Oscar Sulley & The Uhuru Dance Band : Bukom Mashie

There aren't many songs where just the drum fill is awesome, but this is one of them. A clattering pile of percussion starts at a frantic tempo, and then that simple fill ushers in a staggering bass line. Saxophones dart from side-to-side avoiding stabbing, voluminous horns; the funky beat swings, bobbing up and down like a car with soft suspension. Sax and flute solos and chanting vocals are all swept up in Sulley's wild arrangement, a sort of miniaturized take on Fela's cinemascope big-band funk.
It's amazing that the song is from 1973 and was never released until 2003, when the Sound Way folks scooped the weathered masters off a pressing plant shelf. Sulley now leads Ghana's national symphony orchestra and teaches percussion to poor children in Accra.