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Dexter Story is an artistic spirit in the truest sense of the phrase.
From his work as a multi-instrumentalist for acts like the Sa-Ra
Creative Partners, to his management role with Snoop Dogg and his
turn producing Daymé Arocena’s 2017 album Cubafonia, Story
understands the business from every conceivable angle.
Initially inspired by the music and cultures pervasive throughout
the Horn of Africa, Story translated his experiences there into his
previous album Wondem, followed closely by the single Wejene
Aola featuring jazz luminary Kamasi Washington, both on
Soundway Records. If Wondem was a brief glance into Story’s new
creative vision, Bahir is a pinpoint refinement of that purpose, the
fine-tuning and expanding of the world he created on his Soundway
debut.
On Bahir, Story steps in front of those influences and melds his
world into the one he fell in love with so strongly while in Africa.
One way in which he’s done so is by incorporating musicians from
both sides of this coin. LA luminaries are featured throughout, as
are African contemporaries he encountered throughout his travels.
Sudan Archives gives a show-stealing vocal performance on
“Gold”, while the Ethiopian producer Endeguena Mulu adds
impenetrable and psychedelic texture to the album’s title track.
So Bahir finds the polymath musician not stuck between two worlds,
but as a member of both. We get Ethiopian jazz tonalities,
Tuareg grooves, ekista dance rhythms, Afro-funk, Somalian
soul and forays into more contemporary jazz rhythms, too.
Angelenos like Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Josef Leimberg
give the record its backbone, while African artists like the Ethiopian
singer Hamelmal Abate give Bahir its glimmer and shine.