Thank You Very Quickly

When Extra Golden, a collaborative project between DC punk scene regulars and Kenyan Benga musicians, released their debut in 2006, listeners could be forgiven for imagining that this continent-spanning group might be short-lived, especially in the wake of the death of singer Otieno Jagwasi that very year. Nonetheless, their third release, THANK YOU VERY QUICKLY, finds the group as robust as ever, and still hammering out their signature fusion of Kenyan pop and American r&b. Onyango Wuod Omari's powerful yet trickily syncopated drumming carries the majority of these tunes. Omari even shoulders vocal duties on "Ukimwi," a song intended to heighten international awareness of the AIDS epidemic and perhaps the album's best track.