Diamond Vibes was feeling good in his silver velvet pants as he walked around the city he had spent more than two decades in.
“I came down from Nevada City to get a break from life there,” he explained.
After living in San Francisco for 25 years, Vibes, 54, moved to Nevada City during the pandemic to work on his art.
Vibes is the vocalist and percussionist in Afrolicious, a band that he says created a movement of percussion-based, danceable funk music in the Bay Area. Every Thursday night for 13 years, Vibes played and sang at the Elbo Room.
The music, he says “has respect and love for all of the Afro music, whether it be reggae, hip-hop, folk, or any other blues-based music.” It is music to get people dancing.
And, over the years, Afrolicious grew in popularity. Eventually, Afrolicious opened for Erykah Badu, and played alongside the Broadway cast of Fela!, a musical based on the music of Nigerian multi-instrumentalist Fela Kuti.
“Everything we do should always be for the greater good and our community,” said Vibes, who grew up in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant. Music lets him do that.
“When I go on stage to play, I feel that it’s coming from my soul. It’s non-rehearsed.”
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