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

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

Jupiter and Okwess live at Kennedy Center on YouTube and Facebook now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uO0FlR5wdY

Jupiter & Okwess 1 hour Kennedy Center gig archived

I'm listening to the King Ayisoba album that came out in Feb and it's awesome: https://ayisoba.bandcamp.com/album/work-hard

this mix of Senegalese street soul music from the 80s and 90s is truly excellent

https://www.nts.live/shows/total-stasis/episodes/total-stasis-11th-july-2023

oooh ty

This past week’s military takeover in the West African nation of Niger toppled the final domino in a band across the girth of Africa, from Guinea in the west to Sudan in the east, now controlled by juntas that came to power in a coup — all but one in the past two years.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/world/africa/africa-coups-niger.html

Not good for musicians or anyone

Keyboardist Jantra, unknown in Khartoum, doesn't even know his album is out. Without a telephone, he continues his search for inspiration in Sudan, combining traditional music and celestial melodies. The latest craziness from the Ostinato label. https://t.co/SzQ7nCuacn

— Pan African Music (@panafricanmusic) August 1, 2023

the wording of that tweet made me think this was going to be a bad story about a non-African label ripping people off, but it's not! https://pan-african-music.com/en/synthesized-sudan-jantra/

also this album is amazing based on the first full track