For all that we’re living through desperate times, it can be sobering to consider the challenges facing creative people in eras and places by no means unimaginably distant from our own. Take, for ...

Séance of the ancient and urban, conjured by a spidery, hypnotic rhythm derived from spirit possession ceremonies, the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou owes its black magic to the Vodoun Effect. That ...

Sign up for City Lights, our twice-weekly guide to arts and nightlife in the D.C. area. It lands in your inbox every Sunday and Thursday. The musicians in Orchestre ...

Sign up for City Lights, our twice-weekly guide to arts and nightlife in the D.C. area. It lands in your inbox every Sunday and Thursday. With entrees like shrimp ...

It’s almost a miracle that, tomorrow night, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou will play the London Scala, and that just weeks ago they released their first album proper in decades, Cotonou Club. And, ...

Better than: Air conditioning in a heat wave. There’s a shopping list of fine pop bands from throughout the African continent listed on one page of drumming major John Miller Chernoff’s esteemed 1979 ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. If you didn’t know any better, you might easily mistake Orchestre ...

When I walk into the Orchestre's Paris hotel on the day of their European debut, Vincent Ahehehinnou greets me. He is the James Brown fan recruited in 1968 to "heat up" gigs with the unhinged screams ...

Three cult albums, culled from a repertory of over 500 songs, primed an expectant audience. Having the tag “voodoo funk” attached doesn’t do any harm to the band’s mystique either and, for once, it is ...

Last September Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou played to a packed house at the Barbican Centre in London. There’s nothing unusual about a sold-out gig, but what was unusual was that this was ...

Two decades after breaking up, this versatile unit from West Africa's Benin returns with some new members and a good deal of their initial creative spark. Save this story Save this story It's been ...