Go back

Fela Kuti said it himself: without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat. “Go Back” finds the drummer in his mid-seventies, decades after leaving Africa ’70, doing what he always did — playing less than anyone else would and making it count for more — while Damon Albarn sings over the top like a man talking himself into a hard decision.

The two had circled each other for years — Albarn once sang Allen’s name into a Blur single — before writing this one together for Film of Life (2014). It’s a hushed, horn-lined ballad, made in homage to the African refugees who landed on Lampedusa, and its title works as both lament and instruction. Underneath sits the drumming Brian Eno called that of “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived”: no fills, no announcements, a pulse that seems to breathe on its own.

Listen for what he leaves out.