Rolling Global Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2018 Thread Once Known as World Music

Separate threads for releases from each and every country won't get many posts, hence this thread. Almost the same title as last year, but new year. You know the drill-

this is the thread for polyrhythmic, funky, bluesy,groove-filled new + reissued music from lots of different places that may include Mauritania, Ghana, Congo, Kenya, Niger, Mali, South Africa, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and other places that make cool music that doesn't always get enough press in the west. This music may be less "clubby" than on other threads, but its ok to lean in that direction too.I tend to lean towards countries from below the equator.

Plus I like to hear about live music.

Still digging through picks on the Afropop Stocking stuffers 2017 list; and also looking to see what's on Said the Gramophone and other lists that I might have missed.

Also listened a bit to slightly syrupy and operatic but still powerful veteran Iranian balladeer Ebi who is going to be appearing at the 4000 seat DAR Constitution Hall in Washington DC on January 27th. Don't know about other gigs

3MA....I need to give this trio another listen. Supergroup with members from Mali, Morocco & Madagascar

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/opinion/beatles-of-vietnam.html?_r=0

As so many rock ’n’ roll stories do, the CBC Band’s began with the purchase of a guitar behind the back of a disapproving father.

When he was a young child in Vietnam, Tung Linh wanted a guitar, so his mother bought one for him. His father, Phan Van Pho, was a cook for French officials in Hanoi, and he wanted his children to become doctors or engineers, not musicians. When he found the guitar, he smashed it.

But his wife, Hoang Thi Nga, nurtured Tung Linh’s interest in American music, which he shared with two of his seven siblings: Bich Loan, a singer, and Tung Van on drums. When their father died in the late 1950s, Ms. Hoang went to work as a custodian on a Republic of Vietnam naval base. The family was poor, and those years were hard, but she wanted her children to be happy, so she nurtured their desire to perform American music.

Jupiter & Okwess band from the Congo for free 6 to 7 pm est Fri. the 12th at Kennedy Center in W. DC. Video streaming live (k. Ctr website & Facebook live). Video archived too.

Also, heard an advance of new Tal National. First 3 cuts are raucous African funky rocky fun

i really love tal national. i can't wait to hear the new one.

goin' to globalfest on sunday

Jupiter & Okwess rocking those rumba meets psychedelic rock grooves right now

I forget to read this thread but have we talked about 'Sweet As Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn Of Africa'? Because it's god damn incredible

Yes, talked about last year

also just discovered that and it is amazing!

I'm was thinking about starting a thread for the more recent wave of african reissues after listening to strut's fantastic Oté Maloya comp from last year. I kind of checked out of following the reissue market after picking up my nth afro-funk comp, but now that they've started to move into the 80s I think there's likely a bunch of good stuff I've missed (it's sad the reggae reissue market basically died before they got out of the 70s).

Jon Pareles in his NY Times review of GlobalFest 2018 like Congo's Jupiter & Okwess live as much I did:

But the night’s fiercest, most diverse grooves belonged to Jupiter & Okwess: the singer, songwriter and bandleader Jupiter Bokondji and his band, from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with songs that joyfully carried conscientious messages like “Protect women.” The briskly upbeat rhythm of Congolese soukous, well known worldwide, was only part of the set. Mr. Bokondji traveled extensively in Congo and learned many local, lesser-known styles that infuse his songs, giving them variety and bite. He’s also clearly fond of what a wah-wah pedal can do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/arts/music/globalfest-review.html?_r=0

liked.

He reviewed many of the 12 groups including Paris-based Guadeloupean trio Delgres, Cuban artist La Dame Blanche, Brazilian post-tropicalia singer Ava Rocha and more

hello international music friends -- if you have a little extra time/goodwill, please bookmark my thread:

help me with my class?

you wouldn't have to do anything more than contribute a small portion of your existing knowledge :)

jupiter and okwess were fine; i loved iberi, jarlath henderson and miramar

Will give them a listen. Actually I have seen and heard Miramar and like their quiet boleros and ballads. Watched Brazilian singer Ava Rocha and band from their Kennedy Center gig tonight ( via video stream). She’s theatrical and kinda Bjork like at times and the band adds postpunk guitar to the Tropicalia base.

A local promoter near me who was up there visiting, loved the Guadeloupe group with guitar and tuba. The video clip he shared though had a fairly conventional blues-rock sound.

miramar was okay on tape but daaaaaang they were great in person Rocha didn't do much for me live or on tape, but it's very much a matter of taste with her i gather.

Still catching up on 2017 releases- listened for 2nd time to the trio 3MA featuring Mali’s Ballaké Sissoko on kora, Moroccan oud virtuoso Driss El Maloumi, and Madagascar’s valiha player Rajery.

Mellow and pleasant with Sissoko's wonderful harp-like kora work often taking the lead.

Oh, listened to one track from Irish folkie Jarlath Henderson whom Ulysses liked at Globalfest 2018. Not a big fan of the genre, so would have to listen more to make up my mind. But I'm probably not the person to ask re his style.

Haven't listened yet to his other fave Georgian folk Group Iberi Choir.

Listening to Blay Ambolley from Ghana's 2017 album Ketan. He's a highlife/hiplife bandleader/musician. Nice old-school sound.

Gyedu-Blay Ambolley was rather unknown outside of West Africa until Soundway Records included his seminal Simigwa-Do, which Ambolley released in 1973, on their first anthology, Ghana Soundz.

That's from Wiki.

The album has a kinda Fela feel to it

Been reading about the upcoming debut album by this Malian veteran percussionist but I haven't heard it yet--

Hama Sankaré --Ballébé - Calling All Africans

Alpha Ousmane "Hama" Sankaré (aka Pedro) is a legend. He has anchored the bands of many great artists of Mali: Ali Farka Toure, Afel Bocoum, le Troupe Regionale de Niafunké, l'Orchestre de Gao, Songhoy Allstars, and Mamadou Kelly's BanKaiNa, and he can be heard on many of the seminal recordings of Mali's music. He is the master of contemporary calabash percussion and defined it's the playing style. He has toured the world. Hama's influence is unchallenged as composer, arranger, and instrumentalist. Unbelievably, Ballébé - Calling All Africans is the first album in his own name

Looks like the Africa Express project is recording again.

It's Day 4 for @africaexpress recording in Joburg....@gruffingtonpost @THEREALGHETTS @Damonalbarn @BombayBicycle @nonkulululu @MahotellaQueens @muziou #pote #otim the productivity is incredible. pic.twitter.com/I86lbFIvEC

— Africa Express (@africaexpress) January 31, 2018

Wow, Mahotella Queens still at it

kind of amazing, right? I grew up listening to them!

They formed in 1964 I see on Wiki. In spite of the deaths of Mahlathini, Marks Mankwane and West Nkosi during the late 1990s, the Mahotella Queens continue to perform and record in the 21st century. In 2013, long-serving member Mildred Mangxola retired from the group. She was replaced by a new recruit, Amanda Nkosi.

Not sure where to put this, but I'm currently obsessed by this site where you can see what's the most streamed track on youtube in cities around the world, and listen to said tracks on the site

https://pudding.cool/2018/01/music-map/

#1 Song in Your City - Interactive, updated map for discovery
i will be curious to see if they update with January; that would make it a regular visit

The mighty Mahotella Queens rehearsing with their new band of @gruffingtonpost @nickzinner @Damonalbarn @Georgiadrumming for tonight’s show #africaexpress pic.twitter.com/fPrWsqLjEa

— Africa Express (@africaexpress) February 2, 2018

They're playing a show tonight.

#legends

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/on-hearing-my-fathers-legacy-in-vampire-weekend/

Fanta Sylla, daughter of legendary late producer Ibrahima Sylla , on her initial enjoyment of Vampire Weekend ‘s 1st album and then goes from there to discuss Congolese music and colonialism and more.

She also links to another interesting piece https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-africaine-2005-4-page-69.html

that Sylla piece is excellent, thanks for posting that. It should probably go on that recent tuneyards thread, but maybe that thing is best forgotten

Ha. I need to listen to that Congolese/Canadian guy Pierre Kwenders you mentioned on another thread

x-post I wonder if any members of the Makgona Tsohle Band who used to back the Mahotella Queens are still alive and able to perform?

Fanta Sylla in Pitchfork Pitch piece linked above:

Growing up, I was ambivalent about what I perceived to be a general indifference towards African music. There was a rich history, a diversity of styles, and countless brilliant artists people didn’t seem to want to explore. It felt like people could only handle African music if it was mixed or filtered with something they recognized. But rather than calling out white artists who appropriate African music, I’ve always been more concerned that the African genres and artists that inspired them were given proper credit and financial support. I’m interested in the inclusion of African music in non-African publications, and in a passionate critical approach by African writers on the sounds that color their lives (look to Cameroonian writer Achille Mbembe’s beautiful piece on Congolese music for a great example).

It's nice that Pitchfork Pitch posted this, but alas I didn't see a single artist based on the African continent in the Pitchfork best of tracks or albums list for 2017. Periodically over the years they've posted stuff by Deej and others, but nothing consistently.

ANEWAL is the new trio of Alhousseini Anivolla, lead guitarist and singer of internationally renowned desert blues band Etran Finatawa. Formed in 2012

Listened to their 2017 album. They have that sound down.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/petite-noir-accuses-damon-albarn-project-africa-express-of-musician-exploitation/

Seems Africa Express isn't being too well received by some of the involved musicians.

Ouch. Terrible contract. No comments yet from Albarn or Zimmer or others associated with Africa Express

Zinner I mean

Here's the response:

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/damon-albarns-africa-express-responds-to-claims-of-musician-exploitation/

"As we pay all the travel, accommodation and other costs for Western artists joining us on trips, we ask them to volunteer their time."

