Antibalas: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

There just aren t many bands like Antibalas. These are jazz players making dance music: Their music is big and fun, and their guiding spirit is Fela Kuti, the brilliant bigband leader and Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer. Afrobeat is a musical style featuring nearly endless songs, mixing funk and jazz, grooves and riffs, with the rhythm carried by not only the drums, but everyone. Everyone horn players, bass players, guitarists plays rhythm in Afrobeat music. Antibalas (Spanish for bulletproof ) is a Brooklyn ensemble, and 11 members turned up at the Tiny Desk. Many of these musicians may be familiar to listeners of Sharon Jones The Dap Kings, The Roots, Paul Simon or Public Enemy. Most recently, Antibalas found some fame performing and some of the members arranging and directing music for the Tonywinning Broadway stage presentation of Fela It s one thing for a big group to make a big sound and, sure, Antibalas does that but what stands out is the subtlety of this ensemble; the way the horns weav