ALBUMS OF THE WEEK

Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela Rejoice Lost in a personal fog, Abel needs to look around him

TONY Allen and the late Hugh Masekela are giants of African music. The former is the drummer who, with Fela Kuti, created Nigerian Afrobeat. Trumpeter Masekela was an icon of the antiapartheid movement in South Africa.

The two met in the Seventies, when Masekela was in exile in West Africa, and planned to record together. Busy schedules meant this didn’t start until 2010. They went into a London studio with producer Nick Gold (Buena Vista Social Club, Orchestra Baobab) with nothing prepared in advance. The spontaneity of that session with just the two musicians plus bass is what makes it sound so fresh.

Allen is truly a multi-limbed rhythm section; there’s just a smattering of subsequent overdubs. Masekela died from cancer two years ago and it’s a shame we’ll never hear this live. The opener, Robbers, Thugs and Muggers, has Fela Kuti-like social criticism, with Masekela singing the lyrics in Zulu, while Lagos Never Going To Be The Same is an overt tribute to Fela. The stand-out song is Agbada Bougou, a catchy South Africa-meets-Nigeria swing. One of the African releases of the year.

AS THIS self-isolation period kicks in, think of poor Abel Tesfaye, the Canadian singer who, as The Weeknd, usually spends his songs whizzing around in expensive cars, taking staggering quantities of drugs and having sex with a large number of interchangeable cover girls. For us normals, his fourth album now offers a particularly dark form of escapism.

It turns out the single Blinding Lights, a glorious blast of air-punching Eighties synthpop that is No 1 in the UK for the fifth week, was a bit of a false start. It’s one of a handful of collaborations with veteran Swedish hit machine Max Martin that are notable for their immediately memorable choruses and, in the case of In Your Eyes, an unapologetically cheesy sax solo.

Elsewhere, Tesfaye’s in a bit of a fug. The big lyrical picture is: he’s had a break-up, gone back to his old druggy, womanising ways, and is miserable about it. “Wastin’ all my time out living my fantasties,” he sings on the tortured title track over shadowy synths. His problems on stark ballad Snowchild, a tale of his rise through Toronto’s R&B scene, include the fact he has a $20 million house he’s never lived in. Especially this week, the urge to scream, “Get some perspective mate!” is overwhelming.

World Circuit