With an egg nog aftertaste and wrapping paper all over the floor, Benn Loxo is back…

In 1973 highlife music was in trouble. The old-school were being pushed out the door by cheap disco and funk music from Nigeria and the States. Lucky for us a group of young highlife believers refused to let it die. Some started trying new forms of guitar-heavy highlife, dropping the horns and slow-dance rhythms of old in favour of a faster, harder music. Others created new forms of highlife-funk fusion. It was almost afrobeat, but still highlife. A new funky twist on a great sound.

One of these funk stars is Charles Kofi Amankwaa Mann (C. K. Mann) from Ghana. He took the traditional Ghanaian osode highlife beat and remixed it for the new generation. Add some whriling organ, fat bass lines and highlife harmonies and you get some seriously cool new music.

C. K., as he’s known in Ghana, is a self-taught guitarist and ex-sailor. He got his break playing for Kakaiku’s Guitar Band in the 60s. Once he established himself he started his own band, The Carousel 7. They had a mega-hit in ‘69, Edina Brenya, which propelled C. K. into stardom. It’s around this time that C. K. began to develop his new osode sound and incorporate disco and funk into highlife.

Today’s track was released in 1975 as part of a long-playing party LP. It was a big it, and directly responsible for reigniting the public’s waning interest in highlife music. Personally I listen to it while washing the dishes (combined with dancing) after a few glasses of wine and a good party.

ps- During the 80s C. K. Mann saved highlife again, but this time by mixing its traditions with gospel music. In present-day Ghana highlife is alive and well, though gospel-highlife is the sound of the moment thanks in part to people like Mann.

C. K. Mann – Funky Hi-Life

Tags: funk, ghana, highbeat, highlife

Well, I’m in the Paris CDG departure lounge at the moment. I’m wildly bored since I’ve been traveling and/or arguing with airport officials for about 1.5 days. Before boarding my final flight to the 3rd continent of my journey I thought I’d do a quick post.

I’m on airport wi-fi and without much music at the moment, but I noticed I left a Kante Manfila track on my laptop drive. This song is nicely soothing for my tired ears. Good for a Sunday, too. (It is Sunday, right?)

In short, Kante Manfila is a Mandingo from Guinea who strums a nice acoustic guitar. He used to play in Les Ambasadeurs with Mory Kanté and Salif Keita. Buy his music here.

ps- the picture on today’s post is one I took while flying an ultralight over sand dunes in Namibia. Anyone have any Namibian music they’d like to share?

Kante Manfila – Agne Anko

Tags: guinea, mande

WAKE UP! It’s Saturday! Time for wailing guitars, gyrating buttocks and shaking bosom!

I completely forget who this song is by or what the title is. But long live bootlegs, long live soukous and long live Congo.

Well, I’m awake now… you?

Congolese Music for a Saturday Morning

Tags: congo, soukous

Something about living in a sand-blasted region filled with ex-empires makes the various peoples of the Sahel want to rock-out. Musicians like Ali Farka Toure have popularized the Malian “desert blues” sound, while others like Amadou and Mariam are spreading the sub-Saharan rock love.

Tinariwen is another one of these groups who blend solid electric guitar with local rhythms and song in a successful mix. Their music falls somewhere between North African traditional music, Malian blues and contemporary sub-Saharan rock n roll.

The ten members of Tinariwen are Touareg, a stateless nomadic people from the southern Sahara who have historically been caught somewhere between the borders of the Sahel and North Africa. Many of them are based in present-day Mali where they’ve been oppressed and/or ignored by the Malian government for years.

When time came for the Touaregs to give the finger to Mali and fight for independence Algeria stepped in and promised weapons and support. Ghadaffi also promised them their own state, or at least some form of autonomy in the south of his country and the north of Mali, following a successful revolution. However, always one to make a hollow promise, Ghadaffi duped the Touaregs. They quickly realized that he was just using them as pawns in his own pursuits to gain more territory.

Tinariwen’s music has become the unofficial soundtrack for the Touareg revolution against both Algeria and Mali. Their music has been banned in both countries. They sing about resistance, exile and future independence, and also play a mean guitar.

Formed in 1982, Tinariwen have just recently started to record albums for wide-release. Their 2001 album The Radio Tisdas Sessions did very well, giving the group as well as the Touareg’s plight much media attention. This year they released a second album, even better than the first in my opinion, Amassakoul. You’ll find a track from each in today’s post.

Tinariwen – Chet Boghassa
Tinariwen – Afours Afours

Tags: mali, rock, tamashek, touareg

I’m not the the only guy posting African music. Check out my suggestions below then please leave your own in the comments.

