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Biography
Tony Allen (born Tony Oladipo Allen in Lagos, Nigeria on 12 August 1940; died 30 April 2020 in Paris) was a Nigerian drummer, composer, and songwriter who lived and worked in Paris, France. Allen was the drummer and musical director of Fela Kuti's band Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Africa 70 from 1968 to 1979, and was one of the primary co-founders of the genre of Afrobeat music.
Of mixed Nigerian and Ghanaian parentage, Allen taught himself to play drums 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. He has long been acknowledged as Africa's finest kit drummer and one of it's most influential musicians, the man who with Fela 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.
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