June 14, 2011

Acoustic Africa

You already know how much I like world music. This time I suggest a melodious journey through deepest Africa along with some local artists, whom I dare to classify within the indie current.

To tell you the truth, it has been quite a difficult challenge for me to find tunes which stay away from African cliches. Most of them keep up the emphasis upon frenetic and joyful rhythm, dominated by djembe drum beat, or even still have some influences from the jazz, blues, funky, soul and reggae movement (we can't forget the large role of Europe and America in the evolution of traditional societies around the continent).

Nevertheless, I reckon I bring you completely different proposals that surely will bewilder you. Join this exhilarating musical tour! 




Amadou & Mariam - Sénégal Fast Food
Mory Kanté - Maliba (Le Grand Mali)




Johnny Clegg & Savuka - Congo




Dela & M. Nthigah - Nairobi Love



Updated info

This is a great NY Times article which talks about new artists and locations in Africa where traditional music is being reinterpreted. Click below to read it.

3 comments:

jke said...

Interesting selection, especially the one from Kenya! Penya is a good label, I recently bought (yay!) something from them: http://penya.bandcamp.com/album/the-human-condition

Lakini - Johnny Clegg is from SA and the blind couple is from Mali, so the countries indicated here just show the location of the title, right?

How do you specify if something is indie?

jke said...

Ah, one more (sry): the Amadou & Mariam album - it is SOOOOOOO Manu Chao to me.

Unknown said...

I've caught a great NY Times article just to clarify a little bit: http://nyti.ms/lwOSPs

Gosh! Definitely you're an expert on this topic, German "know-it-all".
:P