A few Benn Loxo readers and contributors with a fabulous record collection have started their own blog, Akwaaba Sound System. Today’s post features some lesser-known music by Francis Bebey that they introduced to me a couple weeks back. Great stuff – go grab it before it’s gone.

The Suburbs Are Killing Us featured some wild Congolese brousse electronic the other day. You’ll see what I mean when you listen.

If you’re still feeling the Congo, check-out Tikun Olam for some rumba by Sam Mangwana. You’ll often find nice African music on this site.

Funk You featured some Manu Dibango the other day. Always fun…

Today I’m doing something a little different. Yesterday I titled my post “The soul before Bloody Saturday” in reference to the day in 1976 when Ethiopia’s golden age came to a crashing halt, plunging the country into decades of instability, repression and poverty.

I then got to thinking about how so many African countries have been turned on their head in a day. I know it’s never that simple and that these days of revolution are often the result of years of build-up. However, it is interesting to look at trigger points in history; the events that prompt swift political or cultural overhaul.

Burundi is a country that hasn’t had any form of lasting peace in over a century. The Twa were conquered by the Hutu, then the Hutu by the Tutsi, then the Tutsi by the Germans, then the Germans by the Belgians, then the Belgians by the Tutsi, then the Tutsi by the Hutu, then again the Hutu by the Tutsi, and so on and so forth.

The current ongoing conflict is rooted in a post-colonial power struggle between Burundi’s two main ethnic* groups, Hutu and Tutsi. The “trigger day” for this conflict came on the 29th of April, 1972, when a small group of Hutu militants staged an uprising that supposedly resulted in the death of Burundi’s last and former king, Ntare IV. This gave the new Tutsi president Michel Micombero’s government an excuse to put-down the numerically superior Hutu in a brutal genocide that resulted in an estimated 100,000-150,000 Hutu deaths.

My friend Todd was in Burundi a few years back reporting on yet another war there. He brought a little dictaphone with him and made a whole bunch of mini-recordings of interviews, music and the sounds of war. I recently listened to his “best of” CD of these recordings and picked a few of my favourites for the site.

The most interesting, in my opinion, are Burundian president Buyoya’s little speeches on “burundi1.mp3″ and “burundi6.mp3″. What an evil sounding man. Another interesting one is the sound of mortar, rocket and gun fire in the capital, Bujumbura, with the muffled speaking of a BBC reporter on a radio in the background talking about the conflict. Anyway, the clips are meant to be listened to in numerical order. Hope you find them interesting.

Now since I try to keep this site musical and not too political I’ll throw in some Burundian music, too. There’s a clip of Burundian traditional drumming by one of the country’s most well-known groups outside of the country. This style of drumming is an important part of many Burundian ceremonies and rituals. There’s also some contemporary Burundian music by Khadja Nin, a popular and talented female vocalist.

* there has been great debate over whether Hutu and Tutsi are still actually different ethnicities. People of course say they “look different”, but recent genetic and historical analysis say otherwise. Many now believe, as I do, that being a Tutsi just means you come from a powerful ruling family, while Hutus are the poorer, working or servant-class farmers. Different classes, yes, but different ethnicity? Maybe not so much anymore.

Sounds of Burundi 1
Sounds of Burundi 2
Sounds of Burundi 3
Sounds of Burundi 4
Sounds of Burundi 5
Sounds of Burundi 6
Sounds of Burundi 7

Khadja Nin – Mbarik Fall
Les Tambourinaires du Burundi

Tags: burundi

I’m pretty busy today but time for a quick post.

I already posted an Alemayehu Eshete track a while back, but I didn’t really do the guy justice. It’s a rare cloudy day in Dakar and everyone seems to be moving a little slower. Perfect weather for some more East Coast funk from The Man in 1970s Ethiopia.

One has to wonder what would have happened to Ethiopian music if the country hadn’t fallen apart in 1974. With the possible exception of Ghanaian Highilfe and Nigerian Afrobeat, I can’t think of another significant African musical movement in the 60s and 70s that was so cool. Leisure suits, afro cuts and guys running around screaming “baby, why dontchyou come back to me now, you know you want it, baby, you NEED me!” in Amharic.

Anyway. Lots to do. You can find great collections of his earlier music on the Ethiopiques compilations vols. 3, 9 and 10. (Don’t believe emusic, by the way. He didn’t die in 1969. Where’d they get that?)

ps- Unfortunately Eshete discovered the Casio in the 80s and 90s and never looked back. I suggest you stick to his early material if you don’t want to feel the same remorse as you may have felt when you re-watched The Neverending Story a little too late in your teens.

