Keleketla! - Keleketla! review | Ammar Kalia's global album of the month

The Guardian 80

(Ninja Tune)
Coldcut and an inspiring array of South African and British musicians – plus the late Tony Allen – combine on this beguiling album

Call and response is a key form in music, from west African drum circles to jazz and hip-hop. It’s a means of musical dialogue, the connection of two differing ideas into a tentative unity. For South African and British collective Keleketla! – meaning “response” in Sepedi – it is the foundation for their self-titled debut album.

The group is led by Coldcut, founders of the record label Ninja Tune, after they were contacted by the Keleketla arts initiative in Johannesburg to collaborate on a record for the charity In Place of War. Johannesburg has developed a reputation for genre-bending releases in recent years, largely thanks to the efforts of pirate-radio-station-turned-label Mushroom Hour Half Hour. As such, Coldcut wisely tapped the label to select instrumentalists for this release, channelling this experimental spirit.