Producer Brian Eno has been variously quoted as saying Nigerian drummer and songwriter Tony Allen is "the most important musician," or "the best drummer" of the last 50 years. Whatever Eno actually said there is no doubt of the high regard Allen is held in, not only for his rhythms, so tight and complex they make you think he must have the arms of an octopus, but because they laid the foundation of Afrobeat, the revolutionary Nigerian musical form he created with Fela Kuti in the 1960s.
Despite the electric live shows of his heyday, world recognition came slowly. The recorded output of Kuti and his band, Africa '70, which often consisted of 20-minute-long rhythm-driven tracks that lacked catchy choruses, were far from radio friendly. Outside of Africa, the music was at first the preserve of dedicated world-music fans, before there even was such a term. Eno, for instance, introduced Talking Heads to Allen's rhythms, helping to heighten the American band's funky grooves.
"The music was coming from a local place, a Third World country," Allen says on the phone from his home in Paris, "but the band was very unique. We played in the United States for 10 months [in 1969], but it took time for Europe and the world to really take up our music."