rolling Afropop / Afrobeats / Afrodance 2019

only just started delving into Kenya's Muthoni Drummer Queen album but it's terrific so far

https://youtu.be/KpgCf5ZlDqk

I’m going to personally will Serge Beynaud into a great 2019. His new one (so quickly!) is a lot more fleshed out than mission statement “Cette année”. Most importantly, the dancers are back!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv7zREjc9f0

Serge Beynaud • Kota na Koto

Any thoughts on this Okayafrica piece?

Call Us By Our Name: Stop Using 'Afrobeats'

It does seem to me to be a very reductive name, but at least it's better than "world music."

"kota na koto" rules so much, glad serge is as great as ever

that piece is interesting and pretty agreeable. it would also make it easier to talk about and dig further into african pop in general beyond my current dabbling if i knew what all the various genres and regional scenes were actually called, hopefully i'll get there eventually

A much simpler and respectful solution, is to refer to what is currently known as Afrobeats as pop music from a specific country (i.e. Ghanaian Pop Music) and to other established musical styles by their local names—"highlife," "fuji," "gqom," "bongo flava" and so forth, equipping new listeners with the right vocabulary to experience the varying cultures.

This seems pretty inarguable; the comparison to k-pop/j-pop/c-pop is also a good point. We talked at one point last year about separate threads for different scenes/countries but the feeling was that ilm couldn't sustain it. Idk, maybe we should have done it anyway?

I guess it's really down to context isn't it? I mean, I have trouble explaining to most people what I mean when I say I like 'afrobeats' or 'afro-pop', so trying to describe it in terms of 'Gqom' and 'Shangaan' etc (not to mention my own dilletantism when it comes to the various countries and genres) can be a bit dizzying. Of course in the context of journalism and online discourse, yes be as accurate as possible.

A general afrobeats thread is suitable for ILM and it's great we've seen spinoff threads for Sun El Musician and Burna Boy etc etc

Yeah I retract my thread question--generally everyone is good about identifying which country tracks are from. And I was going to mention I don't know what "bongo flava" is so I'm not sure how reasonable "call it what it is" is in practice. On the other hand I usually tell irl people I like "Nigerian (pop) music" rather than "afrobeats," which tbh doesn't have a lot of currency in north america afaict but obvs may be different in UK

I live in fear of needing to pronounce gqom in real life

oh gqod yeah

I though 'afrobeats' was a fine name when it was specifically referring to pop music from Ghana and Nigeria that was being played at parties with West African immigrants in London. But it quickly became meaningless, and even more so once everything from Serge Beynaud to Sauti Sol and Sun-El Musician was included.

That's true, and in that case the connection to Afrobeat was an intentional if ultimately wrong-headed nod to afrobeats being West African

Of course they (=OkayAfrica) are absolutely right. Afrobeats has always been an extremely clunky name. Afropop is more neutral at least, even if it’s even more of a catch-all term really. I understand it to mean “African pop music in all its many forms and manifestations”, not as a single type of music.

Having said all that, I’m continuously in two minds about this when it comes to ILM.

As I wrote just last week on the repurposed Sun-El thread: “In a perfect ILM world we would have separate Rolling South African, Rolling Nigerian, Rolling Ghanaian, Rolling East African, etc etc threads, but with the current level of participation/enthusiasm being what it is, one catch-all Rolling Afropop thread is enough imho.”

My fear is that the low-level focus there currently is will dwindle into insignifance, with two or three people frequenting the Ghanian thread, one person occasionally posting Tanzanian stuff [there’s your bongo flava, rob] elsewhere, etcetera. But maybe I’m just (self) concern trolling here. For all I know, it could actually ground and nurture posters who like to focus on one particular sound or region.

Country vs genre is another interesting issue.
I would prefer a Naija Pop thread to separate threads for fuji, highlife, etc (unless of course we’re down for some real hardcore specialisation) because all these genres coexist and mix and mingle so much within Naija’s ever fluctuating music machine.
South Africa feels different (to me anyway). It will be interesting to see what the repurposed Sun-El thread will become: will it remain a thread for the extended Sun-El family, smooth Afro(!)house plus smooth SA r&b (which is a misnomer, but I’m not familiar with the SA genrefication) of the likes of Mlindo (Sjava has already shown up)? But how about gqom? Where will I post the next banger? And how about SA rap? I’m still leaning towards the Rolling thread, but it’s becoming more and more arbitrary.

(I wrote this after rob’s first post, some of you may have addressed some of these points already)

Country vs genre is another interesting issue.
I would prefer a Naija Pop thread to separate threads for fuji, highlife, etc (unless of course we’re down for some real hardcore specialisation) because all these genres coexist and mix and mingle so much within Naija’s ever fluctuating music machine.
South Africa feels different (to me anyway). It will be interesting to see what the repurposed Sun-El thread will become: will it remain a thread for the extended Sun-El family, smooth Afro(!)house plus smooth SA r&b (which is a misnomer, but I’m not familiar with the SA genrefication) of the likes of Mlindo (Sjava has already shown up)? But how about gqom? Where will I post the next banger? And how about SA rap? I’m still leaning towards the Rolling thread, but it’s becoming more and more arbitrary.

