Music Spoken Here presents Lekan Babalola's Sacred Funk 4tet

𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐣𝐚𝐳𝐳 𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐆𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

Lekan Babalola is a two-time Grammy Award-winning musician film director and conceptual artist with over 40 years in the arts. Awarded his first Grammy in 2006 for performances on the late Ali Farka Toure’s album ‘In the Heart of the Moon’ he was awarded a second at the 49th Grammy awards in 2008 for his work on the American jazz diva Cassandra Wilson’s album ‘Loverly’.

Lekan started his career playing in the Yoruba Christian Church owned by his father. As custodians of Yoruba tradition his family taught him first hand Yoruba art and culture and this has influenced all his work. He also received a cultural and political apprenticeship from the late Fela Kuti.

The Sacred Funk project has been going several years with Lekan on percussion and his wife Kate Luxmoore on clarinet joined by various other musicians in the past including Reed Bass who has played for us in December 2023 and Christos Stylianides (trumpet) who will be appearing with Jas Kayser & Chums in January. In the current lineup they are joined by Josh Vadiveloo (appeared with Dan Lockheart in September 2023) on bass and Reuben Reynolds (appeared with Reed Bass in December 2023) on guitar.

Host or Publisher Music Spoken Here