Allen & Allen

Lore & Background

The two soon-to-be preachers met while attending Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. Bishop Bruce Allen was graduating as Bishop Allen Wiggins was entering the college in the early 1990s. Bruce is a keyboardist, while Wiggins is a saxophonist, and they formed the urban contemporary gospel music duo Allen & Allen. Bruce Allen was raised in East St. Louis, Illinois, before moving to Florida for college; he married First Lady Annie Renita Allen (née Mercer) on December 3, 1997. Wiggins was raised in Orlando, Florida, by his parents Reverend Dr. R.W. and Beulah Wiggins; he is married to First Lady Deborah Denise Wiggins, and they have five children: Michael, Brandy, Julian, Allen II, and Jonathan.

Reader's Guide

Allen & Allen's significance lies in their fusion of urban contemporary gospel with jazz-funk and soul jazz, achieving consistent chart presence on the Billboard Gospel Albums chart from 1994 through 2001. Their debut album, Allen & Allen (1994, Light Records), peaked at No. 20, followed by A-Blazing Grace (1995, CGI Records, No. 29) and Christmas Like Never Before (1995, CGI Records, No. 31). Come Sunday (1996, Platinum Entertainment) reached No. 17, and Love Sweet Love (2001, self-released) peaked at No. 31 on the Gospel Albums chart and No. 14 on the Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. Two albums—A New Beginning (1998) and Impressions (2003)—did not chart. The duo's collaboration ended in 2007 when Bruce Allen suffered a stroke; he later released a solo EP, Come Back, in 2024. Their legacy includes seven albums across four labels and a notable impact on the urban contemporary gospel genre.

Did You Know?

• Allen & Allen released seven albums with four labels: Light Records, CGI Records, Platinum Entertainment, and self-released.
• Bruce Allen released a solo five-song EP titled Come Back in 2024.

Roots in Lagos: The Making of a Drummer

Tony Oladipo Allen entered the world on 20 July 1940 in Lagos, the son of James Alabi Allen, a motor mechanic, and Prudentia Mettle, who hailed from the Gold Coast. Growing up in a household where his father's listening habits shaped the sonic landscape, young Allen absorbed Jùjú, the Yoruba popular music of the 1940s, alongside American jazz and the thriving highlife traditions of Nigeria and Ghana. He did not pick up a drum kit until the age of eighteen, while employed as an engineer at a radio station. He built his technique by studying recordings of jazz greats Art Blakey and Max Roach, as well as Ghanaian pioneer Guy Warren, later known as Kofi Ghanaba, who had helped lay the groundwork for Afro-jazz. His first professional opportunity arrived when Victor Olaiya brought him into the Cool Cats to handle claves; when the band's drummer departed, Allen stepped behind the full kit. He went on to perform with Agu Norris and the Heatwaves, the Nigerian Messengers, and the Melody Makers, steadily sharpening the hybrid groove that would later define an entire genre.

The Fela Kuti Partnership and the Birth of Afrobeat

In 1964, Fela Kuti reached out to Allen for an audition with a jazz-highlife ensemble he was assembling. The two had already crossed paths as sidemen on the Lagos circuit, and Kuti immediately recognized something singular in Allen's playing, remarking that he was the only drummer in Nigeria who could fuse jazz with highlife in that particular way. Allen became an original member of the Koola Lobitos. After a 1969 trip to the United States, he assumed the role of musical director for Africa '70, the band that forged a new militant African sound blending the heavy groove of soul with jazz, highlife, and the polyrhythmic structures of Yoruba tradition. In a band where Fela wrote out every musician's part, Allen was the sole member who originated his own material, choosing rhythmic patterns drawn from Yoruba and other Nigerian and African traditions. Together they recorded more than thirty albums. Yet by the late 1970s, disputes over royalties and recognition, compounded by what Allen described as a bloated touring entourage of seventy-one people with only thirty actually in the band, led him to walk away in 1979, taking several members with him.

Post-Fela: Genre Exploration and Reinvention

After departing Africa '70, Allen formed his own ensemble and released No Discrimination in 1980, continuing to perform in Lagos until his emigration to London in 1984. A subsequent move to Paris opened new doors: he recorded alongside King Sunny Adé, Ray Lema, and Manu Dibango, and issued N.E.P.A. in 1985. Freed from the constraints of a single genre, his post-Fela catalogue ranged across Afro-funk, alternative rock, avant-garde hip-hop, electronic music, and dub. His thirteenth album, Lagos No Shaking, released in June 2006, marked a deliberate return to the traditional Afrobeat sound, captured live in Lagos with a full-sized band. In 2009, World Circuit released his album Secret Agent. In 2017, Blue Note Records put out a four-track EP, A Tribute to Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, in which Allen reworked Blakey's "Moanin'" through an Afrobeat lens—a fitting nod to one of his earliest drumming heroes. That same year he also contributed to Malian singer Oumou Sangaré's album Mogoya with the track "Yere faga."

Legacy, Late Collaborations, and Final Years

The music world's reverence for Allen was unmistakable. Brian Eno called him "perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived," while Fela himself declared that without Allen, Afrobeat would not exist. In 2002, Allen appeared on the Red Hot Organization's tribute compilation Red Hot and Riot, performing "No Agreement" alongside Res, Ray Lema, Baaba Maal, Positive Black Soul, and Archie Shepp. His 2006 meeting with Damon Albarn—sparked after Allen heard Blur's 2000 single "Music Is My Radar," which referenced him—ignited a long collaboration that produced the Good, the Bad & the Queen (2007, 2018) and Rocket Juice & the Moon (2012). He also contributed drums to Charlotte Gainsbourg's 5:55, appeared in Air's "Once Upon a Time" video, and added his voice to Zap Mama's Supermoon and ReCreation. Filmmaker Opiyo Okeyo's 2019 documentary Birth of Afrobeat, which premiered on PBS on 20 January 2020, chronicled his career. Allen's final recordings included the Gorillaz track "How Far?" (2020) and seven contributions to the collaborative album Keleketla! (2020). He passed away on 30 April 2020.