Afrikän Protoköl is the Afro Groove Sextet of Belgian saxophonist Guillaume Van Parys. Following his meeting with the Burkinabè drummer Moïse Ouattara, he has composed a music based on traditional rhythms from Burkina Faso and West Africa. Jazzy riffs, groove and improvisations merge together into a warm and festive transcontinental fusion. Established in Burkina Faso in 2013, the band was on tour in Europe and Africa in 2014 and 2015 to release its first album called Freedom From The Known. The public, the media and professionals alike have warmly received the project. It has been rewarded with the SIMA 2014 Jury Award at the Salon International de la Musique Africaine in Dakar in November 2014 and was nominated for the Octaves de la Musique 2015 in Belgium. The band releases its second album Beyond The Grid in 2017.

Although we could hear in the compositions clear influences from Afro Beat master Fela Kuti, Steve Coleman, Manu Dibango and Aka Moon, a very original identity has come out of this mix of emerging European and African jazz musicians. With a rhythmic section from Burkina Faso and horns from Belgium, Afrikän Protoköl proposes a colourful and dynamic show; an original music with universal appeal.

With this highly positive energy, this project is trying to respond to an urgent need in today's global context of self-withdrawal, fear and the growth of extremism and nationalism. The need to stand up for difference, open-mindedness, diversity and people’s free circulation, against patriarchal and neo-liberal logics which bring with them all manner of domination: the individualism over the collective, capital over labour, the material over the spiritual, religion over spirituality, man over the environment, external male principle over internal female principle, Having over Being.