(I wrote this after rob’s first post. Some of you may have addressed some of these points already)

Sorry for double posting!

Gqom and other SA house are starting to blend a bit too - Club Controller seems like a good fusion

Re: thread splitting, I immediately changed my mind and dog latin is otm with: "A general afrobeats thread is suitable for ILM and it's great we've seen spinoff threads for Sun El Musician and Burna Boy etc etc".

separate genre threads would be madness, though iirc there actually is a highlife thread

If you're curious: Tell me stuff about highlife music

I wouldn’t say so. While it’s true that some old-school kwaito/house producers and artists are incorporating gqom in their sound, there is a world of difference between the (mainstream) gqom of “Banomoya” and for instance the recent Busiswa album, and the Sun-El sound of “Akanamali” and everything Simmy.

And then we haven’t even mentioned people like DJ Sumbody and your beloved Master KG who are doing something else altogether, somewhere halfway the smooth <> hard-hitting spectrum.

xps to dog latin

well yeah, can't argue with that - there's definitely a spectrum of sounds

The thing with highlife: there’s “classic” “old school” highlife - that’s what that thread is about, I think, and there’s highlife as it is understood within current West African pop music (which is what OkayAfrica was referring to). In Nigeria, Kiss Daniel brought highlife back to the pop frontline with “Woju” and “Laye”(not that it’s ever not been a presence), and I guess Teni would be highlife as well.
In Ghana, Bisa Kdei is modern highlife, but Kidi and Kuami Eugene are pop highlife as well (and then if course there’s hiplife).

Same thing with fuji in Nigeria. There’s classic fuji for the older generation, but it’s also changing and adapting with the times (a lof of “street music” is in fact just that afaiui). I posted a gqom-informed take on fuji just yesterday. Do treat yourself to Qdot’s “Gbese”!

A general problem for me with all of this music is that I'm reasonably informed about 60s/70s (esp. the latter) African music--not every country of course--but I really don't know what was going on in the 90s and 00s. So while I noticed you calling that song fuji, the lineage is pretty hard for me to discern. (I'm also not trained in music, so if the connections are more abstract things like rhythm patterns I'll probably miss that too.)

Like I think I have a decent sense of what 70s highlife is and could identify previously unheard tracks as highlife, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to call Kiss Daniel highlife as much as I recognized what he was doing sounds older/classic-al compared to say D'Banj or Wizkid

I live in fear of needing to pronounce gqom in real life

Me: - less than reasonably informed about pre 2010s African musics
- no musical training to speak of

Make of that what you will...

Oh, and of course Flavour has been a mainstay of contemporary Nigerian highlife for a decade or more.

I want to make a drum sound out of that YouTube video.

Me: - less than reasonably informed about pre 2010s African musics
- no musical training to speak of

Make of that what you will...

There was an Afropop Worldwide show about gqom a while ago, and after listening to that, and hearing it said about a dozen times including by the American producer, I think I could have given it a shot but my confidence has waned since.

breastcrawl, have you done any exploring of the past since getting into the contemporary stuff? I'm listening to Franco (who's Congolese) right now and I'm sure you'd love it

makes me curious as to where people itt are actually based, as I have mostly no idea. think I've mentioned it lots of times on ILM but I'm Bristol, UK

Montreal, which I also assume everyone knows but I'm probably overestimating my memorability

I’m Dutch, from Amsterdam. Sorry I had to close shop. It was getting way past my bedtime and I had to work in the morning (i.e. now).

rob, I do listen to older African stuff on occasion, but not in any systematic way (like I feel sometimes I should, in order to get more historical background). Just like with the singles vs albums issue, it’s a matter of priorities and time management, and I don’t even have enough time to enjoy and keep up with all the good new stuff that’s coming out.

And yeah, (classic) soukous is one of the genres I would love to explore more.

So many jams, so little time...

fwiw Franco one of my fav artists of any country, any genre

^

I forgot to mention another important player in contemporay Nigerian highlife: Adekunle Gold (see above).

A current highlife-inflected fav:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDabcMUdq5Q

Patapaa ft. Article Wan • Enemies

oh, and while we’re in Ghana: Koo Ntakra, “Bam”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b4ny4r4TEo

(for that Akwaaba-ey vibe)

Reposting the links to the tracks posted just ahead of that long convo we had the other day. Wouldn’t want them to get snowed under!

