Rolling Global Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2021 Thread (Often African bands)

This thread is mainly for polyrhythmic, international sounds that aren't big enough to get threads of their own. I lean toward south of the equator sounds here that are sometimes less club-oriented than those of artists highlighted on Afrobeats, dancehall, soca, etc. threads. Sometimes, but not always, the artists are older than those on those other threads. More old-school bands too. Often less digital programming but if it includes such playing/programming it is usually less popular

Here's last year's thread- 2020

Rolling Global Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2020 Thread (Often African bands)

Still catching up on 2020 music slowly ( other things keeping me from listening)

Saw an Awesome Tapes from Africa email about a Mail release that looked promising; once I find time

https://jonathanbogart.substack.com/p/50-songs-of-2020-14

Jonathan Bogart in part re his top songs of 2020 : I dare say that just about anyone could find something to love in there, even if they don’t speak Spanish, Portuguese, French, Swahili, or Zulu (the most common non-English languages throughout the playlist).

Bogart ranked 50 songs and did a Spotify list plus a 626 song YouTube playlist. A lot of it is more Afro thread material but since he has Caribbean and Brazilian and more , I posted it here

Breastcrawl may even know already about many of the above artists.

cool, I only just saw this. reservations about JB aside, I’m looking forward to do some digging in. (rest assured, if last year’s list is anything to go by there will be lots I don’t know)

Chouk Bwa & The Ångstromers
Vodou Alé
Haitian Drumming and Singing with Touches of Electronica and Dancehall Music

Just finally listened to this 2020 effort. Not bad but doesn’t consistently wow me. Critic Ted Gioia had it in his long year end list

https://afropop.org/articles/catch-up-on-tiny-desk-globalfest-2021

https://afropop.org/articles/albums-from-2020-highlights

album titles in the link

Rocky Dawuni
Songhoy Blues
Elida Almeida
Aricia Mess from Putumayo presents Brazil-Samba, Bossa, and Beyond
Hailu Mergia
Groupe RTD
Gordon Konang
Linos Wengara Magaya & Zimbaremabwe Mbira Vibes
Modeste Hugues & Kilema
Artists for Peace & Justice- Let the Rhythm Lead: Haiti Song Summit Vol. 1
Ali Bilali Soudan
Herb Alpert
Andal Sukabe from Music from Saharan WhatsApp 7 Sahel Sounds
Penny Penny
Nahawa Doumbia
Ballake Sissoko
Oumou Sangare - Acoustic
Monty Alexander

This rips (Ugandan drum group on Nyege Nyege):
https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/album/ejokawulida

Still catching up on 2020-- the Al Bilali Soudan (not Ali as I mistakenly typed earlier) album has great North African desert guitar work. Maybe not anything new at this point, but done really well.

Actually that's ngoni on that and maybe not guitar

https://www.clermontmusic.com/tombouctou

Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia also on above list has a powerful, passionate voice . She's from southern Mali. in the Wassoulou region. This area is well known for generating some of the best female singers in Mali, including Oumou Sangaré.

https://earthbeat.nl/artist/nahawa-doumbia/

Modeste Hugues & Kilema is pleasant afro-folk from Madagascar .

Still more there to go through.

The Oumou Sangare acoustic album from last year is nice. She's still got a great voice. One of those many fantastic southern Mali vocalists

I don't think the kora album by Ballake Sissoko that afropop.org listed is available yet. He is a good player. Saw him duet with French musician Vincent Segal live, and they also were together on Tiny Desk

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

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jan/26/kyrgyzstan-ballads-okinawan-folk-ugandan-hymns-the-album-rewriting-global-music-history-excavated-shellac?fbclid=IwAR1bKpkJrd2_MAmkb85GeWq3eQ5fLEV1CZBb7i7JZhqtXf4PynrAsMuBhpY

New digital only collection with e-book of global 78s put together by Excavated Shellac and Dust to Digital

thanks for posting that tiny desk concert! I watched it last night. I know their albums together already, but it was a real treat to be able to see them playing with each other. This is basically what I imagine heaven would sound like.

