Last September Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou played to a packed house at the Barbican Centre in London. There's nothing unusual about a sold-out gig, but what was unusual was that this was ...

Last September Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou played to a packed house at the Barbican Centre in London. There’s nothing unusual about a sold-out gig, but what was unusual was that this was ...

‘Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou’. An orchestra, trading in densely layered rhythms, from the Benin costal town of Cotonou. Lacking a little something in the way of pizzazz, non? Call-and-response ...

It isn’t long since the pop past felt truly remote: old video footage was impossible to access, and you could only dream of having seen the great bands of the Sixties and Seventies. Now everything can ...

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo has been around in some form since the 1960s, but its exposure outside Africa — for both live performances and recordings — has been severely limited. But that's finally changed, ...

Two decades after breaking up, this versatile unit from West Africa's Benin returns with some new members and a good deal of their initial creative spark. Save this story Save this story It's been ...

Madjafalao is the new album from Benin’s Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou, a group which spans afrobeat and funk, mostly based around the tradition of Vodun rhythms. Its release next month will mark ...

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou are one of West Africa’s oldest and most successful bands, masters of Vôdun-inspired afrobeat. Singer and co-founder Vincent Ahehehinnou talks to RFI about their new ...

For all that we’re living through desperate times, it can be sobering to consider the challenges facing creative people in eras and places by no means unimaginably distant from our own. Take, for ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...