Ghana: Ebo Taylor at the AfrikaFestival Hertme

Ebo Taylor is one of the great elder statesmen of Ghanaian music, a highlife guitarist who cut his teeth playing and composing for Broadway Dance Band and Stargazers during the 1950′s. His solo work during the ’70s and ’80s has been compiled on albums on Soundway and Analog Africa and he has just released his first studio album outside of Africa on Strut with the Berlin-based band Afrobeat Academy. Strut’s Quinton Scott asks him about Usher samples, highlife music, nursery rhymes, his new album and ... ( more ).

OkayAfrica.com

MULATU ASTATKE & The Heliocentrics | Munaye

MULATU ASTATKE & The Heliocentrics, Live from Cargo, London
17th April 2008

Mahotella Queens

Afrikafestival Hertme 2007

Ghana: Ebo Taylor & Afrobeat Academy | Mizin

At the Cabaret Sauvage, Festival Alter Eco. Radio France 2 .

Posted by "accentpresse"

South Africa: Dizu Plaatjies

Afrikafestival Hertme 2008

Dizu Plaatjies, the son of a traditional healer, grew up in Cape Town. He is the founder and former leader of the group Amampondo. He toured and recorded with them for 15 years, journeying across continents, festivals and stages. The group took part in the concert given for Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday. A little later, the show Feel the Pulse of Africa brought them commercial fame in South Africa as well as in Europe and the United States.

The post-Amampondo period began in 2003 with a solo album, Ibuyambo. On this disc, Dizu has fun mixing styles that are traditional or non-traditional, African or western. In the following years, he toured all over the world and, at the same time, worked on a second solo album, African Kings, which he recorded in 2008. This project relied essentially on an alliance of traditional instruments with acoustic guitar, with a more contemporary approach than his previous opuses. The disc won the award for best African independent music album at South Africa’s SAMA Awards in 2009.

Posted by "barge182"

Busi Mhlongo | Yaphel Imali Yami

"The reigning queen of modern Zulu music," Busi Mhlongo (born Victoria Busi Mhlongo) has turned the Maskanda guitar music of migrant Zulu mine workers into a worldwide phenomenon. Mhlongo's second album, Urban Zulu, produced by former Soul II Soul producer Will Mowat,spent two months in the top position of Billboard's world music charts in 1998.

A native of Inanda, a small village in the mountains of Kwazuku Natal, Mhlongo launched her musical career as vocalist in +Africa Jazz and with Conjunto Juan Paulo, a Portuguese army band. After marrying South African pianist Early Mabuza, she left her homeland and made the first of many moves. After living briefly in Portugal, Mhlongo and Mabusa relocated to London in the 1970s. While there, Mhlongo recorded with other South African exiles including Dudu Pukwana, Julian Bahula, and Lucky Ranku.

Alternating her base of operations between Holland and South Africa, Mhlongo toured throughout the 1980s with her band, Twasa. Her groundbreaking performance, however, when she joined Gambia band Ifang Bondi at the African Roots Festival in Amsterdam. Her gutsy singing and dynamic stage presence led to an invitation to perform along with Salif Keita and Manu Dibango at the prestigious African Music Festival in Delft in 1989. Released by the Dutch label Munich in 1993, Mhlongo's debut album, Barbentu, was reissued internationally by Stern's two years later. Mhlongo has conducted numerous workshops in Zulu singing and dancing.     ~     Craig Harris,  All Music Guide

Zimbabwe: Oliver Mtukudzi - "Kupokana"

A song about being careful of the words that come out of your mouth.

Ghana: Yacub Addy & Odadaa Ensemble

The idea of this particular video was to feature Odadaa!'s portions of this performance for those who are specifically interested in the African elements. All other videos and documentaries re "Congo Square" feature Wynton Marsalis and LCJO and their interactions with Yacub Addy and Odadaa!.

Posted by "aminaaddy".

Senegal: Aziz Faye & Yatma Thiam

Filmed and editied by Lynette Wich .

Aziz Faye of Dakar, Senegal West Africa comes from a long line of master Sabar drummers and dancers. His family Sing Sing, is the nguewel Family of Dakar going back many generations. Aziz grew up in Medina, the nguewel suburb of Dakar, Senegal, learning from his father; Sing Sing Faye, grandfather, and uncles the secret of the Sabar. After mastering Sabar, Aziz went on to master the Djembe as well. From a young age he stood out as one of the most talented of his generation and as a young boy he was a premiere performer in Le Ballet Sing Sing Rhythm, both dancing and drumming. He has also performed with the National Ballet of Senegal.