I skipped a kora concert summer '19. I don't even remember who was playing, but I've regretted it ever since, particularly in the past year.

That shellac collection sounds amazing, I kind of want to convene a group project to listen to the whole thing.

Good description.

Good description.

that excavated shellac thing looks amazing - used to follow the blog - but come on, 100+ tracks? no one has the time.

ordered the shellac collection! downloading the large pdf is taken some time let alone the music :D

oh wait that was the music

anyway listening now

the detail in the document is amazing btw, full page of history for each track and lyrics and translations

got it off bandcamp earlier and talked a friend into listening to a few songs each week and chatting about it, pretty excited!

Christgau just posted his fave albums for 2020 list and it includes this North African one below from 2017

3. Group Doueh & Cheveu: Dakhla Sahara Session (Born Bad ‘17)

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMh9h8twoGyInLFa-yMgFdSYNX642hhMb

Nahawa Doumbia , Mali singer with her band in Stockholm last year. She has a new album that was available in Mali in November 2020, & Awesome Tapes from Africa is releasing elsewhere now

Nice I'll have to check that out. I got pretty into La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 3 last summer

https://www.theafricareport.com/62955/sibongile-khumalo-voice-of-the-new-south-africa-dies-at-63/

RIP Sibongile Khumalo, South African Zulu jazz & choral singer

I forget the name of the rap not in English thread, so Inwill post this here instead. I see in The NY Times actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas saying that she listens to Hindi rap like Raftaar and Divine when she works out.

that's this thread, curmudge: Rolling worldwide rap thread 2021

Reading in NY Times about Barbara Dane , 93 years old musician and Paredon label owner

Musician Barbara Dane’s Life of Defiance and Song - plus Her label released music produced by liberation movements in Vietnam, Palestine, Angola, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Greece, Uruguay, Mexico, the United States and beyond.

Folkways controls the label now

nice to see that paddy bush's old documentary on the malagasy musician rakotozafy has made it back to youtube again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orE-9ZQVsio

Kôrôlén is a very special collaboration between two titans in music: Toumani Diabaté, the Grammy-winning Malian kora virtuoso, and the London Symphony Orchestra, renowned worldwide for their performances of orchestral music on record, film and stage. Diabaté, a griot whose musical lineage stretches back generations, is well known as one of the most creative musicians on the African continent, and is almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the iconic sound of the kora to worldwide audiences. No stranger to a genre-defying collaboration, he has recorded two Grammy-winning albums alongside desert blues pioneer Ali Farka Touré, as well as projects with Taj Mahal, Björk, Béla Fleck, Damon Albarn and Afrocubism.

Commissioned as a special project by the Barbican Centre in London and produced by World Circuit, these recordings feature Diabaté and his group of eminent Malian musicians (including Kasse Mady Diabaté and Lassana Diabaté), accompanied by the soaring presence of the LSO, in dedicated arrangements by Nico Muhly and Ian Gardiner and conducted by Clark Rundell. The title bestowed by Diabaté on this unique and groundbreaking release, 'Kôrôlén', translates from the Mandinka language as 'ancestral' - a fitting theme for an album that brings together ancient griot melodies and Western orchestral arrangements, resulting in an achingly beautiful and fresh neo-classical sound that will appeal to admirers of African, traditional and new classical, and ambient music.

arghhhh with someone like toumani would go LOWER-fi not higher fi
orchestra collabs are such a snooze

Yep

yeah I'm listening to "Haïnamady Town" off this right now and Diabaté is excellent of course, but the LSO bits are pretty sacharine

Here's one that rightfully should go on yesterday's '70s boogie thread 'cept it's not from the '70s and isn't about boogying per se; is from the Songhoy Blues LP that Steve was disappointed by last year. Similar to fellow Malian Ali Farka Toure, Songhoy Blues are fans of John Lee Hooker; unlike Ali Farka Touré their Hooker-derived blues boogie sometimes sounds like Brownsville Station.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-Zta6QLms

