RIP Nigerian Afro-Rock Music Percussionist/Drummer Remi Kabaka Tony Amadi a journalist on PressReader.com reported news of Remi Kabaka’s passing on December 20, 2025. 

“Rock music percussionist of international repute and Nigeria’s unsung hero Remi Kabaka has passed on at 80 with details of his death still shrouded in uncertainty. He died in Los Angeles where he lived his final days on earth on December 8, 2025. 

“He was the most influential rock musician in Nigeria history but he never flaunted the roles he played to make Nigerian music great.” 

The musician and master of the talking drum was born March 27, 1945 in Ghana to Nigerian parents.  Kabaka relocated to London in the mid-sixties, and became a central figure in the city’s expat music scene inside venues like Club Afrique in Soho.     

I knew of Remi Kabaka’s African rhythmic contributions to several Island Records discs, and Paul McCartney & Wings’ Band On The Run, along with studio sessions and live road work with Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Hugh Masekela, and Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints tour.  Kabaka also wrote the tune “Happy Vibes” on the Steve Winwood four-CD set, The Finer Things.  

During the 1970s, Remi was entrenched in the afro-jazz scene and composed the 1978 soundtrack to director Ola Balogun’s Black Goddess. 

In June, 2001, The L.A. Weekly nominated Remi Kabaka in their awards category for “Best World Percussionist.” 

Over the last 25 years, Kabaka was booked in clubs and hotels around the beach community of Santa Monica.            

“To start with, I’m here to support with my hands,” explained Remi in a 2001 interview with me. 

“You establish support, and then it builds. The talking drum is an amazing instrument. It does everything that a drum can do, but it spreads the keys too.  It has taken me years to transpose all the stuff on to the talking drum.  That comes from experience as well. The vibe is almost scientific.  We tell stories with our hands and fingers,” emphasized Kabaka.  

“I’ve worked with John Martyn, Stevie Winwood, Jim Capaldi, John Lennon, George Harrison, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Arthur Lee, Denny Laine, Bob Marley, Stephen Stills, Mariam Makeba, Doris Troy, Paul McCartney, and the Rolling Stones.”

Remi appeared three times with the Stones providing percussion during “Sympathy for the Devil” in 2002 and 2003 Southern California shows. Kabaka was on stage at their July 1969 Hyde Park London concert event. 

This century, Kabaka recorded with guitarist Toulouse Engelhardt and producer Chris Darrow, and sessions with the production duo Tea.   

In our conversation, I asked about Jimi Hendrix. Kabaka knew Jimi, and occasionally played and jammed with him in the studio. 

“I called him Marshall,” Remi recalled,” a loving nod to his civilian name, James Marshall Hendrix. 

On March 17, 1970 Kabaka and Hendrix were invited by Love co-founder Arthur Lee to Olympic Studios in London and cut “The Everlasting First,” with Lee. It was included as part of Love’s False Start.  

I was aware of the association Remi had to Bob Marley and the Wailers.  He encountered Marley in very late 1970 or early 1971 at the time Bob was doing live dates in England with songwriter, mentor and music publisher, Johnny Nash.  

When Marley with the Wailers arrived in the UK for their own debut, it was Kabaka recommending his guitarist, Al Anderson for the band, and suggested another guitarist who joined Marley and the Wailers, Junior Marvin.  

Kabaka earlier studied under master percussionist and musician Ambrose Campbell, who Fela Kuti has hailed as “the father of modern Nigerian music.” 

In the mid-seventies Leon Russell invited Campbell to record and tour with him. In 1979 Leon introduced me to Ambrose, and continued to praise him globally as his “spiritual adviser.”   

“I feel a sense of pride checking out world beat and global music saturating the planet,” Remi emphasized. “I’ve been watching and helping spread the African beat around the world for the past 35 years.  

“Now I’ve got out all my recipes in a big pot.  It’s an amazing soup and all this experience of a half a century. We now get to utilize different tempos and timings in the structure of the items we record and perform together,” he summarized. 

Remi Kabaka is the father of artist and musician Remi Kabaka Jr., since 2015, the drummer, voice over artist and a producer of the virtual rock group the Gorillaz.  

(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love. 

Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s published The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz in 2018. In 2021 the duo wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child. 

Harvey’s Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) is scheduled for 2026 publication).  The post RIP Nigerian Afro-Rock Music Percussionist/Drummer Remi Kabaka  first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.