African Head Charge
Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah’s percussion and Adrian Sherwood’s studio made a music that is dub, post-punk and African rhythmic imagination without settling into any one of them.
African Head Charge began in London in 1981 as a studio project between Jamaican percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah and producer Adrian Sherwood. Bonjo brought Nyahbinghi, Poco and other percussion knowledge; Sherwood recorded, edited and treated the performances in On-U Sound’s basement environment. The project’s early mission borrowed Brian Eno’s phrase “a vision of a psychedelic Africa,” but the music quickly became more than a concept: layered drums, tape loops, voices, bass and dub effects forming a world with its own internal rules. “My Life in a Hole in the Ground” opened the catalog in 1981, “Songs of Praise” became a later landmark, and “A Trip to Bolgatanga” in 2023 showed the project still changing after four decades.