World music has been a term non grata for a while now (reductive, meaningless and racist are common accusations thrown at it), but 10-piece ensemble Lakuta are undoubtedly a global act. With members hailing from Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Malaysia, Spain and the UK, the Brighton-based outfit combine the gamut of western dancepop (soul, disco, funk) with Afrobeat and Latin sounds. Tanzanian-Kenyan singer Siggi Mwasote is very much the group’s dominant voice on this debut, and she uses it to wordily and redoubtably cover the kind of right-on topics the album’s title would suggest. That includes persecution of gay men on Bata Boy, while So Sue Us condemns the immorality of the music industry’s exploitative tendencies (“you think you’ve got a lasso / but you’ve tied your own noose”) with satisfyingly neat phrasing. Her rousing lyrics are matched by an infectiously danceable bed of sound: a frivolous, uplifting spirit and a steely core.
