Rolling Global Outernational Non-West Non-English (Some Exceptions) 2023 Thread (Often African bands)

that looks exciting

sad lol at an entire country's music being cast as a "genre" but marketing is what it is

Yes, good point and the idea of covering a country's history of music in one 33 & 1/3

This just past Saturday night saw this:

Afropop Worldwide: The African Rivers Project with music about the Niger by Niger River Ensemble and the Congo,by Kinshasa Allstars, hosted by Georges Collinet & Banning Eyre of Afropop Worldwide @ 8 @ Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

Congo Allstars had some members of Soukous Stars. They had that great old-school Congolese rumba guitar thing going. Plus 2 impressive dancers. Niger River Ensemble had a calabash drummer, ngoni, kora and guitarists. Plus a Gambian flute player on some songs. Good rhythmic traditional music. Screen behind both acts shows photos of the rivers and riverside scenes.

xp oof yeah, the previous entries in the "Genre" series are Dance-Punk, Death Metal, and Trip-Hop. OTOH I would much rather read this book than those others

Today Monday-

Popular Music Books in Process Series
Monday, April 17, 5pm EST
Christopher Silver and Andrew Simon
From Records to Cassettes: Acoustic Culture Across the Middle East

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81252540098?pwd=a0RLWU9KSmtGL1g3ZGtsR2lCZVRZdz09
Meeting ID: 812 5254 0098 Passcode: 299921

Moving from records to cassettes, this conversation will explore acoustic culture across the Middle East and North Africa and the power of popular culture to reshape our understanding of the past.

In Recording History, Christopher Silver provides the first history of the music scene and recording industry across twentieth century Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. In doing so, he offers insights into Jewish-Muslim relations through the rhythms that animated them. By asking what North Africa once sounded like, Silver will introduce the Popular Music Books in Process community to a world of many voices, whose music defined their era and still resonates into our present.

Taking a mixtape approach to Media of the Masses, Andrew Simon will share some aspects of his new book on the history of Egypt’s cassette culture, introducing the dawn of a new musical genre and the alleged “death” of public taste, the advent of piracy as a popular practice and attempts to police it, and subversive compositions that undermined the "official stories" told by states and traveled near and far on noncommercial cassettes

I think they archive these Monday book talks so you can see / hear them later

I will read that South Africa book, but I fear that it will not tell me the things about maskandi that I really want to know.

I know very little about South African maskandi music other than that it is/was Zulu acoustic music played on guitar and concertina , so won't be able to gauge how thorough the book is .

Music is made from the street before it hits the books. In between 2016 & 2017 I spent some time in KwaZulu Natal with Maskanda with informants and practitioners. Full video available on my YouTube channel #maskanda #guitar #guitarist #southafricanguitar #maskandaguitarist pic.twitter.com/4JlY9xRPM0

— Billy Monama (@BillyMonama) February 16, 2023

Oh that’s maskanda which may be different from maskandi

Zulu music

Congolese electro with scrap metal & jury-rigged percussion band Kokoko! is in Brooklyn this weekend and doing a Montreal gig but nowhere else on east coast. They do have some middle of US gigs and west coast ones

I saw the Montreal show last night, it was super fun! Just a duo, but still powerful and loud. Shout out to La Lechera who posted once about how good they were live, which lingered with me enough to inspire me to go out on a rainy Monday night

Nice

Went to see Alvorada, a London based band of mixed Brazilian and British musicians, do a tribute to choro pioneer Pixinguinha at SOAS yesterday. Part of La Linea festival, which has had some good stuff that's happened and some good stuff that's still going to happen - bummed I won't be able to catch new Fado talent Duarte on Saturday.

https://www.comono.co.uk/la-linea/

I don't really know anything about choro but the music felt immediately familiar and infectious. Would be cool to have a Brazilian equivalent to Bob Stanley's "Let's Do It" for pre-Bossa Brazil; I know Ruy Belo did a book on samba canção, should track that down.

I am vaguely familiar with choro but yeah not the specifics on this older Brazilian hybrid genre

upcoming July 28 show in Bryant Park in NYC sounds fun-- https://bryantpark.org/calendar/event/carnegie-hall-citywide-champe-soukous-collective

The Champe-Soukous Collective is an All-Star ensemble that bridges the Trans-Atlantic connection between Colombian champeta and it’s source music of Central African/Congolese soukous-rumba.

From Central Africa, the group features such historic performers as vocalists Wawali Bonane Bungu (Congo), Mis Blandine (Congo), Ricardo Lemvo (Angola/Congo/USA), and soukous guitar legend Huit Kilos Nseka (Congo).

From Colombia, the Collective includes the core of Colombia’s “champeta champions” Tribu Baharu as the ensemble’s rhythm foundation as well Sidestepper vocalist Eka Gordom (Colombia), horns Oscar “El Kike” Banquez amongst others.

Together, the force of this un-paralleled Champe-Soukous Collective will be an Afro-Colombian dance party not to be missed!

Performers:
Tribu Baharu (Colombia)
Wawali Bonane Bungu (Congo)
Eka Gordom (Colombia)
Mis Blandine (Congo)
Ricardo Lemvo (Angola/Congo/USA)
Huit Kilos Nseka (Congo)
Oscar “El Kike” Banquez (Colombia)

Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band were so fucking awesome. They had the entire club in the palms of their hands for 90 minutes, it was insane. I knew their records were good but man that was amazing.

