- From their first album Do Anything Go Anywhere, released in 2010 to Naming and Blaming POAO continue this tradition of percussive, pulsating and compelling classic Afrobeat rhythms set by Fela Anikulapo Kuti and the world beating movement he helped to foment in the 1970s. This classic formula, given a twenty-first century, Australian perspective is bolstered by the pre-requisite, strident, sometimes profane political opinions that have become de riguer for Afrobeat champions, wherever they spring up around the globe.
This seventeen piece ensemble began as a spark of an idea in 2006 by bassist Zvi Belling, multi-instrumentalist, producer Tristan Ludowyk and DJ Manchild aka Ethan Hall. Their ranks have swelled to include Dave Marama and Simon Edwards on guitars, John Macall on keys, Lamine Sonko vocals and percussion with response vocals from Kuukua, Lydia Acqua and Fem Belling. The blasting horn section is propped up with some of Melbourne’s most in-demand players and members of the Hope Street Records stable of artists from The Bombay Royale, The Putbacks and The Cactus Channel.
The collective are truthful to their own convictions, from the positivity of the optimistic opening track No Passport, to the declamatory observations on the tenuous state of the current uncertainties of migration in the first single Fight so Hard. Medicine is one of the shorter cuts but still hits hard; not to be construed literally as a medical salve its a cynical, post-colonial commentary on the treatment of the dispossessed and marginalised in contemporary Australian and African experiences. Perhaps most powerful is the titular Naming And Blaming, bubbling along at around nine minutes with its extended instrumental improvisations, pan-African and local vibes and the profane hip-hop expressions of MC One Sixth and singer Robbie Thorpe. You can hear the group’s deep-ranging roots coming together to uphold their communal ethos.
If you like your dance grooves to inspire you or simply move your soul, the POAO’s latest offering, Naming And Blaming, will see you right and firm up their already established following as festival favourites, whilst paying respect to the struggling twenty-first century cultures at home and elsewhere.
- Rick Heritage.