Antibalas collabs with Elvis Costello, The Roots on "Wise Up Thought"

We have some new music out! It's a reworking of the new Elvis Costello / Roots jam "Walk Us Uptown." It's officially out 11/29/2013 on Blue Note records for Record Store Day. Read the review and listen here at Esquire Magazine --> LINK.

The backstory:

For years in the late 90s and the early 2000s we regularly crossed paths with The Roots while performing at various festivals around the US. Several of Antibalas, being hip hop heads, were into them since their debut recordings in the early 90s. Martín, a native of Philly, remembers seeing them perform in their earliest days as the "Square Roots," but that's a story for another day.

Fast forward to 2009. Red Bull asks both bands to be part of Red Bull Soundclash, where we play in round-robin format on facing stages, with the audience in between both stages. We got to spend two days in a big rehearsal studio figuring out how to pull this off. Then we went to Boston and did the show at the Roxy. It was epic.

A few months later, then the Roots and Public Enemy asked us to perform "It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back" live at The Roots Picnic in Philadelphia. Another surreal and beautiful musical experience.

Shortly after, the Antibalas Horns members began making semi-regular cameo appearances with the Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon when they wanted to add extra horns to performances with artists like Paul Simon, My Morning Jacket and others. Two years in a row, we teamed up with them to do the Comedy Central Comedy Awards Show in 2012 and 2013.

Finally, we get to make some music with them on record...sort of.

A few months back, the Roots and Elvis Costello (and longtime Roots sound guru Steve Mandel) released "Wise Up Ghost," a collaboration with Elvis Costello. They reached out to us and asked us to do a remix/reworking of "Walk Us Uptown," the single off the new album.

Our guitarist, Marcos García (aka Chico Mann) took charge as the coordinator, and with help from Victor Axelrod (aka Ticklah) on keys and engineering, plus horns, drums, bass and percussion and Elvis's vocals, we put together a quick session to meet a seemingly impossible deadline.

The result: "Walk Us Uptown" Antibalas rework / Chico Mann Edit. On "Wise Up: Thought" available on Blue Note Records at finer record stores near you, 11/29/2013.

Lagos Trip Cancelled

We will unfortunately not be going to the Lagos Jazz Series this year. In the early hours of the morning Thanksgiving day, we mobilized the entire band and a three-person film crew and went to JFK International Airport several hours before our flight was schedule to depart, with flight itineraries for us provided by the festival. We had all of our visas and passports together weeks in advance for all travel arrangements to be made, and arrived at the airport the day of the departure to find that the tickets were never paid for by the festival (as they should have been according to our contract). We spent the better part of Thanksgiving day at the airport with a back-and-forth with the festival personnel, and after several hours, they were unable to secure any flights for us so we had no choice but to turn around and get back to work.

This was a enormous disappointment. Performing in Nigeria has been a dream since before the band was even together. It has been an even bigger disappointment for our singer Amayo, who went to Lagos a few days in advance of the band to set up a show in his neighborhood in Ikeja as well as a show at the Afrika Shrine.

Despite this letdown, we remain hopeful that we will be able to get to Nigeria in the future under more stable circumstances and we send our deep regrets to all of our friends, family and fans who were looking forward to attending our performances in Lagos this weekend. We are  deeply grateful to everyone in New York and Lagos for their tireless efforts in trying to make this happen.

It is an great setback for us, but in the grand scheme of things, and the history of Afrobeat music and the persistent and brutal adversity faced by Fela, his family, his band and his staff, this is but a minor bump in the road. We emerged from this trip without any loss of blood, no unfair jail sentences, no beatings, no confiscations or destruction of any of our equipment. We are privileged and lucky to be in this position. We send our love and solidarity to all the musicians in Nigeria and elsewhere for whom this type of chaos and disorganization is part of everyday life and who manage to persist in making a life in music despite all of this.

In honoring the legacy of the music and our commitment to the music and to each other, we will continue to move forward, with our sights set on returning to Lagos as soon as it is realistic.

This month we look forward to upcoming shows in Japan and NYC (12/30 & New Year's Eve) where we will channel our creative energies and give you the best we have.

With love,

Antibalas

Antibalas in Japan December 2013

After a nine year absence we are excited to return to Japan. We visited there for one show in Tokyo in January 2005, not long after our third album "Who Is This America?" came out and it was among our best shows ever, not to mention the amazing food, temples, technology, and generous people that helped us along our way. At this moment we are able to formally announce the following:

December 13, 2013 show at ROOMS, Chuo-Ku, Fukuoka-Shi

December 15, 2013 at UNIT, Shibuya-ka Tokyo.

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