Even if you weren’t familiar with his work fronting Antibalas, it wouldn’t take much contact with the work of Duke Amayo to figure out that he’s a showman. I mean this as a compliment. Amayo’s uniquely intriguing presence–in addition to classic Afrobeat sounds and social stances, he has long brought his deep devotion to Yoruba spiritual life and kung fu martial arts to his work–is powerful. Amayo has been crucial to making Antibalas Brooklyn’s premier Afrobeat ensemble for the last quarter-century, bringing captivating energy to recordings and live performances alike (and, in the latter setting, earning him comparisons to James Brown).
The debut solo album, Lion Awakes, puts him in full creative control. It should come as no surprise that he takes those reins without hesitation. The five tracks of Lion Awakes, meant to accompany Amayo’s upcoming film, tell an autobiographical and mythological story. Each piece is a small suite in and of itself, different pieces coming together in dramatic episodes.
“Black Magic Sister” is the first, a tribute to his grandmother, a shaman. An urgent trumpet fanfare leads into Amayo’s invocation, an offering and prayer to his ancestors for courage and abundance sung in Naija and Yoruba. There are layers to the homage; in addition to specifically lauding his foremother, his use of a Yoruba song honors a broader sense of heritage, while the sonic elements he intertwines–jazz, funk, call-and-response singing–come together in ways instantly recognizable as hearkening back to early Afrobeat.
Having laid this reverent groundwork, Amayo starts building with “Lion Awakes”. Guitars prowl throughout, giving a sinuous undercurrent to a storm of horns, organs, gongs, and other percussion representing a spiritual animation. That continues in “Happy Lion”, a mindful march of sheer choral gratitude.
“Shadowless” follows the album’s quickest song with its most overt moment of kitsch: a cartoonish set of kick-punch sound effects that punctuates the lines of Amayo’s spoken introduction (“Shadowless / Is quick in kung fu / The good doer remains unseen / But you see the good they do / For humanity”). He has so much fun with it, though, that it might just make the track cooler as the grooves keep building.
The record ends with “Ascended Lion”, a collaborative pinnacle that packs in six seamless movements of leonine action. It’s the clearest cinematic moment: Amayo’s lead character is thrown from heaven, takes a leap of faith, falls through a vortex, lands in the water, performs a divine lion dance, and at last rises up to new energetic heights, all in time for Lunar New Year. It’s a busy track, to say the least.
Amayo tries to do a lot on Lion Awakes; sometimes, it feels unwieldy. To try to encompass his whole film in five tracks, even long ones, he has to introduce a world and an entire cosmology. That he brings so much action to his sound is admirable, proof of his unquestionable sense of vision. Dense as it is, his execution of that vision and the stellar musicians who join him on his journey are never dull. Lion Awakes is a little uneven but commands attention from start to finish.