When Ye Ye Fever featured as the Guardian’s club pick of the week under its Mama Ko Mama Sa moniker, its then venue The Bees Mouth started to accrue queues that snaked down Western Road. So, after a brief nomadic period, it’s now found new pastures to settle on with the cobbled floors of the Green Door Store.
Any anxieties that the grizzly grey weather might thwart a good turnout are soon blown away. The venue fills up with ankle-flashing hipsters, overly earnest hippies and funky highlife sounds as we dance to the African fusion of chanted vocals, high-octane percussion and complex rhythms.
With all the soukous, afrobeat and kwassa kwassa tunes it’s like being at a carnival celebrating the continent’s diverse and infectious music, except under the shelter of rafters and rickety wooden doors with the rain threatening outside.
By 2am there’s a conga weaving past the bar, picking up bodies as it winds back to the main room, and it’s safe to say everyone’s got the Ye Ye Fever.
FYI
NEXT EVENT: Green Door Store Fri 8th
WEB: facebook.com/yeyefever
DJ MIXES: mixcloud.com/YeYeFever
DOWNLOAD PHOTOS: On Our Flickr
TOP TEN
Afro National ‘Mr Who You Be?’
Bright Engelberts & the B.E. Movement ‘Get Together’
The Funkees ‘Ole’
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo ‘Trop Parler C’Est Maladie’
Christiana Essien ‘Black Ladies Are Funky Ladies’
Chief Ebenezer Obey ‘Eyi Yato’
Pepe Kale ‘Pon Moun Paka Bouger’
Sir Victor Uwaifo ‘Ohue (Frankie Francis & Simbad Edit)’
Green Arrows ‘No Delay’
Osayomore Joseph ‘Africa Is My Root’
WORDS BY ZAC COLBERT
PHOTOS BY JAMES KENDALL
