Baaba Maal - Sunugal (1995)

Baaba Maal's first internationally available album, Wango, broke over me like a wave. The torrid percussion and incredible singing took my breath away. Since then I have seen him perform several times, and I have sadly watched his albums become ever more separated from the essence that I witnessed.

Here is a splendid Dakar cassette that captures that essence. The cast includes the regulars of Maal's acoustic performances. Kaouding Cissokho is brilliant on kora, Mansour Seck is steady on guitar as always, and on a few cuts, especially the opening "Ndaga," the percussion is a great tama and sabar interplay. But above and beyond all is Maal's unique voice.

I digitized this tape in the nick of time. The next time I played it, it self-destructed.

Enjoy!

Zimbabwe Cha Cha Kings - Vimbiso (1989)

Here is a wonderful album for you, to start off a new week. Zimbabwe Cha Cha Kings were one of the many jit bands that surfaced in the late '80s, at a time when things were infinitely more optimistic in Zimbabwe. Serendipity alone sent the Bhundu Boys to international stardom, while this band and others were next-to-ignored or confined to compilations.

The Cha Cha Kings actually had a live set on BBC radio, for John Peel's show in 1992, but that was not enough to launch global success. They were collected on the excellent Roots Rock Guitar Party - Zimbabwe Frontline Volume 3, which is still available on CD. Yet that song is from a later recording than that offered today. If you enjoy intertwined guitars, nimble bass and sweet singing, look no further!

Enjoy!

Sonny Okosuns - Which Way Nigeria? (1984)

Sonny Okosun(s) was an extremely popular musician in Nigeria during the '70s and early '80s. Combining highlife, funk and reggae, Okosuns sang about social issues from a progressive viewpoint. He led a torrid band called Ozziddi that could lay solid grooves. A good discography of Okosuns can be found here.

This album was released in the U.S. two years after Sunny Ade's Juju Music hit these shores. It has three strong songs, especially the rocking "My Ancestors." A relatively tepid title track presages Okosuns conversion into a gospel singer in his later years, although this time the gospel is "let's save Nigeria, so Nigeria won't die." Okosuns cast his critical eye on government corruption and injustice, but in a much less confrontational way than his compatriot, Fela Kuti. He died in 2008, but left behind a trove of great songs.

Enjoy!

Mandingo Griot Society (1978)

After seeing the Mandingo Griot Society perform in the basement of the student union building at the University of Michigan, I bought their album. It was my first African album, purchased with enthusiasm after my first exposure to live African music. Still it remains a favorite.

Of course Foday Musa Suso was already pushing the boundaries of his griot heritage, having relocated from the Gambia to the U.S. This album was the start of a long career of innovation that found the kora master forging relationships with progressive musicians Herbie Hancock and Bill Laswell.

This record had some heavy play during its early years, and there are some pops and crackles, but most of the album sounds great. I saw it posted elsewhere, much compressed, and thought it deserved some room to breathe.

This groundbreaking recording is now available on CD here.

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!

Orlando Julius Ekemode - Dance Afro-Beat (1984)

When I danced to the irrepressible music of Orlando Julius in small clubs around the San Francisco Bay area during the mid-80s, I had no idea I was privileged to experience the genius of one of Nigeria's most influential musicians. I just felt incredibly lucky that this extraordinary African band lived nearby and performed regularly.

OJ Ekemode began recording in Nigeria in the mid-1960s, and by fusing local rhythms with the international musical influences flowing through Africa at the time – Cuban, funk, jazz, soul - he helped lay the foundation for Afrobeat. While Fela Kuti and Tony Allen built and expanded on that foundation in Nigeria, OJ became Afrobeat's ambassador, living in various places and always, always, creating.

Dance Afro-Beat was recorded in Nigeria, but released in the US on Ekemode's Afro-Beat Records label, and soon after picked up and distributed by Shanachie Records. Today's offering is from an album acquired while the ink was still wet. Unfortunately some of my Nigerian album collection suffered some water damage, a few years ago, and several record sleeves were ruined. Luckily no harm was done to the vinyl, and after using a vacuum record cleaner, the sound is as good as new. I apologize for the album art; I gleaned it from the web, where images of the Shanachie release are easy to find.

Enjoy!

