The drummer Tony Allen - creator of Afrogita died

On May 1, in Paris, at the 80th year of his life, Nigerian drummer Tony Allen died, PitchForkreports .

According to the publication, the cause of the death of the musician was the aneurysm of the abdominal aorta.

Tony Allen was born in Lagos in 1940. He began to play at a shock unit at the age of 18, working as an engineer at a Nigerian radio station. Allen, along with the Nigerian multi -instrumentalist Feli Kuti, is considered the creator of Afrobita - a musical genre that combines African rhythms with elements of jazz and Fanca.

As part of the group of Fela Kuti, who stated that there would be no Afrogite without Allen, the drummer recorded more than 30 albums in the 1960-1970s. He later moved to Paris and took up a solo career. He also recorded with Charlotte Hensbur, Grace Jones, Air and Gonjasufi. In recent years, Tony Allen has most actively collaborated with Damon Albarne in such projects as The Good, the Bad & The Queen and Rocket Juice & The Moon.

Allen's last album “Rejoice”, a joint entry with the South African trumpeter Hugh Maskel, was released at the end of March 2020.