afroboot

T.P. orchestre Poly-Rythmo: "Agueche"

Brownswood are delighted to announce that we have signed Cuban singer Daymé Arocena.
Daymé was part of the Havana Cultura Mix project, which saw Gilles Peterson mentoring selected producers from around the world to make a record in Cuba with local musicians. She auditioned, prompting all producers to decide they wanted to work with her... In the end, she sung on three tracks on the album, including the massive "U Knew Before”. Seeing huge potential in her, Gilles invited her to London to perform at the album launch event, where she enchanted the packed out audience, and it was decided she should record a solo project for Brownswood Recordings / Havana Cultura. The announcement brought out a loud, rich, infectious laugh instantly recognizable as Dayme’s deep and chocolaty voice. “My first record, here,” she squeals. “It’s a crazy dream.”

Credits: 
Vocals & Campana - Daymé Arocena 
Produced by Simbad 
Thumb Pianos, Bass Cajon, Djembe,  Shakers, Small Percussions, 
CP 70 & B3 Organ - Simbad  


itunes

Daymé Arocena - Madres

A December 2025 jazz album made for quiet nights, warm light, and everything that happens after the snow starts falling. Smooth vocals, vintage-club energy, and a holiday mood that’s definitely not the traditional kind.

Play it softly. And definitely not at family dinner.

Silent Night (Not So Silent Edition)

Love Songs, Pt. 1

Hey Now (When I Give You All My Lovin')

Compost Black Label #71

Gonna Be My Day (Henrik Schwarz Acoustronic Remix)

Red Hot + Fela

Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am (feat. Brittany Howard & Merrill Garbus)

Film Of Life

Go Back (feat. Damon Albarn)

Sabres Of Paradise - Wilmot

Tropidélico

Father (Soul)

Ulla Dulla

Dreams

Galatea's Guitar

Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1940, of mixed Nigerian and Ghanaian parentage, Tony Allen taught himself to play by listening to records made by the American jazz drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. He began working as a professional musician in 1960, gigging around Lagos and variously playing highlife and jazz. Today living in Paris, Allen has long been acknowledged as Africa’s finest kit drummer and one of it's most influential musicians, the man who with Fela Anikulapo Kuti created Afrobeat - the hard driving, James Brown funk-infused, and politically engaged style which became such a dominant force in African music and whose influence continues to spread today.

Allen had to overcome strong parental opposition to realise his dream of
becoming a professional musician. “My parents were…not keen. Back then, in Lagos, musicians were more or less thought of as beggars, or worse. But I just put it in front of them. I was an electrical technician, but I wanted to make a change. My mother was never happy about it, but my father, who was an amateur musician, eventually agreed.”

Allen started out as a jazz drummer. “Art Blakey was my big influence, and before that, before I started club crawling, it was Gene Krupa. When I started, I tried to play like Gene Krupa. Then I discovered Blue Note Records and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers - it opened up another style to me. Max Roach was important too. I studied some lessons he wrote in Down Beat magazine about how to play high-hats. Most drummers in Lagos never used them, they were just a decoration on the kit,and I’d always thought that was something incomplete.”

Go Back (feat. Damon Albarn)

Tony Allen

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