| Amadou & Mariam: The Magic Couple | July 22, 2009 |
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 sound. […]
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. […]
| Smahila & The S.B.’s-“African Movement” | June 18, 2009 |
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 […]
| The Transcendence of Tinariwen | May 20, 2009 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GahGcVbF-4I Somewhere in a dazed diatribe, I recall mentioning the revelation of Tinariwen at Coachella. The notes I took during the performance are crude and cryptic. Bear with me. The gist is that the set was one of those times when a battery of hallucinogenic ideas infect your head–the notion of what it means to […]
In my quest to redeem that last lost post, let me invoke the name of half-Kenyan, half-American benga band, Extra Golden. Among the premier practioners of contemporary afro-beat, they’re living proof that the American legacy of Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, and D.O. Misiani, isn’t entirely the province of a bunch of pencil-necked geeks rocking […]
Art by Schorle Alemayehu Eshete, also known as the Ethiopian James Brown. Proof positive of the Godfather’s maxim that if a man has good hair and teeth, he’s got it all. Download: MP3: Alemayehu Eshete-“Tèy Geryèlèshem”
Late pass for not reporting the death of Ethiopian legend, Tlahoun Gessesse, sooner, but unless you get placement in a Jim Jarmusch movie or name-dropped by Vampire Weekend, coverage of African music in the American media tends to be scarce. So thanks to the indispensable Likembe, for the heads-up. For those unaware of the legendary […]
