Tony Allen Film Of Life

With Film of Life, Tony Allen has produced an album that has the ring of a true self-portrait, offering an overview of his rich and exemplary career that brings together bebop, Afrobeat jazz and psychedelic pop.

“Rhythm is the most perceptible and the least material thing in the world,” wrote John Miller Chernoff in his acclaimed book, African Rhythm and African Sensibility. It has been thirty years since this remarkable study inspired Brian Eno and David Byrne to completely revise their approach to music.

Although in all honesty, if African rhythms began to alter the course of Western pop music, it is above all down to Tony Allen. No drummer better embodies the primordial vitality of those rhythms, nor devotes greater energy to maintaining their presence at the cutting edge of modern music.

During his fifty-year career, Allen revolutionised the musical landscape of an entire continent, before embarking on a series of international collaborations that made him a benchmark for musicians worldwide.

Now his tenth album, Film of Life, looks back on those amazing adventures whilst continuing to explore new horizons with all the drummer’s characteristic fervour and dexterity.