This mundanity is testimony enough to the integration of voodoo, or vodoun, into daily life in Benin, the country that claims to have given birth to the religion.
Lead vocalist Vincent Ahehehinnou, in the band since 1968, says: "All African tradition is based in vodoun.
They performed a varied repertoire of Afrobeat, songs based on the vodoun (voodoo) rituals in Benin, Latin music and James Brown-infunknced funk.
It's a celebration of vodoun.
What gives the music its bite is the percussion, which is based on rhythms linked to vodoun deities.
"They claim they put a vodoun spell on me, says Maillot, "so perhaps it's not entirely my doing.
He explains he has converted to Christianity and won't sing to the vodoun gods.
Sato and sakpata, two rhythms from Benin's spiritual tradition of vodoun (Westernized as voodoo), infuse the songs alongside rock, funk, Afro-Cuban rhythms and what may be glimmers of Arabic or North African music.
Here is another Haiti: in particular, the Haiti of Vodoun rites and their scenes of religious possession.
Miles Cleret's Soundway Records released The Kings of Benin Urban Groove, and Frankfurt-based label Analog Africa released The Vodoun Effect and Echoes Hypnotiques.
The screamingest track on the anthology, "Gbeti Madjro," is by Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, from Benin, and the label followed through with an equally remarkable (though less scream-filled) collection of that band alone, "The Vodoun Effect: Funk & Sato From Benin's Obscure Labels 1973-1975" (Analog Africa).