So Mr. Blur & Gorillaz's @africaexpress costs get paid for, but he can't afford to pay Africans for anything, or even promise them a specific percentage of any possible profits. Hmm.

http://www.nme.com/news/music/damon-albarn-accused-unfair-treatment-musicians-africa-express-project-2236879

Seeing complicating and contradictory comments about this Africa Express thing on Facebook . Some insisting this just relates to standard rules when recording a charity benefit album as they were apparently doing in South Africa in addition to the gigs. But the language in the contract seems problematic

well when africa express rolled thru addis 6 or so years ago, the ethiop musicians here were not happy with the way they were treated, felt disrespected in their own clubs by ppl like flea and others general dissatisfaction has been the sense i've gotten over the years, was surprised still going on

Oh. That's not good. I had seen various references to gig appearances in the UK and Africa, but until now did not know of any recordings as they just did in South Africa. Seems like Albarn and Africa Express brought a number of fellow (white) musicians like like Blue May, and Mr. Jukes in addition to YYY's Zinner to South Africa to work with young South African gqom dance folks as well as Mahotella Queens. Blue May's defense of the project on FB makes a few good points and provides a bit more info but overall it isn't that understanding or impressive.

just bought the Jupiter & Okwess album. nearly put off by the sticker on the front that mentions Damon Albarn.

Ignore that sticker.

----------------------------------

Maybe not for this thread but I just read the below articles and haven't listened to these acts yet

http://www.okayafrica.com/congolese-music-artists-new-killing-it/

I don't know any of these Congolese rappers and r'n'b acts-- Maître Gims and others

http://www.okayafrica.com/black-panther-album-south-african-artists/

Sjava and 3 others.

I don't know these folks either

I did watch the video of Ethiopian Jewish musician living in Israel Gili Yalo. Nice blend of funk, pop and Ethiopian grooves

http://www.clashmusic.com/news/premiere-gili-yalo-selam

loving the heck out of that yalo ethiojazz

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/culture/.premium-how-racism-changed-ethiopian-israeli-singer-1.5423209

Interesting interview with Yalo from 2016

There's a Nyege Nyege Tapes night happening round the corner from me in April. I knew I moved to a city for a reason :-)

Crash Fest in Boston, Mass Feb 24th includes VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ - Malian guitarist dubbed “The Hendrix of the Sahara”
MOKOOMBA - Afro-fusion from Zimbabwe
ZESHAN B – Chicago soul singer with Indo-Pakistani roots
FLOR DE TOLOACHE - Explosive all-female mariachi band
TAL NATIONAL - High energy rock ‘n’ roll from Niger
INNOV GNAWA - Trance music from Morocco
NEWPOLI - A modern take on music from the Mediterranean
SÓ SOL - Música Brasileira with an Americana twist
KOTOKO BRASS

If I was up there I would definitely see Vieux Farka Toure, Mokoomba, and Tal National again. Innov Gnawa are pretty good live too. Don't know the others really

oh is tal national gonna tour at all while they're here? i would def go see them again.

i would totally go see them again too

They are touring now through March (without a percussionist who I think played on previous tours). In Brooklyn Friday night the 23rd, Boston on 24th, Portland Maine on 25th, New Haven on the 27th, and later in March in Pittsburgh on the 16th, Baltimore on the 17th, West Virginia on the 18th.

Not seeing any DC or Philadelphia or Chicago gigs although they have nothing listed for March 19th & 20th, before they head south to Big Ears fest and elsewhere. I am trying to get their agent to add a DC date on one of those days, but not having luck.

Mokoomba's US tour is short too

Christopher Kirkley of Sahel Sounds (who was involved in that North African Purple rain movie adaptation)is presenting another film "Zerzura" on saturday night Feb. 24th at 7 pm at the Freer Gallery in DC. This movie he says " is a feature length magical realist folktale about a young nomad who sets off to find his brother in a lost Saharan city. It’s a collaborative film we wrote and shot on location in Agadez, Niger over the course of a month. Filmed entirely in Tamashek, it also features original improvisational guitar score from protagonist Ahmoudou Madassane (Mdou Moctar, Les Filles de Illighadad)."

Hailu Mergia's going to put out an album of new material and there's an interview with him in the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/arts/music/hailu-mergia-lala-belu.html

Nice. I saw something on Bandcamp the other day. I thought that since Mergia is doing so many European tours he had given up his other job, but not completely I see:

He still drives the cab for extra cash. In idle moments, he hauls out the keyboard and sits alone in the back seat, his eyes closed, improvising.

this is cool https://sahelsounds.bandcamp.com/album/field-recordings-from-the-sahel

That looks cool.

Now in sad news, I see on the Stern’s music store & label blog that singer Medoune Diallo has died. He was in the great groups Orchestra Baobab and Africando.

http://sternsmusic.blogspot.com/2018/02/medoune-diallo-11021949-10022017-rip.html?m=1

The new Mergia album is mostly impressive. He’s on accordion on some tracks and various types of keyboards on others.

received the Pantsula comp in the post today. it's great huh?

Too much to keep up on. Have not heard that comp of 88 to 90 South African electronic dance (yet)

loving the new tal national btw

The Tal National album rocks. Feel like I should also post about it on some ilm rock thread

also new femi kuti & imarhan

Vieux Farka Toure is gonna be back in DC Tuesday night and he's a charismatic performer live, but I'm spoiled-- have seen him 3 times locally so might skip this one.

NY Times’ Jon Pareles tweeting about how much he loved recent gigs by Tal National and Mokoomba. He says both groups “transcend tribalism “ by bringing together multiple cultures/ minorities.

Onetime ilxor K*ith H*rris penned a favorable review of the new Tal National album in a Minnesota publication/site

some side eye at "transcend tribalism" like wtf is that supposed to mean but the new tal national is really good

Yeah, good point.

Meanwhile in Egypt, pop singer Sherine Abdel-Wahab has been sentenced to 6 months in jail for saying the Nile River is too dirty to drink from

http://m.dw.com/en/egyptian-singer-jailed-for-insulting-the-nile/a-42759474?xtref=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F

I missed the Tal National and Mokoomba gigs. Vieux too, though I've seen him more than once. Hoping/half-anticipating that they were showcase gigs for larger presenters who will bring them back this summer.

Tal National playing in my town this Sunday. Looking forward to it. nice that they made it to the wilds of western mass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGLy6Vb0jwQ

they were so amazing. go see them if you have never seen them! so great to see them in my fave tiny bar in town. capacity only 100 and it was packed full.

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/d3wdq7/robert-christgau-youssou-ndour-tal-national-review

Christgau likes Tal National too

could have listened to that drummer all night. between this and the xylouris white show i am really getting my drum on this year. best drum shows ever.

critic Richard Gehr has been reviewing international stuff for quite awhile. Perhaps I'm reading "once again on the rise" wrong, but North African/Sahel guitar has been around for a number of years now. Checking out BKO

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/review-tal-national-and-africas-high-octane-modern-rock-w517585

Sidi Touré, Toubalbero | ★★★ 1/2
BKO, Mali Foli Coura | ★★★ 1/2
Tal National, Tantabara | ★★★★
Imarhan, Temet | ★★★

With American rock bands looking to forward-thinking EDM and elsewhere for genre rejuvenation, African electric guitars and traditional instruments alike are once again yawping, screaming and blurting with new intensity after something of a genre hiatus. Over there, the romantic scenario of picking up chops down at the crossroads has been replaced by the vigorous international and inter-ethnic cultural trading going on in Mali, Niger and Algeria. Amid African music's myriad variations, rock is once again on the rise.

I posted the below on the Afropop thread but its relevant here too:

No respect...For the second year in a row, the Nabisco (N.A.) edited NY Times Magazine special issue 25 Songs that Tell Us Where Music is Going has no artists based in Africa (mostly all US & UK this year except for 1 K-Pop, a hiphop remix with Puerto Rican rappers, and a Scottish pop group with 2 members of Liberian heritage )

The issue does have nicely penned pieces on Chicago footwork DJ Taye and one on a remix with Farruko, Nicki Minaj, and Bad Bunny; SZA ,and Bruno Mars's Finesse remix. But I was expecting more from a former ilxor who writes well and is very smart and who got a bunch of talented writers from elsewhere to contribute. An editor doesn't have to like Scandinavian whatever(pop or metal) or Nigerian Afropop to recognize that it should be included in something with the heading "25 Songs that Tell Us Where Music is Going," but he didn't do that this year or last year (the first time he edited this). Instead, as when he was the music critic at New York Magazine he generally followed his interests-US and UK pop, rap, and r'n'b.

Just splashed out on the new album by Hailu Merga, 'Lala Belu'. Only 6 tracks at full price, which I feel is pretty steep but it's quality and I adore the title track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyuWRXoFCjY

Also picked up the Ernesto Chahoud compilation of Ethiopian cuts. Roll on 5 o'clock!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gmGL5SqhaY&t=150s

New Fatoumata Diawara from Mali video/song "Nterini" directed by Ethopian director Aida Muluneh. Lots of bright primary colors

Oops, video link not working. I like Fatoumata Diawara's voice. Sometimes she tries to hard to crossover to Western audiences, but this one mostly works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gmGL5SqhaY

Also liking Djeneba & Fousco and band from Mali on this song. Beautiful, lilting female & male vocals , mellow backing instrumentation. Have not heard their new album yet.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bbTk72kmihQ

Listened to some of the Djeneba & Fousco album. Not bad. Heard a little reggae flavor. Need to listen to it more

Had heard the story that Tuaregs in exile in Libya had heard Dire Straits , and now there’s video evidence

http://sahelsounds.com/2018/03/dire-straits-in-the-sahara/

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/zimbabwes-powerful-music-of-struggle

Thomas Mapfumo is going back to Zimbabwe for the first time in 10 years, now that Mugabe is out of power. Mapfumo is still nervous about the role the military is playing. They helped remove Mugabe.

