Kaleta & FROFAYAH is the afrobeat/jazz fusion project of NYC groove icon Leon “Kaleta” Ligan-Majek. From his beginnings in the seventies in the churches of his native Benin to prominence as a guitarist in the band of juju master King Sunny Ade, and then touring the world with Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 band, Kaleta has refined a groove-based musical language, culminating in a sound distinctly of his home, New York City. Kaleta calls this sound FROFAYAH, fed by his musical forebears, folk traditions, the boiling stew of New York’s jazz scene, and a healthy scoop of raw James Brown funk. 

FROFAYAH took shape in early 2020, when Kaleta joined up with the jazz fusion trio Microcorgi— Andrew McGowan on keyboards, Yuto Kanazawa on guitar, Ilya Dynov on drums. Longtime collaborator and friend Noah Dreiblatt joined to round things out on tenor and baritone saxophones. The quintet has been refining its sound in the studio since 2020, with a studio album on the way. Kaleta & FROFAYAH received an NYC Artist Corps Showcase at Wild Birds in Brooklyn in 2022, and can’t wait to share the joy of their music with the world in 2023.