Tony Allen, the pioneering Nigerian drummer who helped create the Afrobeat genre, died on Thursday at the age of 79 in Paris. According to his manager, Allen’s cause of death is unknown but not linked to the coronavirus. Allen served as the musical director and drummer for legendary Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti in the ’60s and ’70s. Before his death in 1997, Kuti once said that “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat.” Allen was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1940 and taught himself how to play the drums by mimicking American jazz drummer Max Roach. He met Kuti in 1964 and they went on to record dozens of albums as Fela and the Africa ’70, including Gentlemen in 1973 and Zombie in 1976. Allen left the band in 1979 due to disputes with Kuti about royalties, and went on to collaborate with a number of artists and joined the band the Good, the Bad & the Queen, with Damon Albarn, Paul Simenon, and Simon Tong as their drummer. Allen’s life and storied career were captured in his autobiography, Tony Allen: Master Drummer of Afrobeat. Musician Brian Eno described Tony Allen as “perhaps the greatest drummer who ever lived.”