Busta Pop ft. Mayorkun • Masha Kilo

Qdot • Gbese

Mayorkun • Sope

Muthoni Drummer Queen • Suzie Noma

Serge Beynaud • Kota na Koto

New Niniola. Producer Sarz gets the co-credit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ku_TK7tsEs

“Designer”

I posted the new Prince Kaybee on the Sun-El thread, because it fits there. But if you crave that Club Controller/Banomoya sound (albeit slightly smoothed out) look no further than NaakMusiQ’s new one:

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

NaakMusiQ ft. Bluelle • Ndakwenza Ntoni

Sarkodie is Ghana’s biggest rapper, but I find his singles very hit or miss these days. This new one is banging though, thanks in no small part to Akan, Ghana’s best new rapper:

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

Sarkodie ft. Akan • All Die Be Die

(Akan’s Onipa Akoma album, released in 2017, is extremely good btw. It was #4 on my 2018 ballot, although I somehow never stanned for it.)

The okayafrica debate seems to anticipate on an in-force US market entry, where commodification and simplistic labels might be a nascent risk. But so far, what I observe is that fans are, besides Africans themselves, people who have a direct connection or interest in the continent, and few others. For all of those, a catch-up term seems inevitable, given how the current pop culture has shot up and found obvious common points from Ghana to Tanzania, and from Ivory Coast to Cameroon and Congo, when it's obvious that everyone's paying attention to the success of a few stars. The pop scene presents itself as pan-African (with individualities), or as individualities with a pan-african inspiration. It's everyone's individual responsibility to engage intelligently and perceive the dynamics rather than a monolith. I understand the basic lack of trust in Americans and Europeans ("c'est de bonne guerre" as we say: all's fair in love and war) but I'm very resistant to another semantics war. Afro-pop is my preferred catch-all term, which I slightly prefer to descriptive terms like "pop from Ghana", just as I use, say mpb as a short-term for all Brazilian pop whether the influence is Samba, Bossa, Tropicalia, Vanguardia P., or genres from the North / regional traditions whose applications I don't master anyway. You can call something pop while recognizing specific influences without having to name them, so I don't insist on calling something Bongo Flava just because it's Tanzanian if: 1. it sounds pop to me 2. I don't actually know what Bongo Flava is and how to recognize it.
I don't know, I try to keep it flexible.
I'm Swiss btw.

I'm finally listening to the Bucie album from december and it's... really good? The sun's out today and it all just sounds gorgeous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjk0nHlT49A

Linex Sunday - Too Late ft Lady Jaydee

speaking of Bongo Flava I've been listening to this one a lot in the last week. Lady Jaydee's vocals are very sweet, feels summer-y.

You can call something pop while recognizing specific influences without having to name them, so I don't insist on calling something Bongo Flava just because it's Tanzanian if: 1. it sounds pop to me 2. I don't actually know what Bongo Flava is and how to recognize it.
I don't know, I try to keep it flexible.
I'm Swiss btw.

― Nabozo, Friday, February 8, 2019 4:17 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with this. I normally call all african music from the 70/80s and onward Afropop when i'm talking about it. Unless i'm having a genre specific convo. I would prefer to just call it pop really though if i had a choice. I dunno if k-pop or j-pop fans feel the same, but (and maybe its too utopian) its all just pop music written for broad audiences and why can't we just ignore where its from. Maybe the location specific markers won't matter as much in time, but i get them from a marketing perspective, and I get that the language barrier means something to some people as well.

I'm from Canada, but lived in Kenya for a time, my mom grew up on a farm outside Nairobi but her parents were decedents of the British 1820 settlers in SA so the majority of my extended family is still in SA.

Should we start a pre-2010s Afropop thread? I won't claim to be an expert in any way. But it would be awesome to post what we know/can find and go from there.

a thread for everything that came out before this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N70tdfvuaOs

The afrofunk-ish beat on that Sarkodie/Akan track is awesome.

Should we start a pre-2010s Afropop thread? I won't claim to be an expert in any way. But it would be awesome to post what we know/can find and go from there.

To come back to rapper Cassper Nyovest, who’s mentioned in that OkayAfrica piece: Sure, he’s “hip-hop”, not “afrobeats”, but he’s also an artist working within the South African and wider African pop context. Last year alone he did a single with Davido, and scored hits with DJ Sumbody and old school vocal duo Shwi Nomtekhala. I mean, good luck trying to sell this as “hip-hop” in the US:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kej8eH6CNK8
Cassper Nyovest ft. DJ Sumbody • Remote Control

(or try “Tseya Ukwe”, the other Sumbody jam on his recent album)


To further confuse matters: South Africans are now doing *afrobeats*?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOJ31xKTH1s
DJ PH ft. Rouge & ManuWorldstar • Go Down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-19tB50H7YM
DJ Yanga ft. MarazA & MJ Washington • Dancia Dancia


Another interesting sound from SA, gqom-related but very much it’s own thing. I think it’s awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grlp2OGeQIc

Shado M • Inhliziyo Yami Ithi Hey

(I’m still trying to parse that video)

Still in South Africa...

This is fantastic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-IWRr6ohzw

TNS ft. iNdlovukazi • My Dali

Apparently there’s som beef between Prince Kaybee and TNS at the moment. TNS accused Kaybee of exploiting him economically. Then Kaybee literally posted the receipts on his FB page. Looks like TNS was... ahem... exaggerating.

*some