(CNN) -- "The first thing he asked was 'Are you the one who said that you are the best drummer in this country?' I laughed and told him, 'I never said so.' He asked me if I could play jazz and I said yes. He asked me if I could take solos and I said yes again." That's how Tony Allen details his first ever encounter with Fela Kuti back in the mid-1960s, a meeting that was destined to trigger an explosive sonic collaboration that a few years later gave birth to the blistering Afrobeat sound -- arguably the most exciting period in the history of popular West African music.
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Legendary Nigerian drummer Tony Allen has released an autobiography
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Allen is famous for helping create Afrobeat by fusing different beats and patterns
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Described as the world's greatest drummer, he worked for 15 years with Fela Kuti
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Aged 73, Paris-based Allen continues to make music to this day
Afrobeat
Afrobeat
But it was onstage where the full force of @placeholder's intoxicating sound and the talents of Fela and Allen really shone through.
Tony Allen
Tony Allen
Allen
Allen
In the end, Allen says it was not the ongoing pay disputes but the increasingly volatile situation around Fela's political activism that led to @placeholder leaving the group in 1978 -- events like the army attack on Fela's compound in 1977.