Box Set #6 review — Idris Elba curates records by the Afrobeat provocateur

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Imagine a room filled with the 40 or more records of Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Every now and then, a celebrity rushes in, grabs six or seven of the remaining albums and stuffs them in a box.

This is the philosophy behind the Fela box sets released over the past decade by the Knitting Factory label. Chris Martin, Brian Eno, Erykah Badu and Questlove have all had a rummage. Ginger Baker had a go, leading with his own collaborations with the late Nigerian Afrobeat provocateur. Not surprisingly, by the time Idris Elba came to compile box number six, the cupboard was relatively bare. Questlove had already grabbed Expensive Shit; Eno Shakara and Zombie; Badu Army Arrangement and No Agreement. It is a credit to Elba and to Kuti that Box Set #6 does not feel malnourished.

Not every album here is a classic. Live in Amsterdam, recorded in 1983 and produced by Dennis Bovell, is flat and lifeless, a rare misfire for both band and producer. The notes by Afrobeat historian Chris May admit as much. (“You Give Me Shit I Give You Shit” boasts one of the song titles prophetically.)

By contrast, 1980’s Music of Many Colours, another collaboration recorded during a tour of Nigeria by US spiritual jazz hero Roy Ayers, is a highlight. On one side, “Africa Centre of the World”, Kuti preaches about how the continent was “planned by the creator” as the original motherland while Ayers summons up clouds of vibraphone. On the other, “2000 Blacks Got to Be Free” — this is a chronological target, not a cohort size — Ayers muses about what felt then like an impossibly far future while Kuti and his singers chant responses.

The other records here — Open and Close, Opposite People, Stalemate, even the bodged-together I Go Shout Plenty — all have their moments, from debates on equality to dental hygiene tips (“Don’t Worry About My Mouth O (African Message)”). On the 1970s records Kuti’s band, notably Tony Allen on drums, are reliably unstoppable.

★★★★☆

‘Box Set #6’ is released by Knitting Factory/Partisan