Sorry not much of Brownsville fan, although I am curious about how Songhoy Blues sound changed into this more boogie rock one

Paul Bowles, author & musician, went to Morocco in 1959 and recorded music there. It was released as a 1972 lp, and now his tapes are on YouTube

https://moroccantapestash.blogspot.com/2021/02/paul-bowles-library-of-congress.html?fbclid=IwAR0Uz6KRvZrIwsF8CjEI7M6KpTgLKmb22ORzXsFFb3Ga7YYKZaAl_O_hnuE&m=1

https://brazilbeatblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/15/favorite-brazilian-albums-of-2020/?fbclid=IwAR2RgmndUV6_OrRNlJfpSIlVwB-fWSPS1PVYhLKodT0zx-1VhS-mBrTIolc

A Brazilian top 20 for 2020

Oduor Nyagweno, solo nyatiti & vocals, worth reading the backstory here:
https://petelarson.bandcamp.com/album/where-i-go-i-am-there

At 14 years of age he had a dream about the nyatiti and when he awoke the following day, he was magically able to play it, or so the legend goes. Nyagweno started entering nyatiti competitions and quickly moved up the ranks to become one of the best nyatiti players in the area

Here’s part of backstory but there’s more.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-02-23/guy-chookoorian-armenian-american-novelty-records-dies

Longtime Armenian singer/ instrumentalist and occasional Hollywood bit actor Guy Chookoorian has died. Lots of Armenians who fled their homes after Turkish genocide end up in Southern California

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/sardool-sikander-1961-2021-roadways-di-laari-comes-to-a-grinding-halt-101614194628380.html

Punjabi / India singer Sardool Sikander dead at 60 from Covid

Not 100 percent sure this is the right thread for this, but Buscabulla was discussed on last year's thread. This is a lovely, languorous dream-pop cover. I wasn't familiar with the original, but I gather it's a Puerto Rican karaoke staple. I've gone back and listened to earlier recordings (Lissette Alvarez, Umberto Tozzi) and they're good but I like the chill vibe of this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3U_V46IonM

With the recent Spotify launches in several more African countries, I've been generating playlists to show what the new listeners in each country were disproportionately playing in their first few days. If you're interested:

Nigeria: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4RVekSXvQYyHrF6XyxEdwH?si=bPCTg3hlR5iERR1Z-j5z3g
Ghana: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0i3gO0KVgrTahrMziABjzi?si=qo64HhfaRgCDQqQO7k2J-g
Kenya: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4qTwmED83dqkVGNY9W76Jx?si=wePsV8afS0-Mw_0rL_B7pw
Tanzania: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Z0dnLnskhYb1aCHmreyP7?si=azB7nRvISeKQ0NY6ElLgzw
Uganda: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1JY0Esk4iU4vvCvxM6WOH9?si=H7hM1lCUR1O-awDgdO-_IA
Botswana: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1vAV9s9KXwLCD7knb4TrDX?si=SJKH7Xb6TqeUJBBumbTrCA
Senegal: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1uV3spPPFM8rbTjQm5R0U8?si=ijx0CwytSEaKU51c8M3x3Q
Zimbabwe: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6jz4ew4EjyoQEc93QXItMa?si=_nbg2izzScGPqgF8pdpWgQ
Rwanda: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6vqW1BNtJLAtrDNv5l0abc?si=oY1K1PFnRh2tTsziEpa2WQ
Burundi: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1mRpE6qCP9aKMqrkzoUTto?si=YnoYpakIRVy6OJKNXYBj0w
Malawi: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/44WtZOWm90wMMiaeFQauGw?si=VK8hLFhvQiKSXBAX12iyJA

Anybody see "The Mali Cuba Connection"