Mapfumo was living in Oregon . I only remember him touring the US east coast once or twice over the years he was in the US. A good show the one time I saw him

Thx for recommending Field Recordings from the Sahel and "Nterini"! Both fantastic in different ways.

touched upon by dog latin upthread but the chahoud ethiopian compilation is great

https://bbemusic.bandcamp.com/album/ernesto-chahoud-presents-taitu-soul-fuelled-stompers-from-1960s-1970s-ethiopia

it's so good. i like the way each side of the vinyl seems to explore different avenues, from jazz to rock n roll to more traditional-sounding stuff.

My personal highlight is track 10 Tilahun Gessesse - Aykedashim Libe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_guVpXBAnQA

That's how you do call and response.

saw Tal National over the weekend and (as expected) they were so entertaining
can anyone tell me the name of the song where the guitar player lingers on that one note really dramatically and then does like some exaggerated dramatic strums? (like a classic rock swinging arm strum) it was also the song where he went out into the audience. i wish i could describe it more accurately but that is the best i can do right now. it was probably their heaviest song?

Can't name the Tal National song.

Listening to latest Sidi Toure album Toubalbero. This Malian guitarist rocks on this, not as much as some but more than he used to. Nice enough vocals

Seeing on twitter that Sierra Leone Bubu musician Janka Nabay who had lived in DC and elsewhere in the US for a bit has died. Based on his Instagram account it appears he was back in Sierra Leone. No details available yet on his passing

Whoa

Just 54. Suddenly got sick there, and passed away.

Sad. He was in NY often enough I didn't know he lived in DC.

He used a Brooklyn based band but for awhile was down here ( both working in a food truck and doing gigs for either Sierra Leone immigrants or crossover audiences )

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/obituaries/janka-nabay-54-dies-carried-an-african-dance-music-worldwide.html

Jon Pareles notes in his Janka obit that after Janka’s 2017 European festivals tour, visa issues prevented him from going to the US, so he returned to his Sierra Leone homeland. There he recently had stomach issues and died.

Fatoumata Diawara North American tour happening. She was great live a few years back.

I missed latest local appearances by Venezuela's Betsayda Machado y La Parrando el Clavo, but the Instagram videos of their Afro-Venezuelan percussion and folk harmony vocals looked just as exciting as when I did see them for a bit at a festival

Malian guitarist Sidi Toure and band touring North America this month

Just splashed out on the new album by Hailu Merga, 'Lala Belu'. Only 6 tracks at full price, which I feel is pretty steep but it's quality and I adore the title track.
title track is incredible, so joyful

Yeah that's become a staple track for me. So simple, so fun

Enjoying that Habibi Funk compilation. Touches on all sorts of R&B styles (as well as Cape Verdean coladera), but the overall feel to me is closer to Garage Rock - raw, sometimes somewhat amateurish, full of power. The ppl behind it seem very earnest and conscientious about it, though perhaps a bit lacking in knowledge of the music that inspired the music they go digging for - they omit that one track is clearly a cover of "Treat Her Right", and attribute "Harlem Shuffle" to a French artist (!).

Liked my one listen to that Habibi Funk comp and need to get back to it. On their Bandcamp page they assert:

Some of our favorite records are best described as Arabic zouk (a genre originating from the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe) like Mallek Mohamed’s music, Algerian coladera (a popular musical style from the Cape Verdean islands) or Lebanese AOR, which means the process of musical influences displayed on this compilation was much more versatile than just taking Western music as a blueprint and translating it with a local accent.

Yeah, they say the same thing in the liner notes. Don't quite get how AOR doesn't count as "western music", but that's pedantry.

Habibi Funk is a great compilation, period. I guess it was a 2017 release.

I need to hear that Habibi Funk compilation more (and read more about it)

It's kind of a label sampler, the liner notes say something like "look out for a full release of this artist's album soon" on nearly every track.

Drove 45 minutes north of me to a Maryland exurb of DC to see Mali's Fatoumata Diawara. A real nice show. She's multi-talented--- plays guitar, has a great singing voice with range, can dance. She's acted onstage and in movies. No backup singers in her band so she looped her voice at times, so she could then dance some more. She sings in multiple languages and did pleas between songs for peace and respect in African countries. I had just seen the documentary "Mama Africa: Miriam Makeba", and Fatoumata's power, charisma and down to earth sensibility reminded me of Makeba a bit.

I think it's a shame Diawara couldn't have been on the Coachella bill-- lots of indie acts on the bottom of that bill that she could have taken the place of. Oh well, almost everything on this thread gets dismissed as obscure "world music" niche stuff that's not as relevant as American or Brit pop, rap, indie, r'n'b or country.

I don't have a grand thesis to offer, but it's interesting (for lack of a better word) that the ease of access provided by digital/social media hasn't lessened the parochialism of north american music culture. I might even say it's worse now than, say, 15 years ago? Not sure I could back that up tbh, and a lot of it probably has to do with the reduction in venues for writing about music / metric-driven editorial decisions about what gets covered, but it feels to me like there hasn't been anything "world" that really grabs attention in a long while. I'm probably forgetting something big and obvious though

tal national are pretty popular from the last show i saw of theirs

probably something about media outlets though

Songhoy Blues, Tinariwen, Jupiter & Okwess all seem to have a decent amount of crossover appeal

ha I was actually thinking of Tinariwen as an old band that got attention in an earlier era, so I guess this is all pretty relative. On that note, I don't know who Jupiter & Okwess are! and I need to check out Tal National

and tbh I was thinking more of stuff at the Beyonce/Weeknd level of global pop (afrobeats, dancehall, soca, kpop, etc) rather than the stuff that usually ends up on this thread. I guess WizKid was supposed to play at Coachella but didn't?

anyway, media budgets are probably the main factor. there just isn't anyone willing to pay someone to report on what's going on in Mumbai or Rio de Janeiro or Johannesburg like there was in my probably rose-colored memories of music media around the turn of the century

anyone else on here been enjoying the gumba fire comp on soundway? synthy 80s boogie from south africa, some amazing cuts on that thing but this is my favourite right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U12gemqcv1g

anyway, media budgets are probably the main factor. there just isn't anyone willing to pay someone to report on what's going on in Mumbai or Rio de Janeiro or Johannesburg like there was in my probably rose-colored memories of music media around the turn of the century

― rob, Monday, April 16, 2018 8:4

That's true. But alot of it really comes down to the individual writer (and if there's not a pr person hyping the stuff too). The Washington Post ran a freelancer's piece a year and a half ago about afrobeats/afropop; but they haven't had anything since. I was reading critic/author Amanda Petrusich in the New Yorker say that she doesn't use Spotify,and only occasionally looks at Youtube so I guess expecting her to cover music that isn't mailed to her or that she can't buy, would be difficult. Former NY Times jazz critic critic Ben Ratliff used to go to Brazil and current New York Times writer Jon Pareles has as well. Peter Margasak in Chicago covers African music like Tal National as well as avante-jazz stuff. But Pitchfork's coverage is so hit and miss.

the ease of access provided by digital/social media hasn't lessened the parochialism of north american music culture

Well, has it done anything for North American cinema culture, or literature, or anything? I feel like this ease of access has been totally amazing for ppl already inclined to seek out stuff from other cultures in the first place, but it hasn't really lead to a more global world culture.

(I do wonder if ppl click on random Korean or Spanish shows on netflix sometimes. I hope so!)

anyone else on here been enjoying the gumba fire comp on soundway? synthy 80s boogie from south africa, some amazing cuts on that thing but this is my favourite right now:

Yeah, really nice. There's a lot of Boogie and a lot of House in there but I was surprised at how much it truly feels like its own thing.

curmudgeon: you're right that some established critics likely have the clout to follow their curiosity and write about something "riskier," but I can't really speculate as to why they aren't. tbf, I feel like the Quietus does a good job on this front, and while their tastes rarely match mine the Singles Jukebox consistently reviews non-anglophone pop songs that I never see mentioned elsewhere. I also haven't picked up an issue of the Wire in a very long time, and there are probably other venues doing work that I don't see.

Daniel_Rf: I think there are some pretty big format (meaning both digital file formats and length, not to mention differing language/translation issues) and consumption differences between music, literature, and cinema that make comparing them difficult. There aren't digital platforms for literature like there are for music; and as you mentioned, Netflix has actually invested quite a bit in offering "foreign" content, certainly compared to network/cable tv/your average multiplex. Of course, we have no idea how popular those shows & movies are, but they feel a little more visible to me than the music does. That said, I take your point that for lots of people, music (and lit/movies) not in English has very limited appeal and ease of access won't affect those attitudes.

These things are very difficult to compare, I agree. I guess I was just thinking of the early promise of the internet - culture and infomation distributed across the world! - and how this has certainly come true for a small cadre of enthusiasts, but the mainstreaming of the internet has not magically brought it about for the majority. I guess it's pretty naive to think it could have.

Latest Sidi Toure and band album on Thrilljockey has a nice rocking Malian groove feel. They’re touring North America now.

Aww, I missed this Sidi Toure appearance streaming--Apr. 22 - Charleston, WV - NPR Mountain Stage Radio.

The Sidi Toure April 24th 6 to 7pm US EST gig at Kennedy Center will be video-streamed by Kennedy Center on Facebook Live, and video archived on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage website

Got to admit only discovered this through James Yorkston tweeting that he plays on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37oVFrobGA&feature=youtu.be

Went back and checked out her other work thanks to it.

