Various Artists

Compiled by the Trinidad-based collective the Wajang Diskotheque, Kaiso Power gathers recordings from the 1970s, when Port of Spain stood as one node in a wider Pan-Africanist exchange running through Kingston, London, New York and Lagos. Kaiso, the older name for calypso, had always carried sharp social commentary; here it meets jazz, funk and the insistent African drum, with several of these musicians working as teachers and community organisers as much as performers. The selections are loose and live: horns pushed loud, percussion ringing out, basslines heavy and buoyant. Clive Zanda opens with the jazz-kaiso of Ogun; Lancelot Layne, a pioneer of the spoken rapso style, contributes Umbawa; the Black Truth Rhythm Band bring percussion-driven consciousness to Save D Musician. Across the record the modern surfaces sit over an older rhythmic foundation, the continuity with West Africa always audible.