In the midst of the Cold War, ten young promising musicians from Mali are sent to Cuba to study music and strengthen cultural links between the two socialist countries. Combining Malian and Afro-Cuban influences, they develop a revolutionary new sound and become the iconic ensemble ‘Las Maravillas de Mali’. New Year’s Eve 2000. Richard Minier, a French music producer meets a former member of the band in Bamako and decides to bring the band back together

https://afivsr.eventive.org/films/the-mali-cuba-connection-606a3bc9eaf9ff005cebd6ff

or Zanka Contact ? Am curious about both of these movies

Re Zanka --

"A car crash throws together a has-been rocker who has just returned to Casablanca and a streetwise con-artist, who get lulled into the shenanigans of the city’s music underworld."‘For three days after the Bataclan, I thought I was dead,” says Ismaël el Iraki, whose debut feature, Zanka Contact, is a Wild at Heart-type love story starring Ahmed Hammoud & Moroccan music star Khansa Batma w/ debts to Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone.

Leaning towards seeing both of those movies

The Zanka Contact reviews on letterboxd are pretty withering but I am curious.

I read reviews elsewhere and the best I saw was “a mess but a fun one”.

Jambinai is cool!

[googles Jambinai]

Korean avant-rock. Does sound cool. Adds it to list to listen to later

hehe, a video was posted upthread, sounds like a studio take but looks live

many xps but sissoko's new album "Djourou" is pretty great

Yep Ballake Sissoko’s kora playing is heavenly. I really like the cuts with vocals on them best , I must admit though

mainly been listening to the stunning new Arooj Afab album Vulture Prince today

^the two tracks that are up on Bandcamp are gorgeous

An old friend used to recite the Rumi poem she sings on "Last Night" a lot; he was also the reason I got super into reggae, so the lightly skanking rhythm on that is perfect to me

listening to this now, spellbinding

it's really wonderful, big thanks to calzino

she is instantly super high up on my list of concerts I would like to see

yes that's spectacular, thanks for the tip

I like Aftab’s vocals plus the strings and arrangements. Pitchfork has given it a good review and it’s a best of album there ( singer lives in Brooklyn too!)

happy to be introduced to Arooj Aftab, I love this album. that Pitchfork review is very detailed and knowledgeable. this quote may be obvious, but I think it's worth highlighting:

Educated at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Aftab has as much of a claim to the Western traditions of jazz and experimental electronica as to the folk and classical music of her native homeland. She mixes and matches these traditions not with the awkward, respectful hesitancy of an outsider, but with the casual intimacy of an initiate.

"Saans Lo", one of the highlights for me, brought to mind Nina Simone's version of "Who Knows Where The Time Goes".

rob made a thread:

Arooj Aftab

I posted in the Ethiopiques thread about the death of pioneering Ethiopian record producer and label owner Amha Eshete. After he later fled Ethiopia he came to Washington DC and started the Blue Nile and Ibex clubs and continued to work with Ethiopian musicians

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xJETByzg7A

DC based Ethiopian singer/ guitarist Kumera Zekarias discovered Colombian music in DC and heard some similarities to Ethiopian music. He eventually went to Colombia and recorded with some Afro-Colombian musicians. He has now released a 4 song ep Biyya Chonta on Spotify and Bandcamp.

I like the Kumera Zekarias ep and video, and interviewed him about the project

https://medium.com/seventhirty-dc/on-biyya-chonta-kumera-zekarias-creates-a-heady-blend-of-ethiopian-and-colombian-grooves-353a460a9beb

Zekarias’s buzzing guitar work stands out as well. He says that a friend has jokingly told him that he “can’t speak Amharic that well, but your guitar does.”

Zekarias speaks some Amharic, Oromo, Spanish, & English. That’s from my latest article -

He organically blends that guitar sound well with Afro-Colombian tinted vocals support and the marimba & hand hit drum percussion

Banning Eyre of Afropop.Org is starting his own label Lion Songs Records and the first release on the label, Boubabcar "Badian" Diabaté's Mande Guitar (African Guitar Series Vol I, drops June 4).

