Evento

Afrofunk Fest with People's Champs, Funk Ark and Hard Proof at Tropicalia

People's Champs wash the hottest dance rhythms from West Africa and South America in a deluge of retro-futurist synth tones and craft them into experimental indie songs with Stevie Wonder-esque lyrics. With their "crazy ass genre mash ups" (Blakbook), People's Champs' truly original sound is equal parts Sharon Jones, tUnE-yArDs, Os Mutantes, Betty Davis, William Onyeabor, Tears for Fears, and Prince. Critics are calling People's Champs a "New York supergroup!" (Lucid Culture) and "Well on their way to becoming NYC's de facto Funk and Afrobeat experience" (Deli Magazine).

Washington D.C.'s The Funk Ark is the creation of Will Rast, composer, pianist, and band spokesperson, fulfilling his lifelong desire of turning his soul over to The Funk. "I decided to become a musician in high school," he recalls. "I played my first gigs when I was 15, in bars and jazz clubs around Washington, DC." Rast worked as a freelance jazz session player and made a name for himself as a stylistically versatile sideman with various R&B and world music artists. With The Funk Ark, he gets to play an amalgamation of all the sounds he loves with some of the best musicians in the DC area. "To me, funk is the universal connection linking all music - people like James Brown and the JBs, The Meters, Santana, Fela Kuti, Medeski, Martin and Wood and The Fania Allstars. The Funk Ark is my shot at making the music that I love to listen to."

Locally produced and internationally-inspired, Hard Proof is an Austin-based collective that brings intense Afrobeat to the state of Texas. Hard Proof tightly fuses sounds from sub-Saharan Africa with adventurous jazz and deep funk to stimulate your brain and move your feet.

Members of Hard Proof also perform with bands such as Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, Ocote Soul Sounds, Echocentrics, The Calm Blue Sea and Cougar.

"Hard Proof excels in putting on high-energy, dancey shows that betray a careful ear toward a diverse subset of musical styles and approaches." -The Onion AV Club