Sekouba “Bambino” Diabate got his name because he started singing with the famous Guinean group, Bembeya Jazz National, at the tender age of 17. This was a group of old guys by the mid-1970s and he was the nouveau talent, ie the little brat that the old-school members would make fun of. 30 years have passed and he’s still known as the baby/Bambino.

His last album, Sinikan, got a lot of attention, both in Africa and abroad. Well produced thanks to the studio work of some of Salif Keita’s team and well advertised/distributed, Sinikan was seen as an album that could finally get Guinean music on the map in Western markets. I’m not actually sure how well it sold abroad but regardless Sekouba is now well-known and seems set to rise in popularity.

He has that new-sound West Africa meets traditional and yet he stays true to his Mandingo/Guinean musical roots. While he’s a little heavy on the synth drums and casio sounds at times, his voice, the great chanting backup vocals and wonderful percussion more than save the music.

Here’s my favourite track off Sinikan (and no, it’s not “Fatou”) plus another tune from an earlier album that caught my ear on the Guinea Vibrations compilation.

And hey, since we now have some bandwidth to spare I’ll throw up another track off that compilation: some catchy Guinean dance music by another good traditional mandingo + pop fusion musician, Baba Djan. It’s Hallowe’en and I get the day-off tomorrow so may as well have something to move to tonight.

Sekouba Bambino – Gnangnini
Sekouba Bambino – Acanadia
Baba Djan – Kankan

After yesterday’s sweat-stained pop fest I think we should take a breath of fresh South African acoustic to change it up a bit.

A few posts ago I mentioned seeing Dave Matthews looking really timid beside the salsa kings, the Orchestra Baobab, at a concert in Dakar. Did you know he was South African? I didn’t until today to be honest. I also didn’t know that Vusi Mahlasela is signed to his label… and so it goes.

Despite this connection my educated guess is that Vusi and Dave didn’t really share the same childhood. Vusi Mahlasela grew up in a township outside Pretoria, the capital of apartheid South Africa. He started his musical career playing a home-made tin can and fishing wire guitar, eventually emerging as one of South Africa’s most famous musical artists and a major revolutionary voice against the white apartheid governement.

What’s interesting about Vusi and many, many other South African revolutionaries is that they didn’t hold a grudge. When apartheid finally fell during the 1990s he along with powerful voices like Nelson Mandela were preaching reconciliation and forgiveness instead of bitter revenge. Vusi was both a revolutionary and a post-apartheid pacifist. Without respected artists like Vusi Mahlasela South Africa could very well have decended into brutal civil war, not only between whites and blacks but also between rival southern African tribes vying for control of the new nation. For these reasons I really respect him.

I respect his music, too. No matter how popular he gets or how many of you already know him he deserves a post. Two songs today: one from his wonderful Live at the Bassline album and another track off Wisdom of Forgiveness. The first track is my favourite version of a song about Mandela’s return after years in prison. The latter track features some beautiful mbube singing found in a lot of Vusi’s music.

ps- unfortunately the Bassline is now closed. Or at least it was last time I was in Jo’burg. A great shame, that.

Vusi Mahlasela & Louis Mhlanga – When He Comes Back (Live)
Vusi Mahlasela – Emigodini

Today we’re going to have our first guest posting.

Ben Curtis: AP Photo Editor for West Africa, good friend and one-time roommate. He’s traveled all around Africa from the palms of Zanzibar to the mortars of Liberia. Good guy, funny accent.

See, the kids here are into their own modern pop. They laugh at the old school much like kids back in the States laugh at their dads for listening to Steely Dan. So without further ado, here’s Ben with a pop-filled contemporary night-club hit straight from the depths of small-town Sierra Leone…

In the lexicon of entertainment hotspots throughout the world, the remote diamond-mining town of Koidu in eastern Sierra Leone, near the Guinean border, is unlikely to feature all that highly.

