Son 8 músicos con un objetivo. ¡Aumentar la energía positiva en el mundo haciendo que la gente baile!
London Afrobeat Collective es una familia unida de músicos de todo el mundo, viviendo en Londres y unidos por su amor por el afrobeat y el deseo de llevar música original a nuevos lugares.
Este colectivo de 8 miembros de Inglaterra, Italia, Francia, Congo, Argentina y Nueva Zelanda combina afrobeat y hi-life tradicionales con funk, jazz, latín y dub para ofrecer música festiva con una clara influencia global. Con una presencia habitual en el circuito de giras del Reino Unido y Europa y celebrados por su energía desbordante, sus intensos grooves de baile y sus letras conscientes, la banda ha dejado su huella en importantes escenarios, desde el Festival de Glastonbury (Reino Unido) hasta el Shrine en Lagos, Nigeria, pasando por Imagina Funk (España), Fusion Festival (Alemania), Cully Jazz (Suiza), Tempo Latino (Francia), Earth Garden (Malta) y muchos más.
Inspirados por el padre del afrobeat, Fela Kuti, y artistas como Ebo Taylor, Parliament Funkadelic y Havana d’Primera, la música original de LAC y sus presentaciones multilingües en inglés, español, lingala y francés les han ganado admiradores en toda Europa. Su cuarto álbum de estudio «Esengo» (Canopy Records, 2024), que significa «alegría» en lingala, incluye el nuevo sencillo ‘Topesa Esengo Na Motema’ (Déjanos dar alegría al corazón) con remezclas de Bosq, Voilaaa y Kiko Navarro.
Nuestro compañero Josechu Egido ha hablado con London Afrobeat Collective de su trayectoria, de su álbum «Esengo», de sus conciertos y de sus planes de futuro. esta es la entrevista completa.
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THE QUESTIONS
Since the formation of the band, there have already been many songs, many concerts and recognition of their work from critics and the public. Looking back, are you satisfied with the group’s trajectory to date?
To be honest we never imagined the band would go for this long, and be such a mad adventure! It started as just a way to get together and jam, and now we have been to most countries in Europe and played some huge stages, in the most exciting festivals and venues, so yes we are very happy!
Although now it seems to be finally recovering, the last few years have been hard for the entertainment world. What has the Pandemic given you and what has it taken away from you as a group?
The pandemic was actually quite an interesting time in fact, We got to take a break from touring which allowed us to focus on writing the last album, which was another big step on our journey. Obviously we missed touring and a few gigs got canceled, but nothing dramatic. And also it has changed some things in the way people view the world, we all realised we shouldn’t take things for granted, getting together, sharing experiences is a precious thing!
We are in an ecleptic time, musically speaking, in which Latin rhythms reign on the main radio stations and dance halls, but where rock and metal festivals sell out, and the most important festivals fill their posters with the so-called Indie ( pop, rock or folk) You yourselves fuse various styles in your songs. How would you define this time we live in?
Musically lets be honest, it can be quite depressing if you look at the charts and the headliners, the most successful music is unfortunately not very interesting at all. But at the same time there is an incredible scene if you look a little bit underground. The afro, latin, Jazz scenes are so busy and rich , and we are very proud to be able to try and contribute to that. The social media aspect is not something we enjoy though, it’s a little bit sad that Likes and Followers are more important than the actual music, but there are enough people resisting that trend, we believe there will always be a place for real genuine creativity.
Whoever listens to the songs from your latest work, «Esengo» (Canopy Records 2024) what will they find different from your previous albums?
Every album is a journey, like a photograph of that particular time. This one came with a desire to spread positivity and joy (Esengo means Joy!) as opposed to maybe past works where we maybe wanted to denounce serious issues, here we still have political and social issues we talk about, but the main message is to be together and enjoy the world! That intention is also reflected in the actual music, not just the lyrics, we bring in more influences from congolese rumba, salsa, genres that spread good vibes and make us smile!
What expectations do you have with this latest album? Where would you like to go with it?
The important thing for us is always the same, we want to enjoy every day making and spreading music. That is our only expectation. We are grateful we get to travel, meet beautiful people, see beautiful countries, eat great food, and we just want to keep doing more of that!
For those of us who haven’t seen you, what are your concerts like? And I don’t mean in format, but in essence…
This band is designed for live performance. We make albums mostly as a means to go touring, but our profession is performing, not recording. So if you haven’t seen us live, you don’t really know the band! We are a collective, a family, and on stage we express the love we have for each other and for the music, and we spread that to the audience. We have a lot of energy, we love playing together, we love dancing, and we show it! You will never forget a LAC gig!
The world has been experiencing several crises of different types in recent years. Do you think the world will be the same after all this? Will we be better or worse people?
The world has never been in a fixed state. Thinking there is a «before» or an «after» is a misunderstanding, the world, and society and humanity are in constant evolution. We are positive optimistic people and we believe that things tend to get better over all, of course there are scary horrible things happening but in the big picture we are going towards a better world and we need to all remember to be strong positive humans, and we’ll be ok!
And now it’s time for another classic in any questionnaire: Future plans? Concerts? Video clips? When are new songs coming?
Plans for the band this year, we will be releasing a single in the next couple of months, with a video, but we don’t want to say too much, keeping it as a surprise. We have another busy summer of touring, going to a few countries, getting on a plane, a van, a boat, find a beach, some food, joke, laugh, celebrate life!