Insofar as it uses electric instruments or horns, all African popular music is, to use the strange Orientalist term, Westernized. Afrobeat, however, took Westernization to new spiritual heights. The style invented and still dominated by the late Fela Kuti is easily the most convincing Afropop fusion. From South African disco to Sahel New Age, eager-to-please African imitator-emulators are so unhip and unschooled they barely achieve competence; the singularity of Alpha Blondy and Orchestra Baobab only points up the dullness of Lucky Dube and Africando. But Fela was no imitator, and few artists anywhere have been less... More >>>