Try again with the youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37oVFrobGA

https://ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com/album/abu-obaida-hassan-his-tambour-the-shaigiya-sound-of-sudan

http://www.sikhnet.com/gurbani/artist/manika-kaur-kandhari

That video Dan W posted is of this Australia raised singer Manika Kaur who moved to Dubai . A bit too polished maybe but her voice still shines

X-post —ooh, I like Hassan’s rhythms and the call & response aspect to the vocals. Looks like another nice effort from the Ostinato folks who did the Somali Broken Dates comp

http://www.banningeyre.com/blog/2018/4/29/the-big-bira

With the recent changes politically in Zimbabwe, Thomas Mapfumo decided to return after 14 years in exile. He just did a big show and Afropop.org 's Banning Eyre has been there blogging about it.

Eyre also has a book about Mapfumo.

Mapfumo with Tuki (Oliver M) can still draw 20,000 there

Couple of releases at the weekend caught my eye.

Partir by Elina Duni, jazz tinged somber folk from the Balkans and beyond. https://open.spotify.com/album/2Rz462A64on4veQuq9RRL2?si=NXiy54oQQR6wekgJwIDpMg

SOAR by Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita, second collaboration between the harp and kora players. https://open.spotify.com/album/2s5WYOg1fezE42u6X0GqJc?si=9xI9lJXgRwCgqDnIbEIovg

Mdou Moctar, Tuareg guitarist on another North American tour now. You may remember him from that Purple Rain in the desert homage movie. In Philadelphia any day now plus more gigs across the continent.

3 Nigerian afropop stars are on individual tours of North America this month: Davido, Olamide and Burna Boy

Moctar has his great band with him

Fascinating to me Banning Eyre interview about Congolese music from the 1970s to the present with Lubangi Muniania runs Tabilulu Productions and is an international consultant on African art and culture . Here's an interesting little bit about "research music." Parts of this I think ended up in a recent Afropop program “Congolese Music: The Fifth Generation.”

There are some interesting tracks from Abeti on that Zaire 74 release that came out last year, the African sets from the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle music festival.

Abeti was doing alternative. Lokua Kanza came out of Abeti. If you listen to early Abeti Masikini, the focus was not on lyrics. It was on the sound. But later, Abeti went back to doing soukous and rumba to go global, because that alternative genre, people didn’t take it well when it came out of Congo. They called it “research music.” You’ve got to research your sound. That’s where you see Jupiter and Okwess.

They call it research music because they are going deep into tradition, but they’re also digging deep into other rhythms, ethnic styles that have not been exploited.

Right. They do that. But not in a popular way. It’s like jazz in a way. They want to hear creativity, but in music that makes them dance. Now today, there’s a growing group of people who are becoming interested in that sound. But that sound has been there. You had Bobongo Stars, alternative Congolese music. Dominic Kanza came out of Bobongo Stars.

http://afropop.org/articles/the-state-of-congolese-music-2018-an-interview-with-lubangi-muniania

More from that interview:

People are feeling abandoned. So one of the ways to keep them up and happy, interested in the country, is music and sports. And sport is not doing too well. They didn’t make it to the World Cup. We were looking forward to it, so they could have something for 2018. But when you have people like Ferre Gola doing amazing concerts in the country, and outside, it brings pride. So it becomes, O.K., Ferre Gola represents me. That’s me ambassador. That’s my leader. That’s my role model. Fally Ipupa represents me. That kind of stuff.

Meanwhile for the Congolese diaspora:

These are kids who grew up abroad, in the Congolese diaspora, but they still want to identify with Congo. There’s one big one. His name is Maitre Gims. He’s in Paris. He is the biggest artist in France.

... So Franco would release a record, and people everywhere would do something similar. This is what’s going on right now a little bit. But it’s different now because it’s on the world stage: Paris, New York. So they do it like to do it there, but with Kinshasa stuff. And you see that in the dance moves. The dance moves that are taking over come out of ndombolo. They combine hip-hop and ndombolo, and that has driven the world crazy. You see ndombolo in Nigerian dance moves, Côte d’Ivoire, early coupé decalé. You see them dance. The kids in Europe. It’s ndombolo-based, and then you add hip-hop moves. And they become creative. If they do hip-hop moves, watch. You will see ndombolo moves coming up right after that. But the way they’ve combined those dance steps, it’s like something totally new. So really, it’s taking over. In early 2000s, nobody would think it would be what it is today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0CNCbNv534

^ new ebo taylor is tremendous

Lusafrica have reissued Bonga's first two albums, Angola 72 and Angola 74. Recorded in exile in Paris while Angola was still under Portuguese rule. The dude is very much a legend in the Portuguese-speaking music world, and most of the stuff by him I've heard is in Portuguese and a lot more straightforward Pop than these albums. There's a lot of the Angolan semba rhythm, which influenced the Brazilian Samba, and you can really hear it. He sings in original Angolan languages (I wish I knew a less awkward way to express that). I recommend Angola 74 particularly - he's got a lot of Cape Verdean backing musicians on that one, and even does a version of "Sodade" (better known as Cesaria Evora's signature song).

Heard one of those Bonga albums and liked it years ago. Haven't listened since, but I should.

x-post -when you said new Ebo Taylor you meant it. At 81 this Ghanaian's releasing Yen Ara, produced by Justin Admas

ebo claims it's the best record he's ever made as well

Still haven't gotten to Ebo Taylor (or re-listened to Bonga) but i heard the Afropop Worldwide “Congolese Music: The Fifth Generation.”

Listened to some of that Ebo Taylor. Good stuff, Highlife with horns...

Congo has Jupiter & Okwess with the Congolese "research music" and Ghana has Ebo Taylor.

guitarist Mdou Moctar visited Episcopal High School in Alexandria today and there is awesome footage of him playing outdoors with kids dancing around him to the music. Don't have the link handly, but it's been shared on Facebook, Instagram and twitter.

Moctar is doing a free noon-time show right now at the Library of Congress in DC

Seeing more footage of Moctar at Episcopal High. Great stuff.

But I still haven't delved back into Bonga albums of Angolan music yet. Still need to.

These performances are mind-bending

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W4pGMwAGIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4iKmXTfUv8

wow, yes!

Those Mark Ernestus performances are nice

Senegalese mbalax drummers are pretty impressive

I have seen Youssou and other Senegalese leaders let their percussionist go like that live.

in non-Senegalese news, gonna see Mdou Moctar again tonight

Mdou Moctar from Niger and band were probably the best of the 3 times I have seen them, last night. With a guest local bass player, and the drummer powerfully propelling the beat, Moctar and the other guitarist did their electric axe magic ontop. He moves his fingers so fast and distinctively

x-post
Finally listened again to some of Bonga -Angola 72/74; on a Spotify version. His longing, melancholic voice and those understated but effective rhythms are nice.

I have not heard his most recent 2016 album Recados de Fora

http://www.hudaasfour.com

I saw DC based Palestinian oud player & singer Huda Asfour debut her new album Kouni live last night. Some classic feeling Middle Eastern pop, some rock, some jazzy as she had a guest horn section as well as string section. Ambitious.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yeelLtMFNg8

That’s Huda video someone posted on YouTube

I think Huda Asfour is gonna do some shows in Egypt and Lebanon this summer. She's on Bandcamp if you want to check out her new album. Her more traditional 2012 instrumental album Mars is also on Spotify.

Still so many afropop episodes for me to catch up on.

Seeing votes on that best albums of 2018 so far thread for Hailu Mergia, Tal National, and Ebo Taylor

Amadou & Mariam and then Noura Mint Seymali are gonna be in the Washington DC area on successive nights in June. Fun live acts

UK electronic dance duo Disclosure have a new single "Ultimatum" that samples and credits Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara.

Fatoumata deserves the attention.

Angélique Kidjo is releasing a full-album cover version of Remain In Light next month (She's been doing it live for a year now). Videos of some of the songs on the Talking heads classic or dud thread

went to a party yesterday with an Angolan trio jamming out, great stuff - is Bonga a good point of entry to Angolan rock?

Most of the Bonga stuff I have heard is more mellow like Brazilian samba.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_music_in_Angola

Also, Congo singer Sam Mangwana lived in Angola. He did some rocking groove filled efforts

https://www.npr.org/2011/02/02/130076680/funk-before-war-in-angola

thx!

Malian singer Kassé-Mady Diabaté died last week:
https://face2faceafrica.com/article/mali-mourns-music-icon-kasse-mady-diabate-who-died-aged-69

went to a party yesterday with an Angolan trio jamming out, great stuff - is Bonga a good point of entry to Angolan rock?

I've never really heard any Angolan artists described as Rock - keep in mind it was a Portuguese colony until '74 (the Portuguese regime being relatively hostile towards Anglo-American music; even in Portugal most of the pre-74 Rock bands were rich kids who could afford to fly off to London and buy records), and after that (which I guess would be prime Afro-Rock time in Nigeria and other places) the country was launched into a bloody, decades long civil war. I met a lot of Angolan musicians from that generation when I lived in Portugal and they certainly counted Rock bands amongst their influences, but the connection to Brazil was much stronger.

I could see classifying Waldemar Bastos as Rock, though more in a singer/songwriter vein than, like, Acid Rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szTWcNFWX6s

New Yorkers should go see the great Mauritania singer Noura Mint Seymali and her band led by her husband guitarist who plays cool African psychedelic licks, for free at the Lincoln Center Atrium Thursday June 7. They’re in Washington DC the next night ( not free but not expensive)

xp thanks for the info Daniel

quite digging that Bastos

https://analogafrica.bandcamp.com/album/african-scream-contest-vol-2-benin-1963-1980

Volume 1 was good. Will check this one out.

