Babá Ken Okulolo & Kotoja at Ashkenaz

Nigerian Babá Ken Okulolo & Kotoja will perform Saturday, September 27 at  Ashkenaz Music in Berkeley, California. One of San Francisco Bay Area’s leaders in the Afrobeat scene, Kotoja was created by Nigerian singer-bassist Babá Ken Okulolo and features band members from West Africa and America playing a bubbling brew of African highlife, juju, jazz, and world dance rhythms with driving guitars, riffing horns, and persuasive percussion.

New York clothier Dan Storper was so moved by a Kotoja concert in Golden Gate Park a decade back that he started the popular Putumayo record company, whose many releases (including the latest Kotoja CD, “Super Sawale”) feature positive, uplifting music from around the world in the spirit of Kotoja. “We see the world as one family,” Okulolo says of Kotoja’s style. “Our music expresses this message.”

 

Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center
1317 San Pablo Ave. at Gilman Berkeley, CA 94702
Doors at 9:00 p.m.; Show at 9:30 p.m.
$15/$12 advance & students
Website: http://www.ashkenaz.com