“It’s such an honor and a pleasure to get to make music with good friends and amazing musicians,” says Brian Paulding, co-founder of Kotoko Brass.
SPACE is bringing the rousing Boston-based band for a free show at Portland’s Western Promenade on Wednesday, August 21st. The show is co-presented by the Western Prom Sunset Concerts with help from the New England Foundation for the Arts.
I got the chance to talk to Brian and his brother Ben, as well as band member M’Talewa Thomas, about their influences, process, and origin story, which is as fun and natural as the music they play.
Brian and Ben Paulding brought the octet together in 2017, and have since been playing tunes heavily inspired by Kete music. “I would say that we are broadly inspired and motivated by Ashanti and Ghanaian drumming in general, but Kete certainly is the foremost style,” says Ben.
Kete, rooted in drumming and dance, was originally exclusively for the Ashanti royal court, playable only in the presence of the Ashanti King, Queen mother and Paramount chiefs. Its usage was liberalized after Ghana won its independence in 1957, when the Ghana Dance ensemble was formed to create a sense of Ghanaian identity and unite folks amongst the Ewe, Asante, or Dagomba. The group went to the Ashanti King’s palace and asked for permission to take Kete out of its palace context and present it on stage as a piece of Ghanaian culture as a whole. Now, Kete can be heard around Ghana, at weddings as well as funerals, where Kete functions to celebrate life and send the deceased into the next realm. Kete can also be found in the Ghanaian diaspora, with Kete groups in New York City and London.
As Ben puts it, “anywhere there’s a lot of people from Ghana, there are groups playing Kete.”
The name, Kotoko Brass, represents the fusion in the music the group plays. Kotoko is the emblem of the Asante people, literally translating to porcupine. It’s a nod to the percussive core of the band. The brass and horns that color Kotoko Brass’ music take a similar role to vocals in Asante music. Ben explains that the name is also an acknowledgement of the creation of the band, with Brian bringing in the melodic and harmonic players, and Ben incorporating the drummers.
Those drummers are Attah Poku and Kwame Ofori. In 2012, Ben moved to Kumasi, Ghana, to study Kete with Attah, who was born in the King’s palace and raised in the tradition of Kete drumming. Ben played and studied at the Center for National Culture with Attah and Kwame for two years. The trio began to take the traditional Kete percussion parts and adapt them to the drumset.
Eventually, both Attah and Kwame moved to Massachusetts, the Paulding brothers’ home state, to teach and play.
“We already had sort of our own take on the traditional music that we’ve been working on,” Ben said. “And then once those two guys arrived here in Boston, that’s really when we started dreaming up the idea of making a full band out of it.”
Brian and Ben had casually talked about starting a band, and then suddenly they had a gig booked.
“Now that we had a gig, I just asked all my favorite people/favorite musicians in town, which is M’Talewa on the bass and Yusaku on the keyboards,” Ben said. “To my surprise and amazement, they were both game to do it.” With the addition of Dillon Zahner on guitar and Andy Bergman on tenor sax, this would create Kotoko Brass.
Caribbean music is another style that heavily influences Kotoko Brass’ sound. M’Talewa Thomas is from Antigua, and listened to a lot of African artists at home, citing King Sunny Adé and Fela Kuti as some of his favorites. Listening to these artists brought him to the conclusion that the music being played in the Caribbean is not very far from what’s being played in Africa.
“The music that we play in the Caribbean, it all came from Africa anyway,” M’Talewa told me. “I bring a sort of a Caribbean approach. I was born and raised in and still play that kind of music on a regular basis. Naturally it becomes a part of me, so it’s also a part of Kotoko Brass.”
M’Talewa had always wanted to go to Africa. “In Antigua, every time the sun rises, I’m basically looking to Africa,” he said. “When the hurricanes come, they come in from Africa. So I’m always feeling that energy.”
In the summer of 2023, he and the rest of the band made the trip. They got the chance to play where it all started, in Ghana. They toured around the country, and made a stop in Kumasi to play at the Center for National Culture and the Akwasidae Festival at Manhyia Palace for the Ashanti King.
“Because the very early scenes for this band were formed at the Center for National Culture, which is where I was studying and playing with Attah when I lived there, it had always been a dream of ours to bring the band back — to bring the band home, really,” Ben said. They had the opportunity to play with the professional Ashanti drummers who are employed by the government specifically to maintain and perform Ashanti culture.
“They were singing, dancing and drumming along with our music. To be able to play in collaboration with them was amazing,” Ben shared.
Kotoko Brass seems to reach for what is inherent within them. They are currently working on a new record to follow their latest, The Years of the Quiet Sun, and are continuing to rely on their collaborative improvisation methods of making music. Taking inspiration from Ghanaian, Caribbean, and Jazz music, they create something new that can only happen with the voices of each member of the band.
The members of Kotoko Brass play music that is fun and impossible not to dance to, and have a good time while they do it.
Kotoko Brass play at the Western Prom at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, August 21st. Tickets are free.
The show is made possible with the support of the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.