So I was in Houston, Texas and at Afrikiko restaurant I saw a poster for Zaiko Langa Langa coming to Dallas and Houston in July. So apparently that legendary Congolese band is now back together. Not sure who's in the group at this point.

had the great pleasure of seeing Hailu Mergia live this Sunday, a trio with an extremely solid rhythm section (bass player quite unbelievable really, played disco stuff, Sly Stone style, some very fast jazz things, 5 strings all used a lot) on top of which mr. Mergia did his unique thing on rhodes, digital Nord organ, melodica, accordeon

a very simple, driving soundstage, dancing music no doubt, it would be the ultimate wedding band

his style is so interesting, naive, unpredictable - who do you reckon his points of reference are? there's perhaps a bit of Monk, maybe Augustus Pablo?

really want to get that Africa Scream Contest album

The label does a nice job with liner notes and photos which makes me want to get a physical version of it, but I listened to it on Spotify tonight and it sounds great.

x-post -- seen some mentions of jazz organist Jimmy Smith re Hailu Mergia's style

nice, checking out some Jimmy Smith

saw mdou moctar at an instore performance and really enjoyed it -- he really cranks the volume on those solos!
also i heard that at the official concert performance (which i did not attend) there was some egregious and awful dancing in the audience.

The Mdou show I saw was very loud.

egregious and awful dancing in the audience.

Ha. A number of west African acts I have seen invite folks onstage to dance-- that's where I dislike the awful dancers. Invariably, some goofy dancers insist on going onstage. Thankfully they are usually balanced out by the skilled dancers, able to shake their hips and do other movements in an impressive artistic fashion.

I saw Amadou & Mariam last night in a tables and chairs sit-down place, but they encouraged everyone to get up and dance at one point. I was near the stage. I hope no one thought my movements were egregious. It was a good show too btw. I like Amadou's guitar playing and Mariam's vocals. Plus their backing singer/dancer is good. I don't know the material from their most recent album but it sounded good, along side the older cuts I do know. Last time I saw them Amadou stretched out some guitar solos in a way that was not interesting, he was more concise last night.

Saw a video of a Noura Mint Seymali and band song at Tropicalia in DC last night plus one from the night before at
Lincoln Center in NY. A powerful voice and her husband on guitar has such a cool sound. They’re from Mauritania

Love the two Noura Mint Seymali albums I own.

saw Orlando Julius & the Heliocentrics live this Saturday

both crowd, venue and weather could have been better, but band was very groovy, and I enjoyed it

Orlando seemed quite tired, though, not strong in his solos, outshined by the young trumpeteer :/

Listened to the Turkish Ladies comp out on Sony. Gorgeous packaging and the music fluctuates between traditional styles and a more Disco take. Would've liked more of a breakdown of the scene in the liner notes - genres are mentioned but not contextualized, singers brought up within the essay but not really given their own spotlight. Translated lyrics though, which is nice.

listening to 2017 from high-pitched, slightly nasal (but in a unique good way) singer Leila Gobi from Mali. Her uptempo rhythms from her band are impressive too

I like the Leila Gobi one a bit more than Bombino’s latest Deran. Deran is good too though. He’s got that North African desert guitarist style down.

Back in the end of May, folks were writing about Angola here. Just remembered that writer Jonathan Bogart put a guide to Angolan pop circa 2016 on Medium & he has been tweeting occasionally YouTube videos of Angolan pop.

https://www.voanews.com/a/leo-sarkisian-voa-music-time-in-africa-program-dies/4432645.html

Sarkisian who died at 97 led such a cool life. I saw him speak at the VOA in DC in 98. He traveled in the Middle East and then from the 1960s on to ? With his wife and his reel to reel tape recorder in a number of African countries. He hosted the VOA’s Music Time in Africa program that was very popular there. A nice guy who invited the audience at the talk I was at, to come back to his office and see some of the memorabilia he collected over the years.

He was an Armenian American who spoke multiple languages and was also a musician himself

When he retired at age 91, this article was published. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pioneering-collector-of-african-music-retires-from-voice-of-america/2012/09/28/a9c10744-0998-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.80ea44d6179c

I

Saw on twitter that some Sarkisian projects are now being digitized. He recorded Fela way back when, wonder if that’s available.

Haitian band Tabou Combo are on a 50th anniversary tour. I like their older stuff that melded Afro-Caribbean rhythms with James Brown funk. Gradually they have followed Haitian trends and added more syrupy and schmaltzy keyboards, and modern r'n'b. But I haven't heard them in awhile. I want to check out some videos and such and see what the current version of the band is like (have a conflicting event and can't see them this Saturday in Maryland).

young energetic Zimbabwe band Mokoomba are touring the US again. Great live, and pretty good on albums

Gonna see Mokoomba again tonight in DC at a special 6 pm gig.

Mokoomba were fun—great harmonies, grooves, dance steps and more.

The annual free Smithsonian Folklife Festival outdoors on the national mall in Washington DC is starting now, and they are featuring music and culture from Armenia and Catalan. Alas, I am not excited. Been never wowed by music from those locales. Maybe I will go and have my mind changed. Catalan fireworks tonight too.

Liking the latest Fatoumata Diawara album.

Oh, turns out the Catalan fireworks were not last night. They're on Saturday. Saw a Catalan rap-rock ska bnd who had to play without their Algerian born bassist who could not get a visa. Also saw Armenian jazz and Catalan harmony folk. Just ok. All of it

Still liking the Fatoumata Diawara album. Some nice poppy melodies

From another obit of Leo Sarkisian (see up for earlier obit post by me). This one by record collector, compiler Ian Nagoski https://canaryrecords.tumblr.com/

[I]At night, he went out and listened to music and drank and blew his wages in jazz clubs in the Village listening to Artie Shaw, Lionel Hampton, and Vido Musso, Benny Goodman’s Italian tenor saxophonist. Leo had always been a clarinetist himself and played jazz. Then there were the “oriental” clubs up and down 8th Ave, where music in Turkish, Greek, and Armenian thrived among the immigrants - The Egyptian Gardens, The Brittania. The music there was close to the music from childhood in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where the older Armenian men played oud, violin, zurna, and dumbek and sang Ottoman folk songs in Turkish, listening to Marko Melkon and “Sugar Mary” Vartanian, and Louis Matalon, Sephardic Jew at whose side Leo often sat, watching him play the 72-string dulcimer, the kanun. That was when Leo wasn’t throwing money at the dancers or ordering another drink.
And it was like the fleeting, fun nights in Rabat and Casablanca when Leo had heard Arabs playing the same instruments with bellydancers. There was one night when he had been chased off by the French police because the music “stirred up the locals.” There was another when he had a moment of stardom because he, an American G.I., had gotten up and played oud and rocked the house. A bellydancer had wrapped her arms around him because played a song he knew from back in Lawrence.
The nightclubs in New York were for the weekends. Weeknights were all in the New York Public Library. Four nights a week, Leo read anything about music from Asia and Africa. There he saw patterns of expansion of instruments and ideas. The kanun and its scales travel from here to there. One instrument travels to another place. A local instrument replaces it, but the idea of how it’s played remains. There is a connection from the Ottoman Empire to the Arab world. Then, Africa to India and China… There is a deep musical connection among all of these people, including a boy from Lawrence, Massachusetts who feel compelled under the city’s lights to understand how his own feeling of music connects so many other people.
“I don’t know why,” he told me in 2014, when he was 94 years old. “I’m reading, reading all this stuff. There was something in me that I had that feeling that whoever wrote those books didn’t really have that feeling… Even if someone does get a degree in music and stuff like that, there’s something between – under – inside of you. They can’t get that.”

He knew how to live. Sarkisian made it to 97

Congo's Jupiter and Okwess have a new album Kin Sonic out, that Jon Pareles of the NY Times likes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/arts/music/jupiter-okwess-kin-sonic-review.html

I was just reading this New York Times story on Bombino:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/arts/music/bombino-desert-blues-deran.html

and this line caught my eye:

"North African desert blues ... has become arguably the most successful world music genre to break through since reggae"

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? What other "world music" genres are in the conversation?

Among 1) non-Latin musics, 2) in America 3) over the past decade, none.

Compared to Latin American genres, from Buena Vista Social Club type stuff to Ranchero, Tichumaren is pretty minor.

There was huge soukous and related post-rhumba afropop movement that penetrated further in the late 80s and early 90s than desert blues does now, especially in France. Every Kanda Bongo Man and Loketo album seemed to receive as much press in American sources as desert blues does now.

Exhibit: [Soukous in Central Park](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWSoYkdo799OvI71oOIn_ELo11jEQDQiH) (NY), 1993.

Agree with Sanpaku

The new Jupiter & Okwess album sounds pretty good.

The Jupiter & Okwess album has old-school Congolese roots but feels new to me. Galloping rhythms, some harmonies, it’s as worthy as the American indie and rap that gets more coverage and commentary everywhere including Ilx / ilm.

Jupiter & Okwess is/are as worthy as Wye Oak and Rolling Blackouts and techno and Rico Nasty rap and whatever other niches get acclaim on ILM

Jupiter & Okwess are busy touring now.

Wish the Jupiter & Okwess tour was coming back to my neck of the woods. Same with the Sidi Toure one. They've been here in the past, but not on current tours.

Will make do with the Jupiter & Okwess album and try to also listen to some old Orlando Julius maybe

I need to find that NPR story re music in Zimbabwe post-Mugabe I heard mentioned on the radio as coming up (but I then didn't hear at the time)

Banning Eyre I know write about the return of Thomas Mapfumo there. But npr story might also be about younger musicians

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630419032/politics-in-zimbabwe-has-a-new-soundtrack

Oh, that's not the greatest article. The writer found the leader of a longtime Zimbabwe cover band who is now working with younger musicians

Chitambo is making music again. He has a new outfit, called Friends Band. The group mostly plays covers — they are much less famous than Wells Fargo was — and nearly all of the musicians are about 40 years younger than Chitambo. They have only ever known a Zimbabwe ruled by Mugabe.

