Where to start with Kokoroko, a band that – perhaps more than any of their contemporaries – effortlessly distil so many genres and influences down into one, undeniable live sound?
For those unfamiliar, the multi-instrumental collective are over a decade into their musical journey now, having first formed when Sheila Maurice-Grey (trumpet player and vocalist) and Onome Edgeworth (percussion) met on an arts trip in Kenya. The two are the closest the band have to leaders, and from there their ranks have swelled to a full seven musicians on stage tonight at the O2 Academy Brixton (plus a rotating cast of guests and friends).
The group are here celebrating their long-awaited second album, Tuff Times Never Last, and also making good on their initial booking at Brixton – tonight has been rescheduled from November last year. Joining Sheila and Onome on stage tonight are Yohan Kebede (keys), Ayo Salawu (drums), Duane Atherly (bass), Tobi Adenaike-Johnson (guitar) and Anoushka Nanguy – who performs a similar juggling act as Maurice-Gray does, balancing both trombone and vocals.
It can be easy, when described this way, to get a sense of the project as a conservatoire-originating musical exercise for some very talented young people, with a slight tinge of nerdiness and intellectualism. But that’s just not so; you could know none of the above and it wouldn’t matter a single bit, because the music Kokoroko make is simply so joyful. They take a host of genres – Highlife, Afrobeat, Lovers Rock, Latin – and draw the musical dots between them, always with one eye on just how fun they can make the journey.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Onome Edgworth, addressing the packed crowd in between songs. Talking about what they wanted from their album whilst writing, and what kind of music they wanted to make, he says they kept coming back to the idea of joyful music. Life, however, often has ideas of its own – hence the album title. What he feels they actually achieved with the album is a sense of “what it feels like to spend time with this group of people”. What’s actually going on in the lives of seven talented young people, the daily struggles and triumphs.
One look around the room, and it’s easy to see that this sentiment finds a home in the hearts of lots of other young Londoners too. There’s a palpable sense of celebration, of cutting loose – groups of friends forming circles to dance in, couples swaying to the music. This is clearly viewed as a party for lots of the audience.
The band open their set almost entirely instrumentally for the first few songs, slowly building, slowly drawing us into their world. There’s a cover early on of afrobeat legend Ebo Taylor’s ‘Love And Death’, which could easily pass for one of the band’s own – in fact, the setlist here is peppered with covers, the band showing us their working: ‘here are our inspirations, here’s where we’re coming from musically’. Standout moments include a staggeringly beautiful version of rare soul gem ‘Express Your Love’, showcasing Anoushka Nanguy’s gorgeous, breathy vocals, and a supremely groovy take on the album’s lead single ‘Sweetie’.
Kokoroko are a band that manage to bear witness to all the nuances and facets of the scenes they take inspiration from, but are blessed with the gift of combining those into something totally their own. It’s clear already what a place in their listener’s lives they’ve forged, and it’s a relationship that’s undoubtedly here to stay.
featured image: Jesse Crankson
