Though most debuts are the culmination of a lifetime of influences and experiences, few artists succeed in mapping their musical journey quite as vividly as Baba Ali has on Memory Device. Tracing his Nigerian heritage, an adolescence absorbing No Wave and the hip hop on NYC’s Hot 97, time immersed in the techno scene in Berlin, and the experimental punk spirit of his current base in London, Memory Device is an enthralling introduction to a musician who resolutely defies pigeonholing. Written during lockdown, and recorded with Al Doyle (LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip) in East London, Memory Device is both a dizzyingly inventive exploration of Baba’s complex musical DNA, and a thought-provoking treatise on the collective angst of modern existence; a dance record dealing in small ‘p’ politics that, spiritually, has been three decades in the making.