... Aziz has also played and danced for many world renowned mbalax bands such as Youssou N'Dour, Fallou Dieng, Baaba Maal, Ismael Lo and Mbaye Dieye Faye, John Densmore's Tribal Jazz as well as european artist Peter Gabriel. ... ( ReverbNation.com )

Ghana: Kakatsitsi

Kakatsitsi from Accra perform at Midsummer Festival in Hertfordshire UK.

Kakatsitsi are a group of traditional drummers, dancers and singers from the Ga people of Southern Ghana, with their roots in the fishing community of Jamestown. Their music takes traditional rhythms and chants from their own Ga tradition, rearranging them with influences of a variety of other West African cultures. The recent addition of a strong dance element, to complement the already outstanding drumming and singing components promises an evening full of energy, movement and rhythm.

Posted by "thedjembeman"

Habib Koité in Toronto, 2010

Posted by "tomusicpix"

Keziah Jones, Bireli Lagrene & John McLaughlin - "Voodoo Child"

Keziah Jones (born Olufemi Sanyaolu on January 10, 1968 in Lagos, Nigeria) is a Nigerian singer-songwriter and guitarist. He describes his musical style as "Blufunk", which is a fusion between raw blues elements and hard, edgy funk rhythms. Also his Nigerian roots in Yoruba music and soul music can be considered a major influence on his sound.

He is known for his distinctive style of guitar playing, including his percussive right-hand technique which is similar to a bass guitarist's slapping technique. He's also famous for playing most of his live shows with a bare torso.

Wikipedia

Posted by "tignou" 2006.

Léon Bukasa - "Mokongele Honoré "

 Born in 1925, in the Congo.

Posted by "AboubacarSiddikh" .

Boubacar Traore

Boubacar Traore at the Grassroots Festival 2001, in Trumansburg, N.Y. . Posted by "rayolite"

Boubacar Traoré was born in Kayes, in 1942, in the Bambara region of Mali. His nickname, Kar Kar was given to him when he was the local school football (soccer) star. It means "the one who dribbles too much" in Bambara. Kar Kar is a self taught musician. He began to compose music at an early age, influenced by American blues and kassonké, a traditional music style from the Kayes region. Kar Kar's older brother spent eight years in Cuba studying music and, once he returned to Mali, he helped his brother learn how to play the guitar.

In the early 1960s, Mali won its independence and the people of Mali awoke each morning to the sound of Kar Kar's melancholic voice on the radio which sang of independence. Every person in Mali from his generation remembers having danced to his hits "Kar Kar Madison", "Mali Twist" and "Kayes Ba," in which he encouraged his fellow citizens to return and build the country.

Despite his radio success, Kar Kar could barely support himself. He earned a living as a tailor, shop keeper and agricultural agent. During the evenings he trained orchestras and sung for his friends.

After a twenty-year absence from the stage, in 1987, Boubacar Traoré was invited to perform for Malian TV and many people couldn't believe their eyes. Unfortunately, two years later, life took a tragic turn when Boubacar's wife, Pierrette, died. Dazed and heartbroken, Kar Kar left Mali to work in France. During the weekends he performed for his fellow immigrants until a British label, Stern's, discovered him and produced two CDs. This led to European and North American tours.

Boubacar Traoré has risen from the ashes and still sings better than ever. Faithful to his roots, for the recording of his album "Sa Golo," he sought out Baba Dramé, a childhood friend, in his hometown of Kayes, to accompany him on the calabash. On the title song "Sa Golo", they are in the Kayes of the past where magicians in clanging outfits made the night air resonate.

The film, "Je chanterai pour toi" , about Boubacar's life was released in 2001 and is now available on DVD.

Boubacar Traoré is one of these solid men who reflects the history of a country, the hopes and the despairs of a people. 

WorldMusicCentral.org

Famoro Dioubate

Famoro Dioubate playing the balafon at the CongaHead.com studio .

