ON a big video screen over the kitchen hatch at the LA Cafe in Admiralty an advert is flashed over the pictures. It announces a band playing that night. They are called Captain Mabulla.
Four men come on and play a captivating set that would get everybody dancing if there was room. Their music is proficient, infectious and joyful. They are playing reggae. In 1993. In Hongkong.
In just two months they have built up a following in the territory with gigs at the LA Cafe, Brown Sugar and The Wanch and at private functions. Tonight, they will be pumping out their rhythms at the LA Cafe from 10pm.
Stir It Up, I Shot the Sheriff, No Woman No Cry sound just as fresh in their repertoire as when the songs were first released. The band don't just clone old numbers: they put their own feeling and invention into them, often stretching a three-minute songinto a 10-minute gem.
As they develop, they compose more songs. Samba Reggae is a fusion of the energetic sounds of Central Africa that provides a killing finale to one set. The present balance of 30/70 between originals and covers will tilt in favour of the former, they say.
''We sit down two or three times a week and we say 'let's rehearse a song'. And we get halfway through and start making up two or three others,'' says percussionist William Tembo, a 31-year-old business consultant from Zambia.