Alemayehu Eshete – Teredtchewalehu
Alemayehu Eshete – Eskegizew Bertchi

Tags: ethiopia

I unapologetically admit that the Kronos Quartet is my favourite string ensemble. In 1992 this San Francisco-base group released Pieces of Africa, a classical fusion album mixing Western string arrangements with songs and rhythms from various spots on the African continent. The album was wildly commercially successful for a “classical” album, reviled by purists and praised by many.

That’s the way it is with Kronos. Purists often hate them, citing their numerous pop ventures and tendency to make albums with names like “Pieces of Africa.” I’m over it. They’re very talented musicians who are unafraid to pimp themselves out on cheap Jimi Hendrix covers if it means getting the public at large to appreciate a little Hildegaard von Bingen.

Their album Early Music is still one of my all-time favourites. Mind you, it brings back painful memories of late nights, long essays and very cold pre-exam crunch sessions while studying in Canada. You should check it out regardless of what you think of today’s selections.

Either way, we’ll stick with Africa for this post. I always sort of thought the kora would go well with a cello.

Kronos Quartet – Wawshishijay
Kronos Quartet – Tilliboyo

Tags: america, classical

We have a guest post today, this time from an especially generous and well-traveled Benn loxo reader, Pieter.

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A predecessor of Orchestre Bantous (De La Capitale), Rock A Mambo swayed fans in the late 1950s with their afrolatin tunes. Made up of the best Congolese musicians (from both sides of the river), it featured people like Kabasele and Nico (of African Jazz fame), Rossignol, Malapet, Pandi, and Essous (of OK Jazz). Rock A Mambo plays on the Ki-Kongo expression rocamambu, ‘one who looks for problems’, a reference to a folk tale of the prodigal son who leaves with nothing but returns home rich. Read Gary Stewart’s Rumba On The River and find out that Baïla was such a hit for Antonopoulos’ Esengo label that Essous got a Vespa out of it, or that (Patrice) Lumumba–then sales manager for BraCongo–hired Rock A Mambo to praise its Polar beer (but they were soon sacked after being seen drinking the rival Primus beer).

Super Cercul was one of the orchestras where Franklin Boukaka started out. Boukaka was a great composer, poet, and activist, killed in 1972 during one of the many revolutions in Brazzaville. Before creating political songs like Le Bûcheron or Pont Sur Le Congo with Cercul Jazz, he composed classic dance tunes in the early 1960s like Adelina. In Pont Sur Le Congo, Boukaka hoped for unity across the river:

Accept this day my prayer
For a united Congo.
If we follow the teachings of Lumumba,
Kinshasa and Brazza will get on well together.
Brothers and sisters on the two banks,
Let’s join hands and forge the glory
Of our Congo.

Enjoy,

Pieter

Rock-A-Mambo – Panchita
Super Cercul – Adelina

Tags: congo

So I went to see one of the Senegal Hip-Hop Awards shows last night at Dakar’s French Cultural Centre. Some groups were pretty funny (including a MC holding a pink plastic cane and sporting a head lamp – supa ghetto), others interesting (Cameroonian mask wearing RnB dancers), and a couple really good (Daara-J almost always puts on a good show). We were particularly impressed by a young MC from Abidjan/Geneva named Kajeem. I’m hopefully going to get a hold of him today so I can grab one of his mixtapes to post on the site.

Anyway, I promised yesterday that I’d post some more “nouveau talent” from the Dakar hip-hop scene. Today you get Flamm J, a politicized Dakar rap group most famous for their big religious kick and attacks on the “corrupting influence” of mbalax music and dancing on young Senegalese women (see this site’s logo). I like them, however, for their incorporation of local instruments into their beats. You’ll hear some kora on today’s track.

The second song is by Bidew Bou Bess (Wolof for “A new star”). I posted this track not because these guys are wildly popular, but rather because they have a unique sound. They use traditional Senegalese singing styles and instruments in their hip-hop with interesting results. And yes, the chorus is a chant to Allah. And yes, much of Senegalese hip-hop is religious. Local spiritual leaders, marabouts, often align themselves with popular hip-hop groups to get their message across and stay on top of the competitive Senegalese Islam power game.

ps- a friend just pointed me to a Slate article about the history of the word “hip”. The author featured in the article thinks that it’s derived from the Wolof word xeppi (pronounced “heppy”) which roughly means “to open one’s eyes”. Thought this was appropriate given the last couple days of posts…

Flamm J – Wedi Guiss (I won’t believe it ’till I see it)
Bidew Bou Bess – Mbaye

Tags: hiphop, rap, senegal, wolof