Kokoroko

It was a celebration: Kokoroko performed at Enjoy Jazz for the first time three years ago, and the Alte Feuerwache had wisely dispensed with concert seating - no one would have been able to keep their seats. What trumpeter Sheila Maurice-Grey and guitarist Oscar Jerome had in mind when they founded Kokoroko was to develop a completely contemporary form of the Afrobeat once created by Fela Kuti and Tony Allen. In Kokoroko, West African highlife music is accordingly enriched with Caribbean rhythms, psychedelic funk and soul patterns, and not least with those eclectic jazz grooves that have become the trademark of the multi-ethnic, booming London scene. But of course the musicians are so young that they grew up in the 90s and 2000s with the urban sound of hip-hop in their ears, and sometimes Oscar Jerome's guitar playing even recalls Khruangbin's strange adaptation of Thai funk motifs. The horn section around Maurice-Grey - all female - creates immense energy, and when once asked how she would characterise the band, she said simply: "Black, British and young." "Be strong" is how Kokoroko translates into German. The strength perhaps also stems from being part of a larger movement, an artistic awakening that has succeeded not only in making jazz a hip event again, but equally a vehicle for political and social issues. In her youth, Maurice-Grey went through the highly respected talent factory of the British bassist Gary Crosby, from which, for example, Zara McFarlane, Moses Boyd or Shabaka Hutchings emerged, as well as other members of Kokoroko. No wonder that a sense of community must develop. After the first exclamation mark on Gilles Peterson's compilation "We Out Here" and a promising EP, Kokoroko's first album "Could We Be More" will now be released in 2022. Her fans should not only become more, but eventually be very many.