UK funky, a house-based style that emerged around 2006 to form the latest branch of London street music's deep-rooted family tree, has many formal and stylistic parallels with African dance scenes, from Ghanaian hiplife and Cote D'Ivoirean coupé-decalé to these mzansi sounds.
Although early days yet, this may be an indication that something analogous to the cultural assimilation of Jamaican music that took place in the 1970s - resulting in a rash of diasporic fusions, from drum and bass to the blistering rhymes of Dizzee Rascal - may be occurring, as expatriate African communities in Britain increase in both number and cultural influence. Given these convergences, it is even possible to imagine house music's centre of gravity shifting from its traditional heartlands in the American Midwest and Northern Europe to altogether sunnier climes.
Beyond its obvious sonic merits, Ayobaness! rewires fundamental preconceptions of what African music is and should be. Thanks to the developed West's longstanding fascination with "traditional" folk cultures, the sounds of this massive continent have, for the last two decades, largely been viewed through the distant and distinctly folksy lens of "world music".