While preparing this great recording for posting, I was delighted to discover that almost ALL of Orlando Julius' early recordings have recently been released on CD. I urge you to get them while they last. I did!

Yesterday's mail brought me Super Afro-Soul and Orlando Julius and the Afro Sounders, both impressively packaged releases packed with photos of and information about this extraordinary talent. You can click on their images to find them.

Youssou N"Dour - Lii! (1996)

Many of the Africans who become international superstars do so by fusing their indigenous music with transnational pop flavors, and then producing albums designed to reach a broad global audience. Certainly both Youssou N'Dour and Baaba Maal from Senegal, as well as Congo's Papa Wemba, have made albums so mainstream and removed from the music that established their careers, that some fans are alienated.

Thankfully most of these stars continue producing albums for their home markets that carry the great strengths that propelled these artists to fame. This cassette from Youssou N'Dour et le Super Etoile is a Jololi release from Senegal that reflects the band's sophisticated polish, yet mostly retains a tough mbalax edge. The laid-back version of Youssou's great song "Birima" is a treat, as is "Baïkat."

The sound quality of this cassette is not perfect; in fact I could not get the last song to successfully play more than a few seconds. Perhaps it's just as well: it is a soppy duet with Italian crooner Messimo Di Cataldo that may have changed the whole premise of this short introduction, if I had had to listen to it. Take a listen to the rest of it: you should not be disappointed.

Enjoy!

Bebe Manga - Amie (1984)

In 1985 there was a tiny African record shop under the elevated train tracks running through Brixton, south London. One could not walk by it any day without hearing an incredible song that would stop you where you stood, to hear it through. Set over catchy rhythms, a woman sang her heart out.

That woman was Cameroon's Bebe Manga, singing the definitive version of the perennial makossa hit "Amio," written by Ebanda Manfred in 1962. The song has had many spellings and interpretations over the years, yet Manga's 1980 recording stands above them all. Indeed, it was an isolated peak performance of this chanteuse. Amazingly, only recently has the track been collected on African music compilations like this or that massive. Today I offer a pristine analog dub of the 1984 French album.

Enjoy!

De Paur Chorus - Songs of New Nations (1972)

After many African colonies gained independence in the early 1960s, the new countries received attention from the U.S., which saw opportunities for increased influence and commerce on the vast continent. Aid projects hatched in New York and Washington D.C. offices were sent to the "dark" continent, along with Peace Corps volunteers and CIA agents. American culture also flowed freely, a tsunami that continues to overwhelm decades later. Much of this culture was pushed through commerce, especially music, but some was official state business. The U.S. Information Agency employed cultural ambassadors and sent them abroad.

Leonard de Paur was an ideal ambassador. He grew up studying music, and in World War II formed The De Paur Infantry Chorus, which became a top recording chorus for Columbia Records. The publicity photo to the right derives from that era of his career, and here is an interesting article from 1948 that puts the chorus into context. A brief biography of de Paur can be read at this site. In the early 1960s, the now-civilian De Paur Chorus toured through Africa performing and, with proof now in your hands, learning about African music.

This rare record, from the defunct Roulette Records label, was recorded "live in Africa," sometime in the mid-1960s. The Chorus interprets traditional songs from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Congo, "with Native drums and percussion." These performances are quite powerful; the chorus obviously integrated with the different percussive styles, and the singing throughout is splendid. Detailed song information is on the back sleeve, available in the folder, although no African musician is credited. Shame.

Enjoy!

Mangungu Cley - Kazi Saza Amelia (1984)

When the youth groups of Zaire (Congo) transformed rumba lingala into soukous, the wave of international enthusiasm for the dynamic dance music pushed African music even onto the shores of the United States, where its availability and popularity have been weak compared to Europe. This album features four songs by Mangungu Cley, including the very nice Kazi Saza. While his singing solos are not the most powerful, neither do they dominate. The strength of this album is the great guitar provided by Zaiko Langa Langa veteran, Petit Poisson. The songs themselves are fine, and the guitar work and ensemble singing combine to produce a tasty listen. I hope you agree.

Enjoy!

P.S. While the back covers of these albums are always in the folder with the music, I so far have not posted them here, to save page space. If you would prefer seeing the back of the albums included in my posts, please let me know.

