Who Is This America?

The true strength of the Brooklyn-based corner of revivalist funk was in the global scope of its influences: James Brown’s Augusta and Isaac Hayes’ Memphis might’ve been the cradle of the sound, but it also thrived in the Nuyorican milieu of Eddie Palmieri, the Afro-Cuban jazz of Cándido Camero, and especially in Fela Kuti’s Lagos. Antibalas embodied this blend of styles so well they would eventually be the band behind a Broadway musical about Fela himself, but five years before that they used the Kalakuta Republic spirit to strike a funky salvo against the malfeasance of Iraq War-era America and the forces of colonialism. The note-perfect Afrobeat of national identity-crisis opener “Who Is This America Dem Speak of Today?,” the trial-slash-fracas world-wrecker roll call of “Indictment,” and the fury-ratcheting locomotion of call-and-response power struggle “Big Man” are the big immediate pleasures. And the 33-minute two-fer of dubbed-out jams to close it all out — the trunk-swinging slow-but-powerful majesty of “Elephant” and the contemplative (and sometimes comedically self-conscious) feminist-ally treatise “Sister” — erases any doubts as to whether they can hang as lively, conversational musicians.