The Daktaris was a funk and Afrobeat studio project from Brooklyn, United States, whose name means "doctors" in Swahili. Inspired by the television show Daktari, the group created a fictitious Nigerian backstory for its debut studio album, Soul Explosion, which was originally recorded in 1997 and first released in 1998 on the Desco label. The album featured the veteran Cameroonian drummer Jojo Kuo and included personnel names created by TV on the Radio vocalist Tunde Adebimpe. Soul Explosion was reissued by Daptone Records in 2004, highlighting a sound based on the style of 1970s African musicians like Fela Kuti and Mulatu Astatke. The album includes the track “Eltsuhg Ibal Lasiti”, which reads backwards as “It Is All A Big Hustle”, referencing the project's apocryphal origins. After recording the album, some of its members joined the Dap Kings and Antibalas.