Still need to check out latest Kiran Ahluwalia album 7 Billion

Ahluwalia is from India but blends in other influences (north African and more) in a well-done way; not world music cliches

Saturday night is busy in the DC area

Made in Cameroon music festival at the Fillmore

* Love Wins--A celebration in honor of new Ethiopian Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed’s historic visit to #WashingtonDC with Ephrem Tamiru, Madingo Afwerk, Sami Berhane, Berehanu Tezera & More backed by Ras Band at Echostage (Ethiopian acts)

* Dancing under the Stars for free with Afro-Colombian champeta band Bazurto Allstars and Congolese act Soukous Stars plus dance lessons on the Kennedy Center North Plaza

* Tinariwen at the Warner Theatre

*Anna Mwalagho one woman show at Silver Spring Black Box Theatre

* Chardabat Video release party at Lee's Lounge, 2903 Hamilton Street, Hyattsville, MD (Congolese)

digging Ahluwalia on first listen, thanks for the recommendation

Leila Gobi ‘s squeaky voice over insistent rhythms is kinda entrancing. Listening to her 2017 album

Noura Mint Seymali appears to be the token African woman on that NPR music list of 200 songs by women who debuted in 21st century or had their major impact in 21st. I think Yemi Alade should have made the list

fatoumata diawara would've been good too

Yep.

So Angelique Kidjo's take on Talking Heads "Remain in Light" is kinda uneven. On some of it, I am not enthused about her vocal delivery-- like she's trying too hard to be avante-garde or something. Gonna see her and her band live tomorrow night at a big outdoor theatre, with Femi Kuti opening

Enjoyed the show. Kidjo did a few of her own older songs plus covered Miriam Makeba “Pata Pata.” She can dance and her voice was strong.

Femi Kuti did a bunch of songs from his latest album. Some of it is formulaic afrobeat, but he makes it work. Political lyrics about evil people and how religion gets misused.

Kidjo and Femi Kuti are around my age. They are impressively energetic onstage

Listening to Fela now

http://www.sternsmusic.com/topchart.php

African and Brazilian stuff from December 2017, including some reissues and comps-- Le Grand Kalle; "Urgent Jumping", and a Vieux Kante album.

No newer list

August 2018 albums on top of European "World Music" chart
Fenfo Fatoumata Diawara, Mali; So Calypso! Calypso Rose, Trinidad & Tobago; Wande Samba Toure, Mali;
Joys Abound Bhattacharya Anandi, India Plaza Francia Orchestra Plaza Francia Orchestra, France; Maghreb United Ammar 808, Tunesia; Cachaito Orlando Cachaito Lpoez, Cuba; Guerra Cesare Dell'Anna, Girodibanda, Italy ; ; Sound the People Red Baraat, USA
Ne la Thiass (remastered) Cheikh Lo, Senegal; Remain in Light Angelique Kidjo, Benin/USA

http://www.wmce.de/

Album title, artist name, then country

Khaira Arby has passed away :((((

https://www.facebook.com/KhairaArby/posts/2624124244280405?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARARgsGZbB2toOF3waSdrpFn5jkzAHiMiYO7Aweyy6YJBp7SjRfWTivR5NAKZpavdvCYMNTjZeRU_uLIKqxY1RRLt1FGSjM0Z_jK_19ZnR0nEeXfMvC6oX4et7ynDUfLZyasAxZ9ot9E&__tn__=-R

Oh no. Khaira Arby was only 59. I saw this Malian desert diva a number of times and liked her on record too.

digging this

https://innovgnawa.bandcamp.com/album/aicha

oh hell yeah that's great

Saw Innov Gnawa do a special live set awhile back at an old Baltimore synagogue of North African Sephardic-rooted music. Good stuff.

Still shocked and sad re Khaira Arby's death at only 59.

reading about 33 year-old Afghan singer Aryana Sayeed who performs in her home country sometimes even though the Taliban and mullahs have issued death threats against her

http://www.spiegel.de/international/interview-with-afghan-pop-star-aryana-sayeed-on-women-in-afghanistan-a-1220274.html

One of Sayeed ‘s most viewed songs on YouTube

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbZBbmpr58

Oh no I totally missed the news about Arby, that is really sad

Listening to Emel Mathlouthi, female Tunisian singer who came to fame with the Tunisian revolution in 2010. She's kinda Arabic folky, but sometimes now sings over programmed beats and sounds artsy

SOAR by Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita, second collaboration between the harp and kora players. https://open.spotify.com/album/2s5WYOg1fezE42u6X0GqJc?si=9xI9lJXgRwCgqDnIbEIovg
^^this one is great!

World Music Fest in Chicago is about to start -- psyyyyyyyyched!!! https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/world_music_festival.html

Here's a very groovy live set by Senegal's Marema, at the Africa Festival in Germany:

- https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/076003-002-A/marema-africa-festival/

(Video is available online until 31 Dec 2019)

I like Marema’s vocals and some of the songs I have heard, although a few sound influenced by Peter Gabriel sorta — not as crazy about those.

https://m.france24.com/en/20180912-french-based-algerian-singer-rachid-taha-dies-59

Rip Taha. He did a rendition of “Rock the Casbah “ that got some crossover attention

Was listening again to the late Rachid Taha's rockin Algerian rai music last night. Sad he's gone too soon.

x-post-- that Chicago Fest looks good. If I was out there I would see Jupiter & Okwess from the Congo (again) on the 22nd and/or 23rd.

From Simon Reynolds piece on Autotune in Pitchfork, discussed on ilm rockism thread:

When it was first embraced by Western audiences in the ’80s, African music tended to be associated with qualities like rootsy, earthy, authentic, natural—in other words, values fundamentally at odds with Auto-Tune. Actually, this was a mistaken—and dare I say, rockist—projection. Most early forms of Afro-pop, such as highlife or juju, were slick, the work of highly professional bands not averse to a little bit of razzle dazzle. There was nothing particular rural about this sound, which was to a large degree associated with an urbane, sophisticated, cosmopolitan audience. Nor was it particularly “pure” in the way that Western world music enthusiasts seemed to crave: It always eagerly incorporated ideas from black America, the Caribbean, and the outside world, from King Sunny Adé’s Shadows-style twangy guitar, to the synths and drum machines in ’80s Ethiopian electro-funk.

So it makes perfect sense that 21st century Afrobeat would embrace the latest in sonic modernity.

When it was first embraced by Western audiences in the ’80s, African music tended to be associated with qualities like rootsy, earthy, authentic, natural

is this true? who/what is he talking about? putumayo listeners? i feel like african music that could be described that way exists - as field recordings, folk styles, etc - but the same thing applies in the west as well. once music starts to travel, becomes urban, gets radio play it immediately becomes eclectic in its influences. seems like maybe a strawlistener. ppl who listened to african crossover music in the 80s like lizzy mercier descloux or graceland would i think get how cosmopolitan this music was.

crossover influenced

Yea, it's all a little more complicated. There are both Putumayo listeners and others who do view this simplistically, and so yes Simon would have been better if he had stated African music tended to be associated BY SOME WESTERNERS

Sometimes I feel a bit defensive with this thread that some people will think we're pushing and embracing "rockist" global sounds rather than the pop modern ones of the Afrobeats thread. I would hope that most people here know that multiple types of sounds exist everywhere (and depending on taste, age, etc.) one can find music inspiring in all camps no matter how its made.

it's a little weird bc i don't think of world folk music traditions as rockist? but maybe i don't know what rockist means anymore? but like field recordings def don't scan as rockist to me. isn't rockism like canonical western guitar band albums? how would that relate to putumayo listeners who i have complaints about but i don't think of as rockist? when you say "rockist global sounds" do u mean those sounds or do u mean more like stuff that guitar band fans might like like tuareg blues type stuff?

Rockist to me simply means here "I like music played on real instruments with real vocalists" not "Programmed computer sounds with autotuned vocals"....

World music fests that include only folks playing sounds on old-school traditional instruments, but not new autotuned vocalists from such countries, might also be a type of rockism to some. Of course, others will say that such fests are highlighting the sounds that don't get the support and recognition that the younger (usually) autuned pop gets.

Sneering at Congolese rumba and soukous dance records and saying its not authentic like field recordings could also be seen as rockist

I don't think a recording itself can even be rockist but appreciation of folk recordings can come in the guise of "look at the authentic roots of the music that ended up as Blues/Rock when it came to the US", i.e. framing it only in the context of its influence on Rock (obviously this works better w/ some field recordings than others).

Then there's the impulse to ignore modern Pop coming from Africa and rejecting anything that sounds to o influenced by Western music but I dunno if that's rockism so much as the kind of old school folkie mentality that angered Dylan in the US and the Tropicália bunch in Brazil.

Conflating traditionalism with rockism is weird to me; not all status quos are the same.

I think a lot of critics see rockism as the privileging of tropes of a specific genre (or culture?) when analysing music not from that genre, and that genre doesn't have to be Rock (though it usually is). At least that was the answer here some time in the early to mid 00's when someone brought up if there could be "popism", "reggaeism", etc.

There are lots of reasons someone might privilege folk traditions over popular music that have nothing to do with Rock music (and lots of reasons that such an approach would be anti-Rock in its essence). I think thinking about African music might obscure this for the very reasons that Reynolds claims is afflicting these supposed "rockists." People aren't familiar enough with African folk to know what it is so they're assuming it's just proto-Blues & Rock. If you talked about non-African folk traditions though this distinction would be obvious. No one would accuse a klezmer purist who preferred Dave Tarras (1955 klezmer artist) to Golem (contemporary punk-klezmer outfit) of being a Rockist. Maybe of being misguided in other ways (Klezmer has always had outside influences, Tarras was not himself as genre pure as you'd assume, etc), but Rockism would be a bizarre accusation. I think similarly with African music - if someone loves Mbuti pygmy music and thinks that it's more authentic than Congolese rumba I think that person is missing out but I doubt they're animated by rockism so much as ethnomusicological biases.

they're all just different ways of esteeming some notion of authenticity

"not all status quos are the same."