Baba Commandant is doing a free live show that will also be streamed by the Kennedy Center in DC On May 26; and is on a bill in Baltimore the next night with great Indonesia singer Peni Candra Rini

Dada strain Substack recommendation:

amäya, Senegal (self-released) - An Afrobeat orchestra of London- and Brighton-based jazz-dance vets, led by Senegalese vocalist Khadim Sarr, Yamäya's secret sauce is in the crisp, powerful five-piece horn section, percussion corps, and charts that build and build. Swinging bangers found here

Indonesian gamelan & more singer Peni Candra Rini is impressive

Fatoumata Diawara, London Ko new album is out

Damon Albarn I think produced the Diawara album. I haven't heard it yet.

Saw video on Facebook of The Champe-Soukous Collective that I mentioned upthread, rehearsing in Colombia. They sounded great .

Reading more praise of Baba Commandant

Saw 1 negative take on Fatoumata Diawara that seemed to blame Blur guy D Albarn for direction
Still haven’t listened yet but intend to

x-post - Listening to the new Fatoumata Diawara album and am reminded of how great her voice is. Even if all the tracks don't work .

I think you're going to love this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSc3CiyZHYI

Nakibembe Embaire Group - Omukazi Iwe Ongeyengula Nguli Zna Ntyo Bwenkola

The embaire is a large wooden xylophone performed by up to eight musicians simultaneously, who weave together polyrhythmic short melodic phrases. Ensemble members may also sing in unison or in call and response, playing with other percussive instruments to keep the tempo. The results are ecstatic compositions that flow endlessly, creating waves of coalescing grooves.

https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/album/nakibembe-embaire-group?from=embed

Yes I do. I think I just saw the other night an IG story with a video of that embaire being played. Wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHse1OFLco4

Baba Commandant & Mandingo band live for an hour at Kennedy Center

<3

I loved certain Baba C songs last night in Baltimore live, and via the YouTube Friday at Kennedy Center. I liked the ones that were fairly straightforward Fela inspired dance music. I was less into ones where guitarist went for Santana like solos

New Tinariwen album out is mentioned on their own thread

more of the same and it's excellent

there probably is a thread for bands that make the same album over and over (but do it well)

Saw Kaleta and Super Yamba band do a free show yesterday. Leon “Kaleta” Ligan-Majek has performed in Nigerian bands led by both juju giant King Sunny Adé and Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. His band is Brooklyn based . Some nice old school grooves at times but Kaleta’s voice didn’t wow me

News from Billboard:

YOASOBI’s “Idol” soars to No. 1, from No. 6, on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. survey (dated June 10). The song, originally sung in Japanese, hit the top 10 six weeks earlier and now becomes the duo’s first leader on the list following the May 26 release of its English-language version.

“Idol” is also the first song originally performed in Japanese to top the Global Excl. U.S. chart.

Meanwhile, Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma’s “Ella Baila Sola” rebounds to No. 1, from No. 2, on the Billboard Global 200 chart. It reigns for a fourth total week, having become the chart’s first leader for the regional Mexican genre.

France-based Cameroonian singer/guitarist Blick Bassy is back with a new album and is going to be touring Europe and North America in July and August. He got some attention here back in 2019 I think for his 1958 album

Bandcamp bio -

singer and composer Blick Bassy is back with a fifth album, again sung in the Baasa language of Cameroon. Madíbá brings together twelve songs in the form of fables, dedicated to the theme of water, in which his high and angelic voice dominates, carried by delicate guitar, synthesizer melodies, and sober brass arrangements. The cuts are diaphanous and nevertheless, modernist songs, which testify to a contemporary and poetic Africanity at the crossroads of soul, folk, and electro.
credits
released May 26, 2023

https://blickbassy.bandcamp.com/album/m-dib

trying to decide if I should buy tickets for the Montreal date or not. I liked 1958 a lot but found the new one a little shapeless, though I don't think I got too far into it

Despite the shapelessness, I like his voice and guitar sound and may go see the Washington DC date anyway. I don't hear that type of old-school rooted but modern afropop live very often

yeah it does feel like a rare opportunity here too, I should probably go on principle

Was impressed with Instagram story video clips I saw of NY based band Habbina Habbina who were playing some sort of Middle Eastern surf music

Fatoumata Diawara is touring Europe all summer and then doing a few US dates in September in support of her Damon Albarn produced album. Plus I am getting pr emails about remixes of individual songs . I still need to listen to it more

Tamikrest, North African desert band is doing a July 19 Kennedy Center gig that will also be streamed. Jupiter and Okwess doing the same on July 27

recommendations after catching some good stuff at Roskilde Festival

Siti Muharam, taarab tunes from Zanzibar, on a small Europe tour atm, album is from 2020 though
https://sitimuharam.bandcamp.com/album/siti-of-unguja-romance-revolution-on-zanzibar

dal:um, Korean duo playing traditional (somewhat harplike but more wood-y) string instruments gayageum and geomungo in a contemporary style, 2023 single called "dot"
https://dalum.bandcamp.com/track/dot

also had a chance to see Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek mentioned upthread and they are playing very well, great singer too, and Tinariwen too, always a joy

tabou combo are playing a free show at long island's eisenhower park tonight.

Wow, Tabou Combo still at it . They were great when I saw them live many years ago. I like their old-school Haitian konpa sound better than the more polished and more American r’n’b influenced current Haitian music I have heard ( says old guy me!)

they were good! it was listed in the brochure just as "creole-american night," without any band name, so i'm glad i looked into it further. 55 years in the biz, so they said.

Cool you saw them and they still sound good; sad how it was marketed

A Tamikrest 6 to 7 pm US eastern time gig will be streaming live tonight Wednesday July 19 from 6 to 7 pm on the Kennedy Center Youtube and Facebook pages. It will also be archived on the Youttube page. The band has North and West African musicians plus French ones.

https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/millennium-stage/2023/07-july/tamikrest/

They sound pretty good there, except for some Western style solos