Séance of the ancient and urban, conjured by a spidery, hypnotic rhythm derived from spirit possession ceremonies, the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou owes its black magic to the Vodoun Effect. That ...

It’s almost a miracle that, tomorrow night, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou will play the London Scala, and that just weeks ago they released their first album proper in decades, Cotonou Club. And, ...

Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on X (Opens in new window) Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) The musicians in Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou sing in Fon ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

Last September Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou played to a packed house at the Barbican Centre in London. There’s nothing unusual about a sold-out gig, but what was unusual was that this was ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. If you didn’t know any better, you might easily mistake Orchestre ...

‘Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou’. An orchestra, trading in densely layered rhythms, from the Benin costal town of Cotonou. Lacking a little something in the way of pizzazz, non? Call-and-response ...

Three cult albums, culled from a repertory of over 500 songs, primed an expectant audience. Having the tag “voodoo funk” attached doesn’t do any harm to the band’s mystique either and, for once, it is ...

Better than: Air conditioning in a heat wave. There’s a shopping list of fine pop bands from throughout the African continent listed on one page of drumming major John Miller Chernoff’s esteemed 1979 ...

Expectations ran high for one of the greatest Afrofunk bands of all time making their Toronto appearance. Everything about the night spoke volumes about what African music in Toronto is all about.

While Strut continue to revive the career of these forgotten West African heavyweights with a killer new studio LP, Samy Ben Redjeb’s great archive label take us back to 1973 for Orchestre Poly-Rythmo ...

Two decades after breaking up, this versatile unit from West Africa's Benin returns with some new members and a good deal of their initial creative spark. Save this story Save this story It's been ...