For years the local government in my city put on a pretty impressive fireworks display every December 31st. They actually rivaled those of many 4th of July displays, but were even better since they didn’t come with all the political baggage of that “holiday.” Living in a multi-story tenement on one of the city’s many hills afforded me a pretty spectacular view of those fireworks from my back porch for most of my residency. But like years themselves all good things must come to an end, so the New Years fireworks were deemed an unnecessary expense and New Years Eve has taken on a ghostly silence. It’s for that very reason that I wanted to start off my new year of “Records at Random” posts with a bang.
To that end, I pulled out one of the most explosive records in my collection, a 1976 LP titled Ifetayo (Love Excels All) from a seven-piece Funk outfit calling themselves the Black Truth Rhythm Band. I’ve searched high-and-low for information about this band since I found the record in a batch of vinyl gifted to me by a family member a number of years back, but other than a couple of Afro-Funk compilations featuring the title track there’s not much to be had about the group out there. But the name alone, which conjured images of a recording session where members of Black Heat, 24 Carat Black, The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, and the 20th Century Steel Band all jammed out together, was reason enough to get me excited about the disc. And when I put it on my turntable and heard the dirty, sweat-soaked, Afro/Latin Funk grooves these mystery-men laid down it didn’t matter that I had no idea who they were or where they were from… their name said everything that needed saying.
While unquestionably an “Afro-Funk” record, the music on Ifetayo (pronounced “ee-feh-tayo”) reminds me less of Fela than it does other vaguely Afro-Carribean Funk bands of the ’70s such as Cymande and the Lafayette Afro Rock Band, combined with heavy doses of the drum-machine and synthesizer assisted Psyche-Funk of There’s a Riot… and Fresh-era Sly and the Family Stone and the work of Shuggie Otis, recorded under the watchful (if drug-hazed) eye and dub-inflected ear of a Lee “Scratch” Perry. Such comparisons are especially apt when it comes to the slower tracks like “Ifetayo,” “You People” and “Umbala,” where hand-drums and assorted percussion percolate over heavy nyabinghi-esque drum-beats and even heavier basslines, with squealing synthesizers, guitars, keyboard instruments and the occasional flute trill filling the space between the tribal chants of the assembled band-members and the righteously sweet falsetto of (I can only assume) band-leader and composer Oluko Imo. Tunes like “Save D Musician,” “Killimanjaro” and “Aspire” feel more traditionally “African” to me, but even these have a bit of a West Indian flavor (the album was recorded in Trinidad) and don’t even remotely imitate Fela’s horn-fueled Afrobeat sound.
The title of the record may impart a message about the conquering power of love, but more often than not I’ve found that power in music. So it’s a little sad to me that the music of the Black Truth Rhythm Band has remained even less-than-obscure over the years. Because in my estimation it’s powerful enough to “excell all,” and maybe even inspire some of the love contemplated in its title, were it only granted a wider audience.
- El Keter