Famoro Dioubate was born in 1965 in Conakry, Guinea to a griot family. He is the grandson of El Hadj Djelli Sory Kouyate, a living legend of the Mandeng balafon. During his teens he spent a five years in Abidjan and worked with Cheik Smith-Sherif and Sekou Camara Cobra. Back in Conakry he co-founded "Les Heritiers" with Sekouba Kandia Kouyate and recorded the albums "Kandia Dinke" and "Nyoumekela" with this group. Concurrently, he was the understudy of his grandfather in the Ensemble Instrumental National and routinely performed for the President and visiting foreign dignitaries. He was a member of Mory Kante's orchestra for the performances and recording of the "Traditional Symphonie." In the early nineties, he was a member of the "Groupe Standard" which accompanied most of the visiting great stars of African music in Guinea. In the United States since the late nineties, he has worked as a free-lance musician for a variety of groups and dance companies in performances and recordings.

Hugh Masekela - "The Boys Doing It"

Hugh Masekela at the Estival Jazz Lugano 2009 .

Toumani Diabate @ Metrotech, Brooklyn , 2007.

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Toumani Diabate was born in Mali, West Africa. He is of the griot or djeli caste, a lineage of musicians which can be traced over 70 generations, according to family oral tradition. Toumani Diabate plays the kora, a 21-stringed harp made from a calabash gourd, an instrument which has changed little over centuries. He was a child prodigy, who began playing at age 5 and performing by age 13.

Toumani Diabate made his international debut with 1988's Kaira, an album often acknowledged as the finest solo kora work ever recorded. In the 20 years that followed, Diabate focused mainly on collaborative work, recording with both his fellow Malians (including Ali Farka Toure, Ballake Sissoko, and Vieux Farka Toure) as well as musicians of international renown (including Taj Mahal, Bjork, and flamenco group Ketama). Diabate also recorded with The Symmetric Orchestra, a group of griots that he hand-selected from across West Africa. In 2008, he released The Mande Variations, his first solo kora record in 20 years. 

Megan Romer, WorldMusic.about.com

Posted by "nycsummer"

Moussa Doumbia - "Keleya"

Moussa Doumbia - Keleya (Original Version)

Moussa Doumbia was a saxophonist, arranger, author/composer who used African American funk as his main inspiration during the 1970's. Living in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, West Africa, the Malian artist recorded an audacious music for a restricted public, with the help of two French American producers based there, Cathy & Albert Loudes. ( more ).

afrobeat-music.blogspot.com

Posted by "reedumful"

D' Gary

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D'Gary performing at The Skirball Center, 2002.

Ernest Randrianasolo – better known to Madagascan music fans as D'Gary – was born in the Madagascan capital, Antananarivo, 1961. He is a descendent of the Bara tribe, a nomadic people who traditionally made their living herding oxen across the plains of the central south. 

...D'Gary's style is disconcerting to say the least. Listen closely to his music and you'll swear there must be at least two guitarists playing. This illusion stems from D'Gary's penchant for "open tunings" (a special technique he has developed through years of patient research and which, needless to say, he keeps totally secret!) Open tunings are actually nothing new in musical terms. In fact, they form the basis of tsapiky, the music that influenced D’Gary so strongly in his early years. However, in tsapiky musicians change only one string while D'Gary alters several. Some critics have claimed that D'Gary's unique playing style attempts to reproduce the sound of the marovany (the traditional Madagascan frame box zither). But D'Gary's secret techniques actually make his guitar sound more like the lokanga (the traditional violin which plays such a major role in the Bara's havoria).... ( more )

RFiMusique.com , Radio France Internationale

Sunny Ade & his African Beats - "Syncro System Movement "

..." Probably Nigeria's most popular musician, King Sunny Ade (ah-DAY) became a major force in popularizing African music in the United States with a series of tours and albums during the 1980s. A concert by King Sunny Ade and His African Beats was a dazzling, kinetic experience that introduced Western listeners to the rich complexities of African musical performance. Heading up a group of 20 to 30 musicians on stage with his vocals and electric guitar, Ade sang phrases in the Yoruba language that meshed with the large battery of traditional percussion on stage, entered into dialogues with other musicians, and joined in with the dancers who brought constant motion to the ensemble. The music Ade played was called juju--a style that went back to the 1920s, but one that Ade developed further than any other musician..." ( more )

James M. Manheim , Answers.com

Posted by "groovemonzter" .

Oumou Sangare - 'Iyo Djeli'

Oumou Sangare and the Kick Horns rehearsing  at Africa Express, Parvis de l'Hotel de Ville, Paris, August 2009.

