African Jazz
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Jama Ko
by Chris May
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni BaJama KoOut/Here2013Malian ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate and his band, Ngoni Ba's third album continues the increasingly outward-looking trajectory of its predecessors. The debut, the lovely Segu Blue (Out/Here, 2007), was unadorned roots music. Its follow-up, the more visceral I Speak Fula (Out/Here, 2010), wove amplification into what was still basically an acoustic sound and, on two tracks, featured Vieux Farka Toure, son of Ali Farka Toure, on electric ...
read moreSenegal’s Orchestra Baobab and Guinea’s Authenticite Movement Show Their Roots
by Chris May
Sterns Music's lovingly put-together compilations of work by stars of Francophone West African music's “belle époque“--the decade and a half accompanying and immediately following the independence years of the 1960s--are now digging further into history with releases featuring more obscure, but just as entrancing, figures from that era. For different reasons, Senegalese singer and songwriter Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane, and Guinean singer, guitarist and ngoni player Sory Kandia Kouyaté, have not been celebrated outside Africa like Mali's Rail ...
read moreOwiny Sigoma Band: Rising From The East
by Chris May
Owiny Sigoma BandOwiny Sigoma BandBrownswood Recordings2011 Along with its close neighbors, Tanzania and Uganda, Kenya--as viewed from Europe or North America--is one of the final frontiers in African music. Indirectly, this is the result of the decades-long, overwhelming impact of Zairean rumba on east Africa, and its fall-out. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Zairean emigré bands dominated the Kenyan scene, discouraging the emergence of indigenous styles; only taarab, the Muslim ...
read moreCompilations: Doing The Right Thing
by Chris May
Double-albums of classic Congolese and South African recordings demonstrate the right and the wrong ways to go about compilations. Tabu Ley RochereauThe Voice Of Lightness Vol. 2: Congo Classics 1977-1993Sterns2010 From its inception, everything about Sterns' compilation program has been pitch-perfect. Curated by enthusiasts with deep knowledge of their subjects, who assemble collections which balance greatest hits with more obscure material, Sterns' compilations are exemplary. The care with which they ...
read moreThe Majestic “Return” of King Sunny Ade & His African Beats
by Chris May
King Sunny AdeBaba Mo TundeIndigeDisc2010 A leading exponent of Nigerian juju music since the late 1970s, and in 2010 still the most sought after live artist for expatriate Nigerians in Europe and north America, vocalist and guitarist King Sunny Ade once rivalled Afrobeat's Fela Kuti and Zairean rumba's Franco with the frequency of his album releases. Between 1975 and 1984, Ade and his band, the African Beats, released over 40 albums domestically, ...
read moreSenegal's Etoile de Dakar featuring Youssou N'Dour and south London's Yaaba Funk
by Chris May
The birth of mbalax in Senegal towards the close of the 1970s, and a 2010 highlife/funk hybrid from south London, show how the embrace of imported styles by African musicians can enrich the continent's music.
Etoile de Dakar featuring Youssou N'Dour Once Upon a Time in Senegal: The Birth of Mbalax 1979-1981 Sterns 2010
Digging into Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour's back catalogue is a fun exercise on two fronts. The ...
read moreBassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: I Speak Fula
by Chris May
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba I Speak Fula Sub Pop! 2010 Much has been made of the symbiosis between traditional Malian and roots North American musics, of which the “desert blues" of guitarist Ali Farka Toure (1939-2006) provides convincing evidence. Any remaining doubts about west African savannah-belt culture as a primary source of blues, country and rock'n'roll styles are blown out of the water by I Speak Fula, the truly awesome second ...
read moreFranco & Le TPOK Jazz: Francophonic 2: Africa's Greatest: A Retrospective: Vol.2: 1980 - 1989
by Chris May
Franco and Le TPOK Jazz Francophonic 2: Africa's Greatest: A Retrospective: Vol.2: 1980 - 1989 Sterns 2009
The Congolese guitarist, singer, bandleader and composer Francois Luambo Makiadi--most commonly known as Franco but with a raft of other nicknames including The Grand Master and The Sorcerer of The Guitar--had by the time of his death in 1989 dominated the elegant but gutsy genre of Congolese rumba for over two decades. Born in 1938, ...
read moreAmadou & Mariam: The Magic Couple
by Chris May
Amadou & Mariam The Magic Couple Wrasse Records 2009
For most people outside Mali, and maybe France, Amadou & Mariam came out of nowhere in 2005 with Dimanche a Bamako (Nonesuch). But the duo had released three other, Paris-recorded CDs before their Manu Chao-produced breakthrough, which were themselves preceded by a series of cassette-only albums recorded in Cote d'Ivoire. The excellent anthology The Magic Couple cherry picks 76 minutes of beaten gold ...
read moreKeletigui et ses Tambourinis: The Syliphone Years: 1968 - 1976
by Chris May
Keletigui et ses Tambourinis The Syliphone Years: 1968 - 1976 Sterns 2009
In Memoriam: Keletigui Traore: 26 May 1934 - 11 November 2008
The fourth release in the Sterns label's series anthologising Guinea's tradition-rooted “authenticite" bands of the 1960s and 1970s follows close on the death of its illustrious subject. The tenor saxophonist, flautist, organist and vocalist Keletigui Traore, who did much to shape the authenticity movement and who led ...
read moreShowcase
Contest Giveaway
