CD Reviews

Bokoor Beats: Vintage Afro-Beat, Afro-Rock & Electric Highlife from Ghana

Bokoor Beats: Vintage Afro-Beat, Afro-Rock & Electric Highlife from Ghana | Otrabanda

By BANNING EYRE | June 5, 2007

4.0 Stars

Pop music in 1970s Ghana was a collision of lilting highlife — long the preferred local fare — with tougher sounds encroaching from abroad: funky Afrobeat from Nigeria, soukous pumping out of the Congo, and of course the worldwide wave of Western rock and roll. A local Accra band called the Bokoor Band did it all. Its young British co-founder, John Collins, was destined to become an important Ghanaian music producer in the ’80s and ’90s; that’s one reason these piquant tracks survive to be presented with such meaty and evocative sleeve notes. Bokoor means “cool,” and this outfit is never cooler than when tearing up the emerging Afrobeat sound, as on “Yeah Yeah Ku Yeah” and “Onukpa Shwarpo (Bigman’s Shop),” both of them spiked with chicken-scratch guitar vamps, call-and-response vocals, and Collins on searing harmonica that takes the place of the genre’s characteristic brass section. Laced with snapping Ghanaian percussion, the Bokoor Band’s soukous is raggedy but eminently enjoyable. Four tracks by contemporary bands better versed in the sweet, sunny art of highlife round out this collection, which is indispensable for the connoisseur of golden-age Afropop.

Related: Elvis, Electronic Van Dyk, New rave, More

Elvis
This article originally appeared in the August 23, 1977 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
Electronic Van Dyk
After numerous attempts, Up All Day got through to Paul Van Dyk at his office in Berlin.
New rave
The newest act to come buzzing from the UK is a trio of educated lads whose intelligently obtuse pop is warming hearts, minds, and dance floors.
Open and shut cases
The Phoenix is not called the Entertainment Authority for nothing. So here goes, with all the latest shifts in clubland.
Import only
Whether or not the Pipettes ever make good on the flabbergasting confidence and effrontery of their debut, We Are the Pipettes (an import on Memphis Industries), they’ve already earned themselves a dissident footnote in the history of girl-group pop.
True believers
It’s just after 7 Saturday on Lansdowne Street, and Avalon is already swimming with bodies and charged with excitement. Street Dogs, "Fatty" (mp3 via Phoenix Bandguide) Street Dogs, "Not Without a Purpose" (mp3 via Phoenix Bandguide)
Hard target
Critic Langdon Winner once wrote that anyone who attempts to listen to Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica has two obstacles to overcome: the music and the lyrics. Scott Walker, "Jesse" (RealPlayer)
An honest mistake
Yellowcard's enthusiasm is what the mundanity of their strongs struggles against. Slideshow: Yellowcard play Avalon, June 28, 2006
Fast, loud, and totally in control
By the time the Donnas sang “I wanna be like Nikki Corvette,” most people had forgotten who she was. Now, thanks to MySpace, Detroit’s original riot girl is back and better than ever.
Pop power
Guitar-driven pop music is alive and well in the city of Boston, and anyone that tells you otherwise wasn’t on Lansdowne Street last night for the Phoenix /FNX Best Music Poll party.
Raw power
On Blessed Black Wings you can hear the tolling of bong metal, the scream of hardcore punk, and the leathery flail of Motörhead — with monsters on top.
Less

Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY BANNING EYRE

BRUCE COCKBURN | SLICE O LIFE: BRUCE COCKBURN LIVE SOLO | March 30, 2009
This two-disc live set — just Bruce Cockburn and his guitars — may qualify as his one indispensable offering.

DUB COLOSSUS | A TOWN CALLED ADDIS | November 18, 2008
This one-of-a-kind project connects the real-life fireworks of old and new, urban Ethiopian music with the Rastafarian mythology

KASAI ALLSTARS | CONGOTRONICS III: IN THE 7TH MOON, THE CHIEF TURNED INTO A SWIMMING FISH AND ATE THE HEAD OF HIS ENEMY BY MAGIC | November 11, 2008
The Congotronics franchise has succeeded in making the rawest of African traditional music hip.

LOVE DURING WARTIME | November 11, 2008
J.B. Mpiana, one of the reigning stars of contemporary Congolese music, brings a 25-strong stage show to Memorial Auditorium in Lynn this Friday, November 7, at 9 pm.