Roforofo Jazz Fire Eater

Paris based Roforofo Jazz is a 7-piece liveband fronted by Chicago born MC Days (aka RacecaR), with a certain taste for adventurous blends, mixing hip hop, afrobeat and jazz into their very own style. After more than 15 years slashing the afrobeat of Les Freres Smith with his guitar cuts, Martin Smith digged into the musical sediments and silts in a swamp of hip hop, funk groove, afro power, jazz freedom radicality, with a certain taste for adventurous blends. This wax solid 5 tracks Vinyl was recorded live in Montreuil (France) at Studios La Peche, in November 2019, just a few weeks after the band toured in Nigeria and played at the mythical New Afrika Shrine on the occasion of Felabration 2019, where they got invited to perform by the Fela Kuti family for a series of concerts in Lagos. The 5 titles include the single “Fire Eater”, a raw afro hip hop tune mixing rhythms in the tradition of polyrhythm afrofunk tunes, while also alternating in between jazzy mood and burning hip hop anthem. “Dump It” is a dark, mid tempo beat, borrowing the groove signature of ethiopian soul, and coated with hip hop sharp drops, while horns bring the jazzyness through their themes. “Helelyos” is a cover/extrapolation of Iranian singer Zia’s hit, to which Days vocals bring an heavy old school hip hop vibe. “2Kick1” is a relentless afrobeat oriented tune, though with a languorous spacy chorus that breaks with the traditional afrobeat routine. And “What We Think We Saw” ends the EP with an opening to more psychedelic visions, in which a Gil Scott-Heron spoken word style meets jazzy space echoes, flutes under massive reverbs in a global vibe that could remind old analog recordings of Mandrill, Cymande or LKJ.