Only in Berkeley! Ashkenaz hosts a night of great dance music by Bab� Ken & the West African Highlife Band as the afterparty to the 8th Annual Berkeley World Music Festival, the free, daylong, multi-venue fest along Telegraph Avenue and People's Park with dozens of world musicians, most of whom now call Berkeley their home.

African Highlife dance classics are the heart and soul of concerts by the West African Highlife Band. Launched by Kotoja's Bab� Ken Okulolo, the West African Highlife Band was born from a request by the late founder of Ashkenaz, David Nadel, for a band to concentrate on Ghanaian and West African highlife dance music and rhythmic styles. With master musicians from several West African countries and the United States, the band draws on folk traditions combined with modern stylistic elements, played with acoustic and electric instruments, and revives the infectious classic highlife dance hits of Ghana and Nigeria.

Okulolo first came to the U.S. as part of King Sunny Ade's band, and he was also the bassist in Nigeria's seminal Afro-rock group Monomono. Since moving to Oakland in 1985, he has created a stable of African bands including Kotoja and the Nigerian Brothers. Along with Okulolo, the West African Highlife Band features Soji Odukogbe, lead guitarist in Fela Kuti's Egypt 80 band; Nii Armah Hammond, founder of Ghana's Hedzoleh Soundz; Liberian trap drummer Lemi Barrow; and Pope Flyne, lead singer of Ghana's Sweet Talks.