Bonga - Marika (1984)

The gruff voice of Bonga (Barceló de Carvalho) is without question the best-known one from Angola. When Bonga exchanged his life as an athlete for that of a musician, in the early 70s, he began a productive career that has produced over thirty records, and immense popularity in Angola, Portugal and the rest of the Lusophone world. There is a reasonable biography of Bonga here.

While his earliest recordings (Angola 72, Angola 74) were revived as CD reissues in the late 1990s, much of his exceptional work from the late 70s and early 80s, when his musical maturity and cosmopolitan experience combined to produce the iconic sound that has endured through the decades. Today we feature the album that spotlights Bonga's song Marika, which evolved from its semba roots on Angola 74 to become "real soukous" on this album. Critics of the day claimed that Bonga was abandoning his roots and becoming "commercial," but he rejected that criticism by claiming, justifiably, that soukous is related to the music of northern Angola. Indeed, one of the leading singers in Congolese rumba in that era was Sam Mangwana, who also has Angolan roots.

Bonga was, however, internationalist with his music, and Marika has the imprint of Cape Verdean morna and Portuguese fado, especially on the song, here called Camin Longe, which is a version of the epic Sodade that became a signature song for Cesaria Evora. Varied, interesting, stretching from traditional to organic African pop, I think you will like this album.

Enjoy!

Jo'Burg City Stars - Grooving Jive #1 EP (1986)

Listening to Bringing It Down, posted below, made me remember and dig for this 12" club mix of fiddle-driven mbaqanga from Noise Khanyile and the Jo'Burg City Stars. Originally released on South Africa's Shifty label in 1986, it was picked up for distribution in the UK in 1988 by GlobeStyle, at the peak of the "world music" craze. Leading off with wild fiddling, the monster Grooving Jive #1 fills the first side with stomping rhythms and the nearly incongruous mandolin and violin provided by Khanyile. At times there are echoes of Appalachia, but the groove never slackens.

The B-side is bit less rocking, but still a good vehicle for Khanyile to saw away with his township fiddle. He would go on to produce an album for GlobeStyle, The Art of Noise, in 1989. That album showcases both the traditional and jive styles that Khanyile mastered over decades of involvement in the South African music scene. It's still available as a CD reissue.

Enjoy!

Bringing It Down: South African Sax Jive (1990)

Twenty years ago the venerable reggae label Trojan Records briefly dipped its toes into classic township music from South Africa, for a few releases. Today's offering is a selection of ten mbaqanga instrumentals produced in the early 1970s by one of South Africa's greatest producers, Hamilton Nzimande.

This is jumpin' jive music guaranteed to brighten your day.

Grab It!

Comrade Chinx – Early Hits (1990)

Dickson Chingaira, whose stage name is Comrade Chinx, was a chimurenga singer during the struggle for liberation. After working with Andy Brown in the short-lived band Ilanga, Chinx began a solo career before entering the services of Robert Mugabe as a propaganda worker. Later years have not been so fortunate for the Comrade. His mansion was torn down in 2005, a story you can read about here, and according to this sad article from last year in The Standard, he is "is struggling to make ends meet."

From choral and chimurenga roots, Chinx evolved an unique sound, keyboard-driven chimurenga with a healthy dose of cheesy pop. Listening to this record, I can picture myself drinking beer in a shabeen among an audience of three. Early Hits does contain the fine, rocking song, Zvikomborero Kusimba, in both studio and live recordings, and it's worth the price of admission. The other Chinx album I have, Ngorimba, used to be found on the inimitable Global Groove site, but now there is a better dub on my site: here. That album has a much more traditional chimurenga sound than the one I offer today.

Enjoy!

Bembeya Jazz National - Special Recueil-Souvenir (1977)

Technical problems solved, here is a wonderful album by Bembeya Jazz National. This is the reissue of a 1974 album released the year after the band's great singer and leader Aboubacar Demba Camara died in a "stupid" traffic accident in Dakar. With two tracks changed from the original, this tribute album is packed with Camara's greatest hits. Some of the songs have been collected on compilations, particularly in the excellent Stern's Africa collection Bembeya Jazz National: The Syliphone Years, which sadly appears to be out-of-print. There is a detailed Bembeya Jazz discography here, in case you are interested.

At over 53 minutes, this album is big in every way with the luscious swing of one of West Africa's finest big bands, at its prime.

Enjoy!