Fans of the current London scene have known the name for a few years. However, Kokoroko had the good sense to take their time before recording their first full album. Many discovered the collective founded by trumpeter Sheila Maurice-Grey and percussionist Onome Edgeworth through the swaying ballad ‘Abusey Junction’ which closed We Out Here (Qobuzissime), a brilliant 2018 compilation which put the focus on the aforementioned bubbling scene in the British capital... Since their formation around 2014, Kokoroko have undergone some stylistic evolution. Though bringing Afrobeat into the 21st century was their initial goal, we were soon treated to a pile-up of jazz, funk, dub, soul, Caribbean music and psychedelia. With one foot in the African continent (especially Nigeria and Ghana) and the other in a culturally diverse London, Kokoroko build up the power of their compositions by leaning them against an ultra-solid rhythm section around which gravitates a hypnotic groove, often sizzling brass, quite subtle melodies and, when necessary, beautiful vocal harmonies. Could We Be More is filled with a diversity of sounds, percussive textures and instrumental virtuosity. The approach is insistently collective, the effervescence is constant, and the recording was conceived as an album rather than a simple stringing together of moods. There is a real conceptual ambition on Could We Be More, as well as a will to reflect an era, the state of the world and the way its inhabitants think. Kokoroko are not content to simply pass on the legacy of their predecessors - such as Fela Kuti, the Jazz Warriors or Earth, Wind & Fire - but rather strive to continue to write history and help to shape its future. As Ornette Coleman once said: Tomorrow is the question! © Marc Zisman/Qobuz