Inemo - Afro Funky Beats

(Black Mango Music/ blackmango003)

Home-grown African talent, Black Mango Music is a record label run by Africans living in and between London, Johannesburg, Harare and Cape Town, focussing their energies on releasing the new wave of music, coming out of Africa. No one musical genre is sacrosanct, be it hip-hop, Reggae, jazz or electronica; Black Mango specialise in one thing - great music. The label is on a mission: to showcase the best talent Africa has to offer, via CD, DVD and digital download releases. The team consists of a group of like-minded Southern African musicians, promoters and music aficionados Collectively, Black Mango aim to change the way Africa is perceived by the outside world.

'Afro Funky Beats', one of Black Mango's latest and hottest releases, is by Nigerian Afro Jazz funkster, Inemo Samiama. From his earliest years Inemo was shaped and influenced by music and his father, a guitarist, taught him to play. Aged eighteen, along with fellow countryman Majek Fashek, he formed the group Jah Stix. He travelled to Paris in the early eighties, where he played with artists like Ray Lema and Fela Kuti's former drummer Tony Allen. Inemo was then signed by Mercury/Universal for his debut album Bushman which mixed African melodies with techno, hip-hop, jungle, dub and ambient sounds.

Inemo has now decided to return to his roots. After three years of composing, recording and travelling between London, Paris and Africa, he is back with this new album. The music is mostly slick, sophisticated funky luxe-lounge Afrobeat, but the album also features some other West African rhythms like hi-life, hence its title.

Reviewer : Yve Ngoo

Dynamite (clip)