The Makishi Band — Ba Samora (1990)

Popular music from Zambia has been scarcely available outside of the country. Here is an engaging album from a tight band that leaves not a trace on the internet, except that it is one of the vanished bands from the late 1980s.

The style of music is the Zambian adaptation of all-powerful rumba lingala that swept throughout central and eastern Africa in the '70s and '80s. It was called kalindula, and several of the songs even have a revved up "sebene" to get the dance going. Yet rumba was not the only influence. Traditional music transformed the foreign music to make something new, and I can hear threads from Zimbabwe too, and perhaps Tanzania. Can you hear them?

Half of the six songs are sung in the Bemba language, including one about AIDS, and the remaining three in different languages. The more I listen to them, the more I appreciate this music. If anyone can enlighten us about this band in the comments, please do so.

Enjoy!