About Albino! | The Mission | Band Members

The SF Music Award-winning ALBINO! is a 12-piece Afrobeat ensemble that honors the fiery legacy of Nigerian musical revolutionary Fela Kuti. ALBINO's high-energy grooves and explosive stage show thick with hypnotic percussion, a heavy horn section, African dance, outrageous costumes, and infectious group choreography have firmly established the band as the West Coast's premier Afrobeat act.

According to the SF Weekly, "ALBINO's ass-inspiriting percussive engine comes from a rhythm section of local all-stars; together, they form rhythms based in the West African tradition which holds at its heart the inseparable union of drumming and dance. Atop the band's rhythmic maelstrom ride tightly figured five-part horn lines. The section's 'heavy heavy' bottom end features a snarling dual baritone-sax yawp. This is world music that lives up to the name."

The ALBINO combination of over-the-top live energy, tripped-out tribal stage garb, and the ability to envelop audiences in an irresistibly funky, loving embrace have made the band a favorite of festival crowds and the Burning Man community in particular. Beholding this 24-legged freaky behemoth as it locks into its choreographed steps is as much of a feast for the eyes as their deliciously layered funk is for the ears. On top of this, ALBINO's lyrical messages offer scathing sociopolitical commentary and urgent calls to civic action, in keeping with the revolutionary spirit central to Fela Kuti's Afrobeat legacy. The live ALBINO! experience simply never fails to *move* an audience, in every sense of the word.

Afrobeat is one of the boldest and most radical forms of protest music the world has ever heard. Afrobeat's original architect, Fela Kuti, was a revolutionary outlaw who used his music as a weapon to expose and assault the perpetrators of injustice in his native Nigeria and throughout Africa. His principal targets included Nigeria's corrupt military regime, the post-colonial aristocracy's repression of native cultures, and corporate greed and the exploitation of Africa's natural resources and working class. Fela's Afrobeat crusade for a free, democratic, socially equitable Africa spanned from the early seventies until his death from AIDS in 1997, when a "musical and sociopolitical voice on a par with Bob Marley was silenced." (-All Music Guide)

ALBINO! proudly embraces and extends the tradition of Afrobeat as protest music. We believe the current state of affairs in our nation and the world is dire and in desperate need of change. The message of our music, like Fela's Afrobeat, endeavors to expose contemporary injustice with the goal of inspiring critical thought and activism. We urge all members of the ALBINO! community to take action and make your voices heard. We encourage you to visit the following websites to learn more about Fela's Afrobeat legacy, and about the charitable causes ALBINO! has been involved with that are affecting positive change in your communities and around the world.

See links on CONTACT page to learn more >>