Bokanté receive two Grammy nominations for latest album ‘History’

History is the second album by the nine-strong, globally-spread band who are led by Snark Puppy founder Michael League. Their previous album What Heat, a collaboration with Jules Buckley and Metropole Orkest, was nominated for the ‘Best World Album’.

Recorded at Michael League’s studio in Barcelona, the album finds the band plugging into the blues, tracing the genre’s roots in West Africa and the Arab world through the diaspora into the retro-modern present.

The Guardian described the new album as “insinuatingly political but imaginatively unshackled”, and Songlines awarded it five stars, saying “History’s balance of sonorities and textures is testament to the group all being on the same page: shifting from unbridled urgency and insatiable grooves to meditative introspection in an instant. This ensemble seemingly have it all. And killer songs to boot.”

As ever, the themes of songs on History are politically driven. “Used positively, in moments of vulnerability music can make us more receptive to messages,” says Michael League. “In that sense Bokanté tries to open the listener up to the unique perspectives shared among the group’s members. We are multi-lingual, multicultural and multi-generational but there’s a connection we feel as musicians and people. It’s a really beautiful thing.”

The Grammy Awards ceremony takes place on Sunday, February 4, at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. History by Bokanté is available on CD, LP and all digital platforms.