Lafayette Afro-Rock Band: Soul Makossa [STRUT]

Why you'll love it

Strut's edition is the album's first official remastered reissue, remastered by The Carvery from the original tapes. "Hihache" has been sampled by Janet Jackson, Biz Markie, LL Cool J and De La Soul.

This edition

• Remastered from the original tapes
• Stereo

About the album

Some bands chase a hit. Lafayette Afro Rock Band covered one. Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa" was sweeping the world's dance floors in 1973, and this crew of American expats in Paris, fresh from changing their name from Ice, cut their own version and named the album after it. In the US it came out as Movin' and Groovin'.

The band had become the house group at Pierre Jaubert's Parisound studio, playing regularly around Barbès, and you can hear the neighbourhood's African rhythms all over the record. "Azeta" and "Oglenon" ride percussion grooves, "Voodounon" goes deep, and "Nicky" closes things with a little swagger. The real treasure is "Hihache," a song that went on to be covered and sampled over and over. Like Malik, it belongs to a run of Strut reissues drawn from Jaubert's Parisound archive, each one remastered from the original studio tapes.

It took years and a generation of hip-hop producers for the record to find its audience, and it has kept it ever since. Rarely has a Long Island band done quite so much for Parisian nightlife.

Also at Kops: more Lafayette Afro Rock Band on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Strut (cat# STRUT300LPB), a reissue of the 1973 album.