one song to the next. A few minutes in, I was thinking to myself, "this isn't just a good band — this is a fabulously good band." It's mildly disorienting to think that this top-shelf band doesn't have a webpage or even a myspace, but they're not complete unknowns. As shocking as it seems in the musical headspace I usually inhabit, not everything unfolds on the net. Plus, these musicians are well known for their other pursuits — Boakye as well as guitar hero Pa Joe are associated with the African Guitar Summit. And speaking of that, there might have been others out in the crowd who were there to watch Pa Joe play guitar, but I think I was the only one gawping, slack-jawed, at the delicious sounds generated by his astoundingly gentle touch, the notes lifting off like the butterfly that the band is named for. Put simply: this is one the best bands in Toronto that you know nothing about, and now that you do, you don't have an excuse.

Listen to a song from this set here.

And speaking of African music and the World Cup, I note that this year's Afrofest will be taking place at Queen's Park on July 10th and 11th, the latter of which is the same day as the final game of this year's World Cup. Whether you're looking for a place to celebrate the outcome or just someplace to go and dance and ignore the final, write the dates down in your calendar now and plan to attend — Afrofest is one of this city's best summer events and not to be missed.