But it was there in June that I found myself for a few days with a colleague and in the course of our work there, ended up at one of the hottest nightclubs I have ever been to. Hot in every way.

The place was small and dark with no air-conditioning, no ventilation, no windows, and was packed with about a hundred Sierra Leoneans flailing about on the packed dancefloor as their condensed sweat ran down the walls of the sauna-like room. Within five minutes in that heat and humidity every item of clothing we were wearing, including our shoes, was drenched in sweat.

But we stayed. As oppressive as the heat was, the place rocked. The dancefloor was pounding with a mixture of young guys and girls out to lift themselves up from the desperation of the town, diamond dealers, traders, and a few shady-looking white “businessmen” types standing in the corner looking very out of place indeed. The common bond between all was the desire to dance ourselves stupid.

During my stay in Sierra Leone, all the nightclubs and radio stations were playing this song, and when the DJ put it on, the whole place was completely jumping. Sadly I never found out the name of it, or who it was by, but when I got back to Freetown I managed to find a copy on a homemade, unmarked CD in the streetmarket. I decided to call it “Tell me if you want me to go” based on the chorus.

If you want a feel of the area, I have a photo gallery called “Sierra Leone Diamonds” on my website – www.bpcurtis.com

-Ben

Tell Me If You Want Me To Go

I managed to forget that it was one of my best friends’ 25th birthday on Monday. To make it up to her here’s a post that I’m sure she’ll love. Meg, sama xarit, je te dédie ce poste dans l’espoir que tu le liras…

I was driving home yesterday and saw a guy pushing a wheelbarrow filled with coconuts wearing a 50-cent t-shirt. Something was different. 50-cent was there looking at me all faux-ghetto but underneath his picture it said “50 CFA” – CFA is the local currency in Senegal and 50 CFA is worth about 8-cents US. I laughed so hard I almost fell off my scooter.

In honour of this wonderful t-shirt (and Meg) I thought I’d post one of the many cheesy Wolof covers of 50-cent’s repertoire. Here’s mbalax and Senegalese RnB star Viviane (the arguably sexy sister of Youssou N’Dour, no less) with PBS Radikal on a track called “Yaay Baign”, which doesn’t mean P.I.M.P. in Wolof.

We’ve also had requests for Daara J. Since I’m posting Senegalese rap anyway I’ll tack on my favourite track by this talented Dakar hiphop group off their 2003 album, Boomerang.

ps- that picture isn’t of the 50 CFA guy. I took it about 2 years ago when I first got to Dakar.

Viviane & PBS Radikal – Yaay Baign
Daara J – Boomerang

I promised some more grunting funk today, so here it is. Fresh-off the 8th volume of the popular Ethiopiques series, Swinging Addis, here’s Ethiopia’s Alemayehu Eshete sounding like he’s too-hot-can-you-handle-the-funk?

Volume 9 of the Ethiopiques series is devoted entirely to the man. He’s a big deal in Ethiopia or at least he was during 60s and 70s, otherwise known as the golden age of Ethiopian pop. People call him Ethiopia’s answer to James Brown and I wouldn’t disagree. Apparently he preferred Elvis over James Brown, but we’re lucky that the latter king influenced his music far more.

I’ve seen a few blogs post tracks off Ethiopiques albums lately but I thought I’d add a little context to the music. In the late 60s and early 70s the emperor of Ethiopia, Ras Tafari Makonnen aka Haile Sellassie, was at his peak. One of his many reforms was to relax state regulations that limited music sold and broadcast to “traditional” forms. This created a mini-boom in new Ethiopian pop music. The radios started putting black American music on heavy rotation and a whole generation of aspiring Western-style pop/soul/funk musicians was born.

I’ve also included another Ethiopian classic soul-funk tune by the Alemayno Eshirtay Group. I don’t know much about this tune other than it comes from the same era and I like it. Feel free to fill in the blanks with a comment.

Alemayno Eshirtay – Love is Love
Alemayehu Eschete – Tchero Adari Nègn (I Get By On My Own)