Re: egregious over- and mis-use of the term 'rockism': ILM gonna ILM.

not even all rockisms are the same. if anyone's got a better shorthand pls avail us

prescriptivism?

Gatekeeping?

if someone thinks western art music is the height of music and pop music is all garbage aka a classical music snob are they also "rockists"? i mean acc to the idea that rockism is just emphasizing some forms of music as more authentic than others then definitely but it's v stupid calling someone who hates rock music a rockist.

Yeah but 'prescriptivism' sounds less like 'racism' so idk.

It is my understanding that yeah, as the term was used from the get-go it could indeed apply both to yr hypothetical klezmer fan and yer classical music snob. I see why you would think that to not be very helpful as a term but in this particular context I think it's pretty obvious what Reynolds is getting at, anyway.

historically informed performance you could call rockist, but snobbery can run in all sorts of directions, likewise gatekeeping could be done on a rockist basis but not necessarily

Mordy otm

trying to assess folk traditions in terms of the vocabulary of a very specific school of British pop music criticism seems massively short-sighted to me

"rockism" was invented to take Robert Christgau down a peg not to describe African music

i don't love the SR piece but it's not doing that, you guys are v rockist about the usage of the term rockist

yeah, it's about western perceptions of African music and "world music" as a category, it's got nothing to do with trying to describe any actual music

'My coinage is so utterly exemplary that it turns any and all proximate terms into subcategories of it'.

prescriptivism is the correct term imo
it is what i was going to post before i decided i didn't want to get into the discussion that far (and then changed my mind)

there is nothing wrong with exploring and appreciating the roots of popular music if it is informative; if it is prescriptive ("this is the greatest music right here") then obviously that is not in the correct spirit of music appreciation

I kind of want to thank this thread for validating every misgiving and suspicion I ever had about the concept of "rockism".

(the term itself, obv, not the nebulous thing it supposedly refers to)

Moving on slightly from the authenticity discussion-

So I saw Malian band BKO Quintet last night in a small DC club. I liked the way the musician on the electrified ngoni uh rocked. Not flashy, but quick fingers that created rhythm and noisey notes. The drummer, percussionist, & kora player added funkiness. But I guess they’re considered roots/ traditional since they don’t rap, or use autotune, or programmed beats.

I am guessing that in Mali BKO’s audience is different a bit from Malian rappers, but I don’t know; and don’t know how folks of different ages and classes there view traditionalism and pop and authenticity.

BKO Quintet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZNm3dZbGI4

this looks cool haven't heard it yet

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2440170954_16.jpg

That does look intriguing. Currently listening though to a more serious Arab world effort-- DC based Palestinian singer/oud player Huda Asfour whom I have touted here before. She's on Spotify and her latest album Kouni is very good.

La Lechera, how was the Chicago fest? Did you see Jupiter & Okwess? Did your students go to any of the events?

It was amazing, as usual! In fact, before I tell you any more I learned that the webcasts have been archived and you should be able to view them from the facebook page -- this should work? https://www.facebook.com/pg/WorldMusicFestivalChicago/videos/?ref=page_internal

I caught Juana Molina (awesome, inventive, super fun), Rio Mira & Orquesta Akokan (their only US appearance?! wut? two students came to this and both enjoyed it a lot, insanely packed venue), and Jupiter & Okwess (no students showed but the performance was great and I enjoyed Quantic's DJ set a LOT) I didn't get to all the events I wanted to see, but it was satisfying.

By the time last Saturday rolled around I was completely exhausted but that is what I want from WMF -- it helps a person save up good memories to last through the winter

i like this - it's on spotify:

https://thevinylfactory.com/news/african-acid-is-the-future-launches-new-label-ambiance-vinyl/

Oh will have to check that out, as it includes “the queen of mbira” Stella Chiweshe from Zimbabwe. I didn't recognize the Kenyan names on it.

Rio Mira, the Ecuador/Peru marimba music act, that was one of the groups La Lechera saw at the Chicago Fest, are gonna be in the month long October DC Global Music fest. The DC Fest has a mix of paid ticket and free shows, plus they're showing movies also like Zerzura: A Saharan Acid Western (made by Sahel Sounds )

Oh, thanks for the Facebook video links for the Chicago fest performances. Just checked out a bit of Rio Mira and the retro-mambo Cuban and more group Orquesta Akokan

I need to find time to check out more of those Chicago Fest videos

The DC Flash of the Spirit month-long global music fest is going on. A mix of ticketed and free gigs. Gonna probably see Ethiopia's Fendika tonight (who play music and dance) with the Brooklyn-based Anbessa Orchestra (made up mostly of some Israelis into Ethiopian music who moved to US) . Fendika played in NYC the other night with my Ethiopiques DC based fave guitarist Selam Selamino Woldermariam

Fendika were afro-folkloric and rhythmic with some good dancers; Anbessa have the old-school Ethiopiques sound down tight.

I love Fendika! <3 Melaku <3

just listening to Benin guitarist Lionel Loueke's The Journey album rn, like it!

Been loving the Kamal Keila reissue on Habibi Funk - amazing that they managed to get such sound quality out of tapes of radio sessions that, as per the liner notes, got wet and damaged in the meantime. It's "Sudanese Jazz", which feels to me more like Funk crossed with local influences. Very much worth hearing.

x-post--just listening to Benin guitarist Lionel Loueke's The Journey album rn, like it!

― calzino, Monday, October 8, 2018

In the past Loueke's playing has always been more jazz than Benin-sounding, which is ok but didn't dazzle me. Fans of his insist even his jazz is unique because of what he brings to it, but perhaps I haven't listened close enough to hear it.

Saw at Richmond, VA Folk festival yesterday a Baltimore-based Caribbean carnival troupe, Tribu Baharu (Afro-Colombian champeta band), and Orchesta El Macabeo (Puerto Rican punks gone salsa) plus Mavis Staples, Sherman Holmes Project, and more

not gone back to that Loueke album much since tbh, it seems to go a bit off the boil after the first few tracks.

Oh well, re Loueke.

Unrelated:

I still have so many Afropop.org episodes to catch up with.

I see that someone else likes the Louke album on the jazz thread. Still too many other things I want to listen to before that (as I like stuff on this thread more than instrumental jazz).

I didn't see Rio Mira and their call & response vocals over marimba at either the DC festival or the chicago one, but am liking the video of one of their Chicago gigs better than i expected I would. more rhythmic and uptempo than I thought it would be.

https://www.facebook.com/WorldMusicFestivalChicago/videos/266948357485706/

When I saw South African guitarist/singer Vusi Mahlasela a long time ago he seemed a little too folky for me. It might have been a solo gig. My wife had never seen him and she wanted to go see him this past weekend and we did. I liked him better. Joined by a band, and talking a lot between songs about his new upcoming live album recorded where he grew up, and about politics and hate (this was a Saturday night gig in a DC synagogue hours after the Pittsburgh synagogue killing), his voice seemed more powerful over the township jive throwback rhythms from his band. He noted he had been struggling with his health but was now doing better. His inspirational performance reminded me a bit of seeing longtime American civil rights activists now; people who have endured so much and are still enduring and are still pushing forward for justice.

Glanced at Pitchfork Best albums page link and I see a couple of folk and country releases and some metal among the rap, rock,experimental, and electro, but I don't see anyone from any genre from the continent of Africa, plus no Caribbean acts and no Central or South American. Hven't looked closely for Asian or other parts of the world. Some so-called niche genres just don't count I guess. I haven't looked at the Pitchfork best tracks list to see if things look better there-- maybe a reggaeton or Afrobeats track... Hopefully.

Pitchfork tracks list has a jazz track, folk/ country ones, electronic and experimental but none that are afropop, afrobeats, reggaeton, dancehall, or soca

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ObS-u4XXYb0

I saw footage circulating of new Minnesota congressperson Ilhan Omar, a Somali-American celebrating with family to this great Somali dance song

I was about to witness a three day ceremony with five gong players, each man holding one gong, drunk on new rice alcohol fermented for three weeks. All I knew when I left Banlung (a Khmer town) was wanting to check Kavet territory and luckily winter is the time of celebration when people of the villages congregate. Some have not seen each other for months or weeks and reunite on the territory of the village after rice harvest has been finished.

Excerpt from article about Laurent Jeanneau, aka Kink Gong, who traveled around Southeast Asia between 1996 and 2014 recording traditional musicians

https://www.popmatters.com/sounds-of-zomia-kink-gong-2608153653.html

thanks for posting -- saving for later
five gong players!

Angelique Kidjo sounded powerful and emotional in singing in front of world’s politicians in Paris at Armistice Day WWI event

Here's the video of Kidjo. She celebrated peace and sung tribute to fallen World War One African soldiers with a moving rendition of a song popularized by a Togo singer, Bella Bellow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpABEO2Embs

Seeing Tal National & Fatoumata Diawara on best of lists, whom else do you like (yea I know it’s only November)!

Imarhan, Hailu Mergia, Ebo Taylor, Bombino

I generated this at work at Spotify using listening data from the first day of streaming in the 13 Middle-East/North-African countries we launched in this week:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/43PAWHK47Nl6B9BW59EDxI?si=-Sywg3ZeRPqKDCpuOtlbgg

Also, if you don't already know about these, a few other ways to see what people around the world are programming or playing on Spotify:

http://everynoise.com/worldbrowser.cgi (Spotify editorial playlists)
http://everynoise.com/countrysounds.html (countries)
http://everynoise.com/everyplace.cgi (cities)
http://everynoise.com/hyperspace_house_concerts.cgi (cities, part 2)

How are the editorial playlists generated?

