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When did Tony Allen’s There Is No End become my album of the year? July 24th, Night & Day cafe, DJing. I had just put needle to groove on “Rich Black”, naively unprepared for the bass to meet the bar’s booming soundsystem - and then it HIT! The dancefloor was probably fearing for its life, but I was in love.

A collaborative hip hop masterpiece, There Is No End has a real exploratory feel to it, which (as Allen’s spoken word introduction points out) is the whole purpose of the album - to push, to innovate, and to move, through music. With various up-and-coming singers, rappers, and poets lending their talents to each song, the tracklist reads like a supergroup of Next Big Things: there’s Lava La Rue’s no-nonsense flow and controlled beauty, The Koreatown Oddity’s comic images and hard-hitting home truths, Ben Okri’s inspired mess of creationist myths, fairytale tropes, and apocalyptic visions, and Sampa the Great’s unnerving, vocoded whisper loops - and that's just a fraction of the mavericks on mic duty here.

All this is to say nothing of the drumming. “Brilliant” would be a gross understatement of just how diverse and original Allen’s beats are - by turns claustrophobic, metronomic, wild, and stuttering, the drums make each song as distinct and… well, brilliant, as the vocals do. Throw swampy bass synths, thickly affected backing vox, and a smorgasbord of tuned percussion into the mix, and what you get is There Is No End: a dizzying swan-song by one of music’s great innovators, and a glimpse into hip-hop’s bright, bright future.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are very few drummers (no shade on drummers here) that would be well known of their own accord like Tony Allen is. Having been consistently inventive and undeniably brilliant throughout his life all the way up to his 2020 masterpiece with Hugh Massakela, 'Rejoice', it's really no surprise that this Posthumous release is chock-full of wonderful rhythmic surprises, and has a lineup of perfectly chosen guests. A fittingly wonderful album from one of the greatest (and original) Afrobeat drummers of all time.

TRACK LISTING

CD (14 Tracks)
Tony’s Praeludium
Tony Allen

Stumbling Down
Tony Allen Featuring Sampa The Great

Crushed Grapes
Tony Allen Featuring Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon

Très Magnifique
Tony Allen Featuring Tsunami

Mau Mau
Tony Allen Featuring Nah Eeto

Coonta Kinte
Tony Allen Featuring Zelooperz

Rich Black
Tony Allen Featuring Koreatown Oddity

One Inna Million
Tony Allen Featuring Lava La Rue

Gang On Holiday (Em I Go We?)
Tony Allen Featuring Jeremiah Jae

Deer In Headlights
Tony Allen Featuring Danny Brown

Hurt Your Soul
Tony Allen Featuring Nate Bone

My Own
Tony Allen Featuring Marlowe

Cosmosis
Tony Allen Featuring Ben Okri + Skepta

There’s No End
Tony Allen

2LP (12 Tracks)
There Is No End
Tony Allen

Rich Black
Tony Allen Featuring Koreatown Oddity

Coonta Kinte
Tony Allen Featuring Zelooperz

One Inna Million
Tony Allen Featuring Lava La Rue

Stumbling Down
Tony Allen Featuring Sampa The Great

Crushed Grapes
Tony Allen Featuring Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon

Gang On Holiday (Em I Go We?)
Tony Allen Featuring Jeremiah Jae

Mau Mau
Tony Allen Featuring Nah Eeto

Très Magnifique
Tony Allen Featuring Tsunami

Hurt Your Soul
Tony Allen Featuring Nate Bone

Cosmosis
Tony Allen Featuring Ben Okri + Skepta

My Own
Tony Allen Featuring Marlowe