Singing in 1954 as Young Tiger, George Browne also invoked Afro-Caribbean tradition. In African Dream, he imagines his own triumphant return in the motherland, met by crowds with a fatted calf, and the ceremonial performance of a shango song - commonly known as Oken Karange - about prosperity and the coming of Ogun... His account is rueful, rapturous, and tongue in cheek, in equal measure, before the dream is rudely interrupted by the pressures of everyday iving in London, and Young Tiger finds himself half-asleep singing Oken Karange to his irate landlord.

"I picked up the original Yoruba chant from the shango churchesm tgere were four, in my neighborhood in Laventille, in the early 30s. Sometimes a feast in these tents would last for several days. They had three drums... three musical pitches - the comgo, the oumele (with two sticks, like a kettle drum), and the bass drum. Many, many songs, hymns you might call them, sometimes monotonous, building till someone got the power, then they might pass out, speaking in a different way, the spirits got them, a great spectacle. I used to think it was gibberish until I sang Karange once at a party in London. A Nigerian understoof what I was saying. An eye-opener for me."

Labels: african, alex