Last September Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou played to a packed house at the Barbican Centre in London. There's nothing unusual about a sold-out gig, but what was unusual was that this was ...

Séance of the ancient and urban, conjured by a spidery, hypnotic rhythm derived from spirit possession ceremonies, the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou owes its black magic to the Vodoun Effect. That ...

Overnight success can take years. For the members of Benin's Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, it has taken more than 40 of them. Just as Cuba's Buena Vista Social Club found before them, even the ...

When I walk into the Orchestre's Paris hotel on the day of their European debut, Vincent Ahehehinnou greets me. He is the James Brown fan recruited in 1968 to "heat up" gigs with the unhinged screams ...

It’s almost a miracle that, tomorrow night, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou will play the London Scala, and that just weeks ago they released their first album proper in decades, Cotonou Club. And, ...

‘Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou’. An orchestra, trading in densely layered rhythms, from the Benin costal town of Cotonou. Lacking a little something in the way of pizzazz, non? Call-and-response ...

Le Tout-Puissant Orchestre Poly-Rythmo is a difficult ensemble to follow. For one thing, they have functioned under the names Poly Rythmo de Cotonou, TP Orchestre Poly-Rythmo and L'International ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. If you didn’t know any better, you might easily mistake Orchestre ...

Two decades after breaking up, this versatile unit from West Africa's Benin returns with some new members and a good deal of their initial creative spark. Save this story Save this story It's been ...

While Strut continue to revive the career of these forgotten West African heavyweights with a killer new studio LP, Samy Ben Redjeb’s great archive label take us back to 1973 for Orchestre Poly-Rythmo ...