The Source

by 
AlbumSep 08 / 201711 songs, 1h 4m 18s
Post-Bop Afro-Jazz
Noteable Highly Rated

Having codified the rhythm of Afrobeat during his many years with the great Fela Kuti, drummer Tony Allen brings an authoritative air to *The Source*, his Blue Note debut. Based in Paris, he recruited the finest of French musicians and built a band with great creative endurance and deep soul. Horns, pumping bass and drums, an electric piano timbre so specific to Afrobeat: *The Source* is a swirl of sounds held together by Allen’s elastic and indefatigable beat.

7.7 / 10

On this hybrid album of jazz and Afrobeat, long-time Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen makes the complex sound effortless. Rarely has percussive innovation sounded this downright satisfying.

8 / 10

Vibrant, deeply textured and highly intricate, Fela Kuti's legendary drummer assimilates many colours to his pallet in his latest LP The Source.

Allen dives sticks first into the genre he loved first: jazz.

Best known as the drummer for Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, Tony Allen is an icon in his own right, an innovator, and a vital architect of Kuti's percussively funky, jazz- and R&B-soaked sound.

8.0 / 10

Drummer Tony Allen has already gifted the world at least one lifetime's worth of rhythmic innovation.

70 %

Tony Allen is a perennial dark-horse Best Drummer of All Time.