The vibrant life of guitar legend Oghene Kologbo began in Nigeria, 1957. Born to the famous highlife musician Joe King Kologbo, Oghene became involved in music as a teenager. It was at this age that he began performing with the revolutionary Afrobeat master, Fela Kuti and went on to record more than 50 records with his band, Africa 70.
Kologbo was also Fela’s personal assistant and ” human tape recorder,” a job that required him to memorise all of the melodies Fela would sing to him so that he could teach them to the band at their rehearsals! In 1978, after a show at the Berlin Jazz Festival, Kologbo left the band (along with Tony Allen and a few others) and stayed in Berlin.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s, Kologbo worked with the legendary but short-lived Roots Anabo, also touring and recording with King Sunny Ade, Tony Allen and Brenda Fosse, among many others. In 2005 Kologbo began working with the Afrobeat Academy (Berlin’s heaviest afrobeat ensemble) which later on morphed into Ebo Taylor’s and then Pat Thomas’ backing bands. Three years later he moved to France to join Tony Allen on tenor guitar and after nearly a year playing and teaching Afrobeat in Brazil, Kologbo came back to France to work on his new record, Africa is the Future.
Produced by Loik Dury and Grant Phabao from the Paris DJs label/mediae, this album features an array of interesting contributing artists including the likes of, Tony Allen, singer Pat Thomas, deejay Joseph Cotton, singer Ayo and horn players from the Afrobeat Academy.
Africa is the Future looks set to be the first album of many from Kologbo’s new project, and although the bad news is that this will not be available until September, the good news is that he has already shared a gloriously lively track called, Don’t Mind Them. Listen to this above and pre-order your copy of the album from here.
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