Afrobeat! High Life! Salsa! Samba! Soukous! Bossa! Rai! Benga! Juju! Reggae! Funk! Drum’n’Bass! Mbalax! Kwaito! Garage! Fusions! – Doesn’t this look just marvellous?! But of course it does. And waddya know – all this shall SOUND even better. In the night club. This global brew of poppin’ beats, this ecumenical oeuvre of multi-kulti dance styles, that’s transported to our own backyard, finally, and spun here vinylly by the splendid twosome of London DJs, Rita Ray and Max Reinhardt. An experienced and open-minded couple of enlighteners of the British club scene for the past couple of years, Ray and Reinhardt, leaders of the travelling Shrine Posse, have been featuring live acts together with recorded music at various venues in London. (Inspired by the late Fela Kuti’s legendary Lagos club, The Shrine). This spring, courtesy of the British Council, The Shrine Posse of London is able to spread their gospel of «Afrocentric Musical Insurrection» to the Baltic and Uganda. At Jazzkaar 2000, DJ Rita and DJ Max appear, appropriately enough, in the company of Osibisa, the original world music pioneer-band led by the Ghana-born Teddy Osei.
It doesn’t happen too often, yet on this rare and precious occasion it’s bound to – good things will come to those who wait. (That’s us, y’all!) So let’s go and meet them halfway, at the very least. Or, let’s go one better – let’s go and have some fun! To the MAX …Rite?