By JON CARAMANICA
There was talk of kokolets all Sunday night at Irving
Plaza. D'Banj, the Nigerian pop star who was headlining the show,
boasted, "I have too many kokolets around the world." Later on he
wondered, "Can I get two kokolets that can dance better than my
dancers?"
If it seemed like D'Banj, one of the
quickest-rising stars in Africa, has a one-track mind - kokolets, in his
lingo, are beautiful women - that wasn't far from the truth. As a
style, his was as monomaniacal in focus as Miami bass, one lusty come-on
after the next.
He is at the forefront of an emergent
style loosely called Afrobeats by some, a mélange of hip-hop, R&B
and other traditionally urban sounds with elements that hark back to
older African styles.
In practice on Sunday all that
meant was that D'Banj, backed by


