Every Friday, The World Africa presents three new musical releases from or inspired by the continent. This week, it’s time for reissues with South African funk, Nigerian disco and Malian folklore.
« Broken Shoes », the Soweto
Almon Memela was born in 1936 in a village in KwaZulu-Natal, in eastern South Africa. At the age of 20, he moved to Johannesburg to work in the mines… but it wasn’t long before he made his mark in Music with, in 1963, the creation of his group, Almon’s Jazz Eight. But it was not until 1975 that the guitarist released an album under his own name, Funky Africafollowed the following year by Broken Shoes, a disc of two fifteen-minute pieces released under the pseudonym “Soweto” and recorded with the orchestra of the Pelican Club of the eponymous township. The Canadian label We Are Busy Bodies will reissue this little-known funk treasure with haunting guitar playing on Friday, November 15, on vinyl and digital.
“Lead Ukot Akpa Itong”, he wrote Sammy Obot
It was around the same time that the Nigerian musical landscape was disrupted by the arrival of new technologies (drum machines, synthesizers, etc.) and genres associated with them, such as pop, disco, but also reggae or soul, which then collide with local styles such as highlife and juju music. The result is a profusion of productions – not necessarily passed down to posterity – as evidenced by the compilation Nigeria Special Volume 3 which will be released on vinyl and digital at the end of November by the British label Soundway Records. There are nineteen pieces published between 1978 and 1993 in which, as the subtitle indicates, “electronic innovation meets culture and tradition”.
“Children’s Club”, de Nahawa Doumbia
Return to tradition, precisely, with the album Vol. 2, by Nahawa Doumbia, which the American label Awesome Tapes From Africa – which had already dedicated its very first release to it, in 2011 – will reissue at the beginning of December on vinyl, CD, cassette and digital. On this opus initially published in 1982, which was remastered from the LP record due to the lack of being able to find the original recording, the voice of the Malian singer rises, pure as a trickle of water, above the guitar notes of N’Gou Bagayoko, in a formal simplicity which takes nothing away from its persuasive force. Like on the song Demisen Mountain, where she exhorts the youth of her country to be more daring and perseverant in work.
Read also | Between afrobeat and afrojazz: the musical selection from “World Africa” #204
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Find all the editorial’s musical favorites in the Monde Afrique YouTube playlist.
Africolor is back at it again
“Who will co-produce the next Kutu, Twende Pamoja, Black Lagoon, when few will believe in it at the start? Who will welcome the next Muthoni Drummer Queen, BCUC, Ann O’aro, Angélique Kidjo, Danyel Waro, when no one knows them? » These are the questions posed by Sébastien Lagrave, the director of the Africolor festival, after his eviction from the aid schemes of the National Music Center (CNM) on the grounds that the event extends over more than thirty days – and does not correspond therefore not the idea that the institution has of a festival. A decision that will lead “a deficit of 10,000 euros” for the 2024 edition, already heavily affected “by inflation and the fall in endowments”, deplores Sébastien Lagrave.
In any case, the Ile-de-France festival, which has been pioneering the African music scene for thirty-five years and never tires of highlighting new talents, will be back in twenty-eight cities in five departments, from 15 November to December 24, with programming faithful to its spirit of discovery and support for creation. Among the 120 artists present are the Congolese Fulu Miziki Kolektiv (November 15 in Pantin), the Tanzanian Siti Amina (November 21 at Lilas) or the Beninese Gangbé Brass Band (November 22 in Nanterre)… The complete program is available on the festival website.
