Tell us about your music – how did you develop your sound?

We play a style of music called afro-beat which originates from Nigeria, made famous by a man named Fela Kuti. Fela used a combination of African rhythms and American funk music to create a powerful style of music with a strong political and social commentary. The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra continues this legacy – both the afro-beat sound and its message – but have introduced an element of hip-hop which gives the music a modern edge and is relevant to our personal experience and contemporary music at large. Typical afro-beat songs can go for 10 or 20 minutes, taking the audience to a space somewhere between trance-like African drumming and a dance set from James Brown.

The orchestra is up to 20 musicians! How does that work?

It’s really an essential ingredient for afro-beat, it’s how you can get the sound of a big horn section blazing over the top of many different layers of guitars, percussion, keyboards and vocals. Many of the orchestra’s members hail from Africa, particularly our vocalists, and many more have been playing African music in various forms in Melbourne and abroad for many years. However, putting together an orchestra out of a group of established musicians means we have to juggle a lot of schedules with artists who are busy recording and touring the country with other groups.

Tell us about recording in Africa.

In February this year, three of the orchestra’s founding members Zvi Belling, DJ Manchild and myself travelled to South Africa and Nigeria, with plans to record but also to research music over there. We travelled with a backpack containing a laptop, an mbox and a microphone, which is actually more than adequate as a portable studio. So first in Johannesburg we recorded with a rapper named Tumi, who we have worked with in previous projects and is well-known in the Australian hip-hop scene and around the world. In Lagos, we met Modenine, one of Nigeria’s most respected rappers, who apart from record on a tune for our upcoming album, became our unofficial tour guide, which in a city of 24 million people is a very handy thing! We were fortunate enough to spend some time with Femi Kuti, Fela’s Grammy award-winning son. We jammed with his band at the Famous Afrika Shrine and came away with some tales of Afro-beat from back in the golden ‘70’s.

What’s coming up in the future?

Currently we’re working on more recording and production for the album, which should be out in the second half of this year. We’ve got several new tracks now as a result of the Africa trip, and the next few months will be spent in the studio, and perhaps some smaller shows around Melbourne. We’re planning to release a few tracks on a vinyl 12” soon, with the album and some national shows to follow.

Australian music is?

... the future!