Few sounds transcend time and space quite like the driving pulse of Afrobeat, and few artists, for that matter, have defined their own domains quite as profoundly as Tony Allenthe very beat of Afrobeat itself. In 2011, Allen recorded one of his inimitable rhythmic dialogues as part of the Afrobeat Makers Series for the Parisian imprint Comet Records. Charged with the same fervour for uninhibited expression that defined his trailblazing career, Tony Allens drumming, free from convention and charting its own course, emanates a cadenced stream of consciousness that speaks its own truth.

If Allens language was his beat, then on this record, La BOALa Bogot Orquesta Afrobeatbecomes his latest and most fitting interlocutor. What began as a tributea song named after Allennow feels like the prelude to a deeper dialogue in a meeting that seems more like fate than mere happenstance.

Led by producer Daniel Michel, the ever-evolving band has spent over ten years embodying the fluid, transformative spirit of Afrobeat, imprinting it with their distinctly Colombian sensibilities. From Casa Mambo in Bogot, Michels Mambo Negro Records has become a cornerstone of Colombias underground scene championing Afro-Colombian and independent music throughout that time.

Across this LP, Allens recordings lay down the canvas upon which La BOA paints its own vision of Afrobeatraw and expansive, locking step with his drum tracks while building around the unmistakable blueprint of their Colombian rhythms: exuding Caribbean beat, rolling with Pacific groove, and, above all, shaped by the rarefied air of the Andean melting pot that is Bogot. What ensues is an enduring conversation that crosses eras, borders, even life and deatha celebration of the passing of the baton and the boundless nature of Afrobeat as a genre that refuses to settle. Where the beat of Lagos meets the brass of Bogot, so too La BOA meets Tony Allen.