Anyone has checked out Duda Beat - Te amo lá fora ? It's an exceedingly pleasant and smooth glossy mix of pop, r&b, Brazilian genres, and more. It has a certain vintage quality. Kali Uchis and Javiera Mena are my closest reference since I'm not so familiar with the scene in Brazil. Anyway, let's start with the closer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-qNnmmfdhY
Duda Beat - Tocar Você

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkv-w5QJPC0
Duda Beat - Meu Pisêro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS92p-sUDq4
Duda Beat - 50 Meninas

Since I'm at it, I also quite liked Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés - Clamor which is also pop but more rooted in classically trained folklore. The electronic touches are well blended and the album is consistent.

Nice. May want to xpost to Modern Brazil - s/d

Nice vocals

I need to check out Khaira Arby New York live 2010

Arby was a powerful voiced Malian singer who died young at 58 in 2018. Now this live recording has come out

Angélique Kidjo has a new album coming out next month; Burna Boy is on one track. She dedicated her 2020 Grammy win to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpwUq-tZfmE

Also seeing reviews of new Mdou Moctar album

The Moctar w/ his touring band album "Afrique Victime" is his first on Matador

it's a really good album this, some absolutely sick guitar playing and the songs are growing on me.

Listening for first time this morning. Sounds good. The one white guy in the group Mikey Coltun is from DC. Coltun’s dad is a guitarist who runs an international music club/ restaurant in DC. Dad has played with a DC based Malian musician for some time

A fantastic South African record — Philip Tabane's The Indigenous Afro-Jazz Sounds Of..., from 1969 — is being reissued on LP only (boo, hiss) next month. Bandcamp link

It's a duo disc, just guitar and percussion for most of it, but Tabane occasionally plays flute and the percussionist, Gabriel "Sonnyboy" Thobejane, plays thumb piano. Tabane's guitar style is somewhere between Grant Green and John Lee Hooker, really raw-sounding but technically quite skilled. If you can find a digital version, or own a turntable, snap this one up.

That'll be this? https://open.spotify.com/album/4BPFOWZvn6eKmZOGk3oJKZ?si=6em_cftNSMGut_ajvMwm8Q
sounds good indeed

India Covid relief benefit stream

Live Performances By:
Terry Riley
Kala Ramnath & Abhijit Banerjee
George Brooks & Utsav Lal
Chuck Johnson
Saturday, June 5
4pm PST / 7pm EST

https://grayarea.org/event/music-for-india/

This is fantastic Afro/Cuban/Funk/Jazz based out of Cologne

Mutio Kaballa Power Ensemble - Mamari

https://muitokaballa.bandcamp.com/album/mamari

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973428817/new-compilation-of-old-tunes-is-an-alternate-history-of-the-worlds-music

More on Excavated Shellac collection

x-post- Mutio Kaballa Power Ensemble have a little afrobeat as well as the jazz

Finally saw a bit of Innov Gnawa last night. Good stuff, love that sintir.

Yes. Saw them once and agree.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/angelique-kidjo-mother-nature/?utm_medium=social&utm_brand=p4k&mbid=social_twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_social-type=owned&fbclid=IwAR2zF6R8K3U9fkhTfBUEo6oXszowPeSa9D128cSDMhlkb-k9TEplGYNk9p0

New Angelique Kidjo album . She wrote 11 of 13 songs. Guests include Burna Boy, Yemi Alade, Mr Eazi

Pitchfork review is favorable although grade of 7.6 won’t make it a “best album “

Haven’t listened to the Kidjo album yet

Cameroonian singer Wes Madiko:

https://then24.com/2021/06/26/singer-wes-madiko-author-of-the-hit-alane-died-at-the-age-of-57/

RIP

Was listening to Witch Camp— percussion and chants and harmonies from Ghanaian women in a camp who have been wrongfully condemned as witches

Sample tracks from this are good: https://analogafrica.bandcamp.com/album/cameroon-garage-funk

Pop Makossa was amazing so I'm looking forward to hearing that

Sounds funky and liners say most songs were recorded in a church with just one mic

This is pretty sweet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFZobgLF5Vc

Bandcamp daily had a story about this Moroccan banjo player, really nice: https://hassanwargui.bandcamp.com/album/tiddukla