Oh, sorry, the editorial playlists are made by humans, that's what "editorial" means in this context.

you hire ppl in all these different countries to make these playlists? how often do they update them?

Yes, although sometimes a small team handles multiple countries. Update frequencies vary, but most of the Featured ones get new stuff daily or weekly.

and who are the ppl who make them? music journalists in those places, radio ppl, fans?

They're Spotify employees, and come from various backgrounds. You can see openings on our Jobs site, including two of these positions right now (one for Classical, one for Indonesia):

https://www.spotifyjobs.com/search-jobs/#search=senior+editor&category=shows-editorial

New Music Friday Maghreb is largely US rap and indie. Uh, thanks Spotify editorial

Welcome to Mena is more interesting

Well, my rogue efforts at globalist data-liberation notwithstanding, NMF Maghreb exists for the local audience, not for musical tourism. In North Africa by default you see that instead of the other versions, not in addition, so of course it has a lot of global artists...

Spotify Colonialism Maghreb

But I like many of the other ones

The city thing there is interesting. Had used it before but forgotten about it.

Back to Mordy's post -- yes to Ebo Taylor and the others...Thanks for reminding me

Bandcamp and Pitchfork contributor Marc M*st#rs got folks talking about African reissues and some new stuff on Facebook the other day: Here's some stuff mentioned

subscribe to the Now-Again/Rappcats thing where I get downloads every month of whatever obscure Zamrock thing they're currently doing

Dur Dur of Somalia on Analog Africa Bandcamp

All the Zamrock stuff is a blast - Witch, Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family. Ripping guitars

African Scream, vol. 2; Ernesto Chahoud presents Taitu; Editions Syliphone Conakry reissues ; The first Rikki Ililonga record (Zambia) reish on Now-Again is GREAT.; Habibi Funk; Sahel Sounds; Asnakech, by Asnakech Worku; Two Niles to Sing a Melody: The violins and Synths of Sudan on Ostinato records via Bandcamp; Shina Williams & His African Percussionists are well worth checking out. He used a lot of the same musicians as Fela Kuti. ; Electric Jive label South African 60s reissues

I missed out on that Afro-garage rocking Zambia stuff like Witch when it was first getting reissued circa 2011 I think, but have heard a bit now

i love that stuff

I need to get to the South African and Sudan reissues next.

heads up jordan, there was a new toto bona lokua album in the past year, more than that long ago actually

http://www.noformat.net/album-toto-bona-lokua-bondeko-58.html

sounds great

Sometimes Richard Bona can be a bit too syruppy jazzy, but maybe not in Toto Bona Lokua

29. Hailu Mergia - Lala Belu

From the Wire magazine album poll. Sons of Kemet won

xps to curmudgeon:

The Dur-Dur and Sudanese compilations are talked about (a bit) on this thread:
’Sweet as Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa' - THIS COMP OMG.

https://amanardekidal.bandcamp.com/album/alghafiat

Afropop worldwide podcast/radio show "Stocking Stuffers"-new,and reissued African and Caribbean and Central American and Latinx

http://afropop.org/audio-programs/stocking-stuffers-2018

Ebo Taylor, Yen Ara (Ghana)
Angelique Kidjo, Remain in Light (Benin artist covers T. Heads)
Bokanté & Metropole Orkest & Jules Buckley, What Heat, (US, Netherlands, Guadeloupe)
Ronnie Moipolai, I’m Not Hear to Hunt Rabbits, (Botswana guitarist)
“Listen All Around” Double cd comp of pre-independence music from central (Congo & more0 and east Africa
Bombino, Deran (Niger guitarist)
Delgres, Mo Jodi,(Paris-based Guadeloupe meets Creole Louisiana)
Stella Chiweshe, Kasahwa: Early Singles (Zimbabwe reissue)
Toko Telo, Diavola (Madagascar)
Damily, Valimbilo (Madagascar)
Doctor Nativo, Guatemaya (Guatemalan reggae-cumbia)
King Koya, Tierra de King Coya (Colombian techno-cumbia)
Anbessa Orchestra, Negestat (Ethiopiques led by Israelis in Brooklyn)
Hailu Mergia, Lala Belu (Ethiopia)
Sidi Touré, Toubalbero (Mali)
Fatoumata Diawara, Fenfo (Mali)
Harouna Samake, Kamele Blues (Mali)
Invisible System, Bamako Sessions (Mali)
Irene Mawela, Ari Pembele - Let's Rejoice (South African old-school mbaqanga singer)
Professor Rhythm, Professor 3 (South Affrican reissue on Awesome Tapes)
Qhizzo, Gqom Plug (South Africa)
Thabang Tabane, Matjale (South African Venda roots-jazz)
Lucibela, Laço Umbilical (Cape Verde singer's debut)
Los Rumberos De La Bahia, Mabagwe (Cuban rumba)
RAM, RAM 7 - August 1791 (Haiti)
Bachata Haiti, Bachata Haiti
Sarazino, Mama Funny Day (Paris-based Algerian singer)
MHD, 19 (Paris-based Afro-trap rapper whose parents are Guinean and Senegalese)
Moulay Masters, Moulay Ahmed El Hassani, Atlas Electric (Moroccan mountains)
Tallawit Timbouctou, Hali Diallo (Malian desert )
Dur-Dur Band, Dur-Dur Of Somalia
Two Niles to Make a Melody, the Violins and Synths of Sudan.
Cheikh Lô, Ne La Thiass vinyl reissue (Senegal)
African Scream Contest 2 (Benin)
Dr. Nico, Dieu De La Guitare vinyl reissue (Congo)
Bumba Massa, V70 (Congo)
Jupiter and Okwess, Kin Sonic (US release 2018) (Congo)
Bixiga 70, Quebra Cabeça (Brazil)

yeah! i was just listening to that ep. those are always great, lots of exposure to different stuff.

A Rosalia song seems to be the token non-English language track on Pitchfork’s top 100 tracks.

33-year-old singer Jackson Aluta Kazimoto, known as Dogo Jackie or Jackie Simela, of great Tanzanian band Jagwa Music died in a car accident

https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/tanzania-jagwa-music-frontman-dies

I listened to Irene Mawela, Ari Pembele - Let's Rejoice (South African old-school mbaqanga singer)
Thabang Tabane, Matjale (South African Venda roots-jazz)

from the afropop stocking stuffers list above-- eh they're ok. Still loving Ebo Taylor from Ghana. Need to hear more from that afropop list

https://www.catrinfinchandseckoukeita.com

Folk Roots critics poll album of the year is a collaboration between a Welsh harp player, Catrin Finch and a Senegalese kora player, Seckou Keita

http://www.transglobalwmc.com/category/charts/annual-charts/

Monsieur Doumani is their top North African/ Middle East winner

I still haven't listened to Doumani. Heard a little of the Finch and Keita record -- beautiful at times, too easy listening at other times

The Afro-folk of Madagascar group Teko Telo is pleasant enough

Transglobal WM Chart Best of 2018!
BEST ALBUM OF 2018: Monsieur Doumani
2-Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita
3-Fatoumata Diawara
4-El Naán
5-Ammar 808
6-Gabacho Maroc
7-The Turbans
8-SANS
9-Vigüela
10-Samba Touré

20 = Ammar 808 Maghreb United (Glitterbeat)

This on Folk Roots poll. I like it

Monsieur Doumani did not wow me. It turns out that they are a three-piece Cypriot band

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx4cRw6TIIg

Guitarist Ronnie Moipolai from Botswana has over a million views

Check out the flashy fingerwork, people!

That Jupiter & Okwess album from Congo is a keeper. Great guitar sound, unusual arrangements, head nodding but not typical rhythms

Some albums on the Quietus list of 100 that I need to check out. Heard a little of this one and liked it:

The sheer range of what Maryam Saleh, Maurice Louca and Tamer Abu Ghazaleh are trying to combine on Lekhfa - trad chaabi, mahraganat, Nile Delta psych, classic Egyptian pop, Middle Eastern jazz, smoky... ...That's a choice by the Q editor who has posted here on ocassion

Listening to Qhizzo- Gqomm Plug now. More interesting than European techno, but still the club beats can get a bit tiresome. This is from South Africa and the vocals are melodic and interesting in how the interact

Ammar 808 Maghreb United (Glitterbeat) has made a few polls

looking for Mdou Moctar bookings in florida, charleston sc, savannah, open to house shows - get at us at booking (at) sahelsounds (dot) com

didn't know you were repping Moctar curmudgeon! Hoping to see him briefly at Drom early next month.

That was from a Sahelsounds tweet. I am just trying to help Moctar and Sahelsounds out. Have seen Moctar live 3 times and he and his band are wonderful. They deserve well-paying gigs in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Jason King in his year-end piece as part of the Slate discussion among critics:

Though Africa has largely fallen off the American news radar, the music rocketing out of the continent remains straight fire. Projects by GuiltyBeatz, Aka, Fatoumata Diawara, Seun Kuti, Femi Kuti, Emmanuel Jal, Burna Boy, Muzi, Tal National, and Ammar 808 are all worth streaming. My favorite contemporary record this year, however, was I’m a Dream, the sophomore set from Gambian-Swedish chanteuse Seinabo Sey.

https://slate.com/culture/2018/12/2018-music-both-directions-at-once-coltrane.html

xp ah, okay.

https://www.stereogum.com/2027032/barack-obama-best-songs-2018/news/

Jupiter & Okwess are on it; Fatoumata Diawara too

Rolling Global Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2019 Thread Once Known as World Music