The Eccentric Afro-Funk of Rob Roy Reindorf

For a brief moment in time, Rob was a strong force in Ghana's music scene.

When listeners consider West African music, they think of Fela Kuti, the undisputed king of Afrobeat, a percussive strain of funk with extended grooves and call-n-response lyrics influenced by the American soul luminary James Brown. Yet beyond Fela’s famed performance venue the Shrine, beginning in the late 1970s, there were artists like William Onyeabor, whose music — with its darting synthesizers and electronic drums — felt dialed in from outer space, just as festive as Fela’s work, yet a little more peculiar.

The music of Rob Roy Reindorf is equally vital. Born in Accra, Ghana in 1949, he was enamored with the work of the aforementioned Brown, as well as with Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding, and started playing piano at a music school in Benin. Soon enough, he started gigging with local stalwarts Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou and Black Santiago, learning the ins and outs of music production while earning decent money on the road. Armed with a new creative experience, along with the freedom to be sonically audacious, he went back to Ghana and started writing his own songs, performing them with an army band called Mag-2, which had a full horn section and electronic production equipment. They had the sound Rob was looking for: the brassy funk of Stax Records, the gospel-soul of Aretha Franklin, and the highlife aura of Fela.

Rob sought a deeper, more cosmic sound that merged straightforward dance and extraterrestrial synth lines with lyrics sung in English. The music was meant to be progressive but also straight-up jammin, even if Rob’s vocals took some getting used to. Much like James Brown, on songs “I Got The Feelin” and “Cold Sweat,” for instance, the lyrics were never meant to be front and center. They came second to the beat; the vitality of the instrumentals took precedence. Rob rented an apartment near the army barracks and went to the base every day for two weeks.

Then, with the help of bandleader Amponsah Rockson, who arranged horns and chord progressions, they traveled to a recording studio and laid down what they’d been rehearsing, which became Rob’s debut album, Funky Rob Way — released in 1977 on Essiebons Records — a famed independent label in Ghana. To this day, it remains a high-water mark of esoteric funk in West Africa, an example of the intrigue that ensues when you push beyond preconceived notions of what your art is supposed to be.

I think Funky Rob Way arrived too late to get the adoration it deserved. A staunch Afro-funk record with hard drums and searing horns, it was released at a time when music was sleeker and more settled, as disco — a glossier blend of dance — became the dominant genre in nightclubs across the world. And while Funky Rob Way also had the discotech in mind, and the future to a certain extent, it harkened back to an era when funk was acoustic and not so tethered to studio soundboards. Still, Funky Rob Way was an impressive display of Rob’s space-centered ethos, which should’ve afforded him bigger performance opportunities in prominent venues.

In what’s usually the case for most things African, Rob’s music flew under the radar and wasn’t fully appreciated until it was reissued in the 2010s. I think I stumbled upon the album sometime around 2016, when, as an editor at Bandcamp Daily, I would spend nights combing through different label pages, and caught this via Analog Africa, which puts out obscure music from the continent. Where songs like the title track, “Boogie On” and “Just One More Time” scanned as upbeat party anthems, “Forgive Us All” was a sauntering blues number with simmering guitar chords and a persistent synth line, like a Ray Charles track recorded for the producer Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder Records.

In the rare moments that I’m asked to play music publicly, I almost always play “More,” an album closer so confident and joyous that it feels longer than its five-minute runtime. Both the track and LP feel brawny, immense, not flimsy like I think some highlife-funk can sound. Rob’s music had weight and undeniable power.

Three months later, Rob and the band went back to the studio to record his sophomore album, Make It Fast, Make It Slow, a calm offering compared with Funky Rob Way. It was also riskier, especially on the title track, where Rob simulated having an orgasm while the beat — a robust cluster of drums, bells and deep bass — unfolded beneath him. The music here also had more nuance: Where Funky Rob Way used the same rhythmic patterns and felt redundant at times, Make It Fast, Make It Slow deployed spacious arrangements, which gave Rob room to shine through vocally. He released a third album three years later — Hellfire on Tabansi Records — but it was clear that Rob’s run was over. He moved to Germany, then to Sweden where he worked and saved up money.

Eventually, he moved back to Accra and opened his own establishment, Pepper Chicken Restaurant, settling into a quiet life away from music. Forty-five years after his golden era, Rob’s vision warrants celebration. It takes courage to forge a creative road of any kind, not knowing who’s going to stick with the trip. It’s the ingenuity that’s remembered, even if it takes listeners some time to get there.