..."Sangare was born in Bamako, the capital of Mali, in 1968. Her parents had migrated to the city from the rural Wassoulou region south of the Niger River. Her mother, Aminata Diakhite, was also a talented singer and encouraged her daughter to follow in her footsteps. Sangare made her public performing debut at the age of six, singing for a huge crowd at Bamako's main sports arena, the Stade des Omnisports. Before the show began, her mother counseled her, according to her Nonesuch Records bio, to "sing like you're at home in the kitchen."

Her mother's advice apparently paid off, for Sangare's talent soon earned her membership in The National Ensemble of Mali, which serves as a training ground for the best musicians in that country. In 1986 Sangare was invited by Bamba Dambele, known for his work with the African pop ensemble Super Djata Band, to tour Europe with his traditional percussion troupe Djobila. The European tour opened Sangare's eyes to the possibility of an international career of her own. Upon her return to Mali, she immediately went to work forming her own band and developing a songwriting style and sound that effectively blended Wassoulou tradition with a modern pop sensibility..." ( more )

Musicianguide.com

posted by"worldcircuitltd"

Albert Nyathi - "The World As We Dance Along"

Albert Nyathi is a survivor, one of the few full time artists who graduated from the stormy corridors of Zimbabwe's sole University (at that time) in the 1980s. He spent years of his youth struggling in a refugee camp as war raged around him.The very human struggles for freedom in the region influenced his poetry and his social desire to bring change through the power of oration. Certainly he has persuaded people to sit up, listen and take command of their situation.He gave up his rapidly advancing career in government service as a very well informed senior member of Zimbabwe's National Arts Council to concentrate on performance and the development of youth training programmes in the arts in Harare's townships.His background in the performing arts allowed him to try various forms of experimental performance from his early career with Alcyti his first public attempts with accompanied poetry. His first major stage performance as an actor was in the outstanding production of Mandela- The Spirit Of No Surrender in the early 1990s produced by the community theatre company Zambuko/ Izibuko and the ANC as a co-production about a family's struggle in the townships through the period of Mandela's encarceration.

 ( www.imbongi.com )

 Posted by"ShayaFM"
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Rokia Traorè

" Mbifo"



Posted by "ibognini" Feb 2010 .

"Dounia"

..." Traore was born in the Beledougou region of Mali in 1974. Her father was a diplomat, and consequently she and her family traveled extensively, and lived in Belgium, France, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Mali's capital, Bamako. Throughout her youth Traore's transient lifestyle made it difficult for her to fit in with her peers, and she was neither fully part of her African nor her European classmates' worlds. Her father, Mamadou, played the saxophone and introduced Traore to such jazz artists as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. Traore found solace in music and recalled to Renee Graham in a Boston Globe interview, "I was a very solitary child.... Music was therapy for me. I was writing lyrics even before I realized I wanted to be a professional singer.".... ( more )

MusicianGuide.com

K. Frimpong & Vis-A-Vis - "Aboagyeawaa"

From the second album with Vis-A-Vis was recorded in 1978 on the label Ofori Brothers.

Vis-A-Vis was led by Issac Yeboah, based in Kumasi and featuring some of the Ghana's finest musicians of the 70's: Sammy Cropper on lead guitar, Slim Yaw on bass and Kung-fu Kwaku on drums.

Posted by "nickivour"    ORO's Blog

Afel Bocoum - "Ali Farka"

An essential member of Ali Farka Toure's band for more than three decades, Afel Bocoum took his first steps into the limelight with his debut solo album, Alkibar: Messenger of the Great River, in 1999. It was recorded along the banks of the Niger River, during a five-day break from working on Toure's album Niafunke. Alkibar set finger-picked guitar melodies and soulful vocals, in the Sonrai, Fula, and Tamashek languages, to a musical tapestry of lute, monochord njurkle, calabash, spike fiddles, and a three-voiced choir. The BBC reviewed Bocoum's performance on the album as "gentler than the stabbing blues style of Ali Farka Toure. Bocoum's sound is poly-rhythmic, warm, and enchanting with simple magnetic melodies and hummable choruses." The son of a njoika and njurkle player, Bocoum began playing with Toure, in Troupe Musicale De Niafunke, at the age of 13. Although he left the group to study agriculture at M'Pessoba in South Mali, in 1975, he reunited with his former mentor in Toure's band, Asko, in the early '80s. ( Craig Harris, AllMusic.com )