Like Bob Dylan leaving the folk scene behind, strapping on an electric guitar, and assaulting the crowd at Newport with a set of searing electric blues-rock a decade earlier, Jorge Ben’s África Brasil sent shockwaves through his loyal audience. On África Brasil, Ben abandoned his signature swinging, acoustic “samba-soul” or “samba-rock” style, switched to an electric guitar, and transformed his approach, delivering a set of tunes that melded the central elements of his approach to samba with hard-driving funk grooves. Brashly declaring his Afro-Brazilian identity over electric guitar-driven funk grooves, he moved on from the acoustic sambas upon which he had built his reputation, and within the next year, he was in London recording at Island Studios establishing himself...