The title is misleading. But not entirely. Paul Ngozi drew not only on James Brown’s funk – which is very much in evidence in Africa – but also on Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelically veiled blues – and, not least, the heaviness of Black Sabbath.
However, on this 1977 album – the band’s sixth in the space of just two years – these influences take a back seat to those drawn from the music of his homeland. This is particularly striking in a track like »Tiziganisa«. Meanwhile, »Disco Man« shows that Ngozi had his finger on the pulse of the times.
These various strands are held together by a punk-like carefree attitude, which finds its outlet, on the one hand, in Paul Ngozi’s fuzz-soaked solos. In the title track, Ngozi indulges in a full three minutes of trippy guitar madness. The other common thread is Chrissy Zebby Tembo’s drumming, which expands a heavy beat to incorporate polyrhythmic concepts.
Incidentally, the album title is also misleading in another respect: there is no sound of an audience to be
