Their own spin on Afrobeat

SAN FRANCISCO -- For Aphrodesia, the moment of truth came when the San Francisco band took the stage at The Shrine, the legendary Lagos club founded by Nigeria's late musical rebel-in-chief Fela Anikulapo Kuti. The gig was the culmination of a monthlong trip to West Africa, and the 11-piece combo's performance marked the first time a Western band brought Fela's funk-driven Afrobeat style back to the source.

Part of an international Afrobeat movement that has flourished since Fela's death from AIDS a decade ago, Aphrodesia had arrived in Ghana in February 2006 with the vague hope of traveling to Nigeria when a chance encounter put them in touch with Fela's son, bandleader, saxophonist, and Afrobeat standard bearer Femi Kuti. Against all odds, the band made it to The Shrine and put on the show of a lifetime.

"We were all exhausted from trying to cross the border all day, dealing with armed soldiers in our face, snatching our passports and looking for bribes," says bassist Ezra Gale, who performs with Aphrodesia at the Milky Way Lounge on Sunday (a detailed account of the harrowing trip from Ghana to Nigeria can be found on the band's website, aphrodesia .org).

"We're looking out at this crowd of 400 Nigerians standing there with their arms folded, looking back at us like, OK white people, let's see what you got," Gale says. "Three or four songs into our set, Femi came out and played with us, and that was the stamp of approval. Once that happened, everyone was up and dancing and the rest of the night it was a big party."

Founded by Gale and vocalist Lara Maykovich in 2003, Aphrodesia has honed its own particular take on the Afrobeat sound, incorporating influences far beyond the original blend of insistent James Brown funk and West African polyrhythms. Maykovich, who studied Shona thumb piano while living in Zimbabwe, brings the incantatory patterns of m'bira into Aphrodesia's mix. Much like Brooklyn's Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, widely considered the United States' seminal post-Fela Afrobeat band, Aphrodesia also draws on Afro-Caribbean, reggae, and hip-hop grooves.

Jazz also figures prominently in Aphrodesia's sound, as the band is stocked with potent improvisers such as saxophonists Mitch Marcus and Sylvain Carton, founding members of the wildly inventive ensemble Japonize Elephants. But it's the crunching, horn-laden approach founded by Fela that forms the bedrock of Aphrodesia's style, just as his outspoken politics mesh with the band's sense of mission.

Indeed, Fela's fearless commitment to social justice remains a key part of his legacy -- he was jailed and beaten repeatedly for his scathing denunciations of the corruption of Nigeria's military governments -- a bequest that many Afrobeat bands have embraced. Aphrodesia first gained widespread attention in 2004's "Just Vote Tour," a cross-country voter registration drive in a vegetable oil-powered bus (they're riding the fourth incarnation of that petroleum-free vehicle on this East Coast tour).

While one can simply enjoy their relentless grooves, Aphrodesia's songs often reflect the band's left-leaning agenda, whether railing against the Iraq war or championing environmental causes. "We never sat down and said, OK, we need to be a political band," Gale says. "It flows out of who we are as people and how the music speaks to us. Which isn't to say you couldn't write a silly Afrobeat pop song. I'm sure you could, and I reserve the right to do that. But so far, the grooves and the politics really lend themselves to each other."

Gale came to Afrobeat after immersing himself in jazz, particularly the early 1970s fusion of Miles Davis, a style he explored in an expansive combo, Bitches Brew, that won an avid following on the Bay Area's mid-1990s acid jazz scene. He and Maykovich first connected about six years ago in the Afro-Cuban band Mas Cabeza. Maykovich spent 1997-98 in Africa, where she studied and performed with members of Akrowa Dance Ensemble of Ghana and the National Music and Dance Company of Zimbabwe.

"I always related to rhythm-based music, and African music is so inviting and inclusive," Maykovich says. "Its nature and purpose is to bring people together, which is why I feel that it's such a gateway to creating new forms. I love that Afrobeat was a fusion of funk and African rhythms, and the idea that it allowed a lot of expansion and experimentation because of its nature as a mixing and gathering."

Fela's sound itself changed considerably over time, but for many years it was difficult to track his evolution because his records were out of print. When his son Femi Kuti started recording for MCA, the label launched a vast reissue project covering more than 30 albums recorded between 1970 and '81. Fela's newfound influence became clear on 2002's AIDS fund-raiser album "Red Hot & Riot," which features artists such as Common, Meshell Ndegeocello, Macy Grey, Roy Hargrove, and D'Angelo interpreting Fela's tunes. With the new availability of Fela's music and Antibalas touring widely, a national Afrobeat community emerged, a scene that seems to be gaining momentum.

"There's a lot of contact with bands across the country," Gale says. "We see the guys from the Bay Area Afrobeat band Albino all the time and occasionally share some members with them. Our old saxophonist plays with Antibalas. And the last time we came through Boston we performed with the Boston Afrobeat Society. To me it's just like the punk rock movement I grew up with in the '80s, but the bands are bigger."