African Music Concerts Week of Jul 25 - Jul 31

This classic African dance band is Guinea's answer to Buena Vista Social Club. They recently released their first album in 14 years. The band features a 4-guitar front line with Sekou Bembeya "Diamond Fingers" Diabaté as their leader. They got their start in the early 60's and quickly became a national band. Be sure to check them out at this beautiful outdoor summer amphitheatre, where you are a lot closer to the musicians than you ever will expect to be at the Hollywood Bowl down the street.

Traditional instruments and sounds of Ghana are mixed with samples, dub, rap and overbeats to produce the eccentric sound of Ex-Centric. They are joined by a Long Beach band that ventures world wide, including some tastes of AfroBeat. There is an after party with the band at Zanzibar on Arizona and 5th in Santa Monica.

The Brooklyn based kings of AfroBeat are back! They have been honing their improvisational chops playing nearly weekly for the last few years. They took about 6 months off to rest and are now back in the midst of a global tour. Their last show in LA was sold out and rocked the Knitting Factory, but the El Rey is a better home for their big band sound featuring some heavy brass and 13 musicians.

The high-jumping antics of Aziz Faye is always the highlight of the night when his band takes the stage. Normal he leads the hard driving sabar beat to allow other dancers to take the spotlight, but he usually takes a turn and shows why he is the teacher and the others are students. This is raw energy direct from Senegal.