African Music » Passion of the Weiss

Oct
08

Poor “Jacobim” Mulatu Astatke–the man rivals Haile Sellassie for popularity in his native Ethiopia, and domestically, he’s still mistakenly conflated for the designer from Zoolander whose fashion aesthetic resembled a gay Colonel Sanders. I imagine I am the only one who thinks this. Regardless, it’s been a good year for the father of Ethio-Jazz, with… Continue reading »

Sep
24

How Fool’s Gold Fooled Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0wPNow3ymc When I first heard Fool’s Gold in May of this year, I pigeonholed them as trend-hopping Echo Park poseurs who decided to play afro-pop following a weekend of smoking cotton candy kush, snorting Dexedrine, and listening to “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” on repeat. As you can see from the video above, they seemed too… Continue reading »

Sep
21

Tinariwen-”Lulla”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcqlOq1cjjc Off their new album, Imidiwan, another classic aptly described by guitarist and vocalist Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni as “a faithful record…a good rendition of our sound at its most natural and most ‘easy’…but a difficult album to make. We wanted to record in the desert because that’s where we feel most relaxed and happy. “But… Continue reading »

Sep
13

Oh No-”Dr. No’s Ethiopium”

My ardor for Ethio-Jazz is well-documented, so it’s little surprise that I find Oh No’s latest sampledelic opus sensational. Not only is this preaching to the choir, it’s serving it kitfo, tej, and injera. Like his last album, Dr. No’s Oxperiment, the greatest Michael Jackson still standing excavates ultra-rare samples from the crates, in the… Continue reading »

Sep
04

Fela Kuti-”Kalakuta Show”

Fridays are for Fela. Download: MP3: Fela Kuti-”Kalakuta Show” (Left-Click)

Aug
14

Nigerian Rap: The First Decade (1981-1991)

For those whose knowledge of African hip-hop is limited to K’Naan and that song where ?uestlove samples Fela Kuti, this absolutely awesome and extensive overview of the first ten years of Nigerian hip-hop is essential reading. This is the sort of stuff the Internet was made for–that and pictures of rotund cats wearing tuxedos. Download:… Continue reading »

Jul
23

Sach O: MC Jean Gab’1 ft. Tony Allen – Black

Sach O thinks more emcees should spit over Afrobeat Want me to write about your new movie? Make it a Franco-African neo-Blacksploitation flick featuring a killer soundtrack, hilarious starring turn by a shit-starting French emcee, tons of explosions and a trippy psychedelic action sequence on the back end. You get all of that and more in… Continue reading »

Jul
22

Amadou & Mariam: The Magic Couple

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxO3NsExfV0 It’s impossible to explain talent like Amadou and Mariam. “Gift from god” is the trite tag to trot out, but that’s too easy. Not to play dime-store deist, but no beneficent higher being would shutter the lids of two preternaturally gifted musicians just cuz. So, it’s something else. Perhaps overcompensation from the sense of… Continue reading »

Jul
13

The Very Best ft. Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend-”Warm Heart of Africa”

Cynics can cluck all they want–there’s certainly room for reactionary scorn on Esau Mwamwaya’s duet with head Weekend Vampire, Ezra Koenig, the latter of whom name-drops “Hip Hop Hooray” and Electric Light Orchestra, in a matter of seconds. Yet the titular track from the Very Best’s Warm Heart of Africa, might be the album’s stand-out.… Continue reading »

Jun
18

Smahila & The S.B.’s-”African Movement”

Information on Smahila and the S.B.’s is D.B. Cooper-scarce. Save for a few entries on Discogs.com, and a paragraph or two gleaned elsewhere, my knowledge about the group is essentially limited to: they’re a Nigerian afro-beat band with a Fela Kuti fixation, who released the sublime African Movement/Natural Points in 1977, on British imprint, RAS (Rogers… Continue reading »