Most bands are lucky if they can get three to five members to function as a cohesive unit; they’re a genuine anomaly if they can add or subtract members while still maintaining the essential integrity of their sound (not to mention their sanity). Of course, if your name means “bullet-proof” in Spanish, you’re already proclaiming yourself an anomaly.
First emerging to pay tribute to the Afrobeat sound pioneered by the late Fela Kuti, Brooklyn’s Antibalas has followed an internal structure of governance that both reflects their decidedly leftist political convictions and allows them to function collectively with a larger number of personnel (the current lineup has twelve players) and a porous border.
Did I imply that Antibalas play Afrobeat? That’s not incorrect, but it’s incomplete. Antibalas translate Afrobeat’s infectious groove and revolutionary lifestyle into the aggressive dialect of hard, urban funk, re-appropriating Kuti‘s jazz influences on behalf of jazz’s birthplace.
Less a band than a hive, Antibalas change and progress so rapidly, so creatively – and yet with such fealty to the original mission – that they achieve dynamism comparable to the evolution of a species, a transmutation from an original prototype into something utterly unforeseen. Fela’s hive was the source, but since their debut in 1998 (under the name Conjunto Antibalas), they’ve clearly distinguished themselves as a different kind of bee.
Nothing illustrates this so clearly as the decision to work with post-rock luminary John McEntire (Tortoise, Stereolab, Tom Ze) on Security, a towering, glorious collision of aural assault and unexpected nuance. That so large a collective found room for so visionary a producer is yet another twist in the grander conundrum of the hive’s nature.
I ask tenor saxophonist/conductor/veteran worker bee Stuart Bogie, who’s been in the hive since 2001, what it was like absorbing a new personality.
“Absolutely fantastic,” he says. “John is fantastic in any situation. He brought agitation, fresh eyes, all that; he offered an objective view. The things he said all rang true. He’s very level-headed, quiet, always quiet…a listening producer.”
The hive, apparently, wasn’t adversely affected by the presence of a new drone. But then, Antibalas is already attempting to set an example, both ideologically and aesthetically, in the way it functions.
“Antibalas has always been a collective. And at the same time, bringing in an outside producer freed up the music. So some of it is more like Fela’s music than ever before, and some of it’s more unlike Fela’s music than it’s ever been.”
Submission to authority for the greater good? Bogie laughs.
“The aesthetic of our music does have economic implications. In terms of how politics relates to aesthetic, well, with us, it’s about the collective, looking out for the good of a collective. And how we maintain our collective has been very informative about how people can democratically get along. Each person contributes to the whole. It’s not perfect, but it’s ours.”
Antibalas translate Afrobeat’s infectious groove and revolutionary lifestyle into the aggressive dialect of hard, urban funk.
Aside from McEntire, even the newest members of the band aren’t that new.
“Eric Biondo and Marcus Garcia are the newest members, but even they’ve been around about three years, around the time of the fourth or fifth album. They’ve brought significant contributions.”
McEntire seems to have reined in some of the chaos in order to frame it with little moats of contemplation, transcendence, bliss, and even dread. If Antibalas has been stifled – indeed, if Antibalas has been anything but enlivened – by either years of collective decision-making or the absorption of new blood, the listener is hard pressed to hear it.
More interesting still is the way that Bogie speaks of the hive as a political and economic entity. He excitedly points out other, less strictly musical ways in which this album marks a departure for the band, noting, “With this record, we started our own publishing company; publishing goes to the whole group. It’s our way of keeping the music, and our way of working together independent of industry.”
Independent of the industry, presumably; the music itself continues to thrum with signs of industry, both in terms of its aesthetic studiousness and what some may call its political stridency (though it’s easy enough to lose the politics in the intoxicating din and the irresistible call to dance).
Which does lead me to wonder: Does the message keep the music from being fully democratic? Do the aesthetic choices distract from the agenda? Or are the two truly inextricable? Bogie dismisses the notion that art should – or even could – be apolitical.
“Any human being has to deal with the things that we discuss. People can ignore it, of course, but it’s still there. Any art…Poetry should be about something. We deal with stuff that’s around us. That’s what makes us feel expressive. So we employ that sort of poetry.”
Given that – and given the more “progressive” aesthetic direction in which the collaboration with McEntire seems to be taking them – does Bogie think that progressive aesthetics could be derived from regressive politics? His answer speaks not only to the question but to our whole facile method for differentiating between progressive and regressive ideologies.
“I absolutely think you can be politically regressive, in a way, and aesthetically progressive. Fela was striving to go back to an older way, to African ways, and customs and religion. That’s regressive in a good way, progressive in another, in relationship to government. Moving forward isn’t always…I mean, right now we’re moving forward into some scarier times, you know?”
It’s hard to look at the social and political situation today, to see the failures of technology to meaningfully address the problems of class disparity, hunger, the struggles of the family as a social force, and the inability of governments or communities to end interpersonal, inter-group, or international violence without sympathizing with Bogie’s view.
And Antibalas’ solution is as old as art itself: Take it to the road. After South by Southwest, the hive will be going to England, Europe, Canada, and then, finally, the U.S. in an extensive tour for Security. To observe evolution, successful collective governance, potent market subversion, and aesthetic progressivism in action is a privilege. In the upcoming months, the world will be privileged, indeed.
– Story by Lyam White, photo by Justin Cox