Oghene Kologbo is a Nigerian guitarist, born in 1957, son of highlife musician Joe King Kologbo. Oghene began performing with Fela Kuti and Africa 70 as a teenager, toured and recorded a ton of music with the group, and eventually stayed on in Europe after an Africa 70 tour in ’78 to base himself in Germany.

Since then Kologbo has worked with a formidable array of artists including Roots Anabo, King Sunny Ade, Tony Allen, Brenda Fosse, Ebo Taylor, and Pat Thomas, and has drawn on many of these artists to collaborate on this record “Africa Is The Future”, his first as ensemble-leader. Here’s one of the slower grooves from the album, “Don’t Mind Them”:

“Africa Is The Future” is an album in the original Nigerian afrobeat tradition: a hypnotic, rhythmic call to the collective space of the dancefloor. Here’s a more uptempo album cut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJo2bgDG3N8

Kologbo was teaching music in Brasil, before the Paris DJs label dragged back him to France to record this project, which features a global ensemble including Tony Allen on drums, Pat Thomas on vocals, and players from various afrobeat projects like Antibalas (US), Afrobeat Academy (Germany) and Newen Afrobeat (Chile). You can stream, purchase the album in vinyl, CD or digital format, and find out more about the release and the brilliant independent label Paris DJs here at the Paris DJs website.

Oghene Kologbo is on Soundcloud here and Facebook here.

We’ll be bringing you selections from the album all this week on Eastside Radio.