For those who know and love Dakar, you’d probably laugh and say, “really? are you kidding?” if I told you that a new amusement park opened here, just down the street from Soubedioune fish market. Ah yes, the Disney of Dakar, a West Africa Wonderland – say hello to Magicland!

A bunch of us went down yesterday afternoon to check out this wonder of the sub-Saharan world. We ate cotton candy, watched our friend’s cute kid ride the rollercoaster, bashed the crap out of each other at the karting, and even rode some mechanical bulls. Good, clean fun made twisted by the fact that all of this was happening in my dusty home of Dakar.

If you’re asking yourself, “what’s the big deal? It’s just some crappy new amusement park,” you need to get your ass over to Senegal and see why such things can only be funny.

Anyway, in honour of all that’s plastic and metal on the West African Atlantic coast I’m going to post some carnaval soukous music by the late Pépé Kallé. Sometimes known as the Atomic Bomb, this rather portly master of the Congolese soukous sound is right up there with some of the top soukous musicians out of Congo during the 1970-90s. He’s played with some great musicians in his day like Diblo Dibala and Kinanga “Boeing 737″.

I always like a good dose of rumba rhythm on a Monday. You can also enjoy some if you buy Gigantafrique, Kallé’s 1990 best-of release that contains the track I’m posting today.

Pépé Kallé – Cé Chalé Carnaval

I’ve read both negative and postive reviews of Freedom Blues – South African Jazz Under Apartheid. Some feel that it’s an inspiring collection of uplifting jazz music by black musicians who, despite living under the brutal repression of South African apartheid, still managed to crank out great music. Others feel that the music on the album is just another example of African pop imitating American musical style, and that the “joyous” sound has more to do with sounding like John Coltrane than expressing a desire for freedom or happiness. Still others think that the real “freedom music” of South Africa sounds nothing like this.

Personally, I don’t care. Bottom-line is that “despite this” or “not despite that” there were some amazing jazz musicians living and playing in South Africa and Zimbabwe during the apartheid years. The most well-known among them are of course Dollar Brand and Hugh Masekela, but the album also features several lesser-known talents.

I had a hard time picking a track to post. I finally settled on Dollar Brand because I play piano and like to think that in another life I may have been able to play as well as he does. Give this track some time – it breaks nicely at around the first minute.

Dollar Brand – Bombella

Orchestra Bella Bella is a classic Congolese rumba group from the 1970s and 80s. They were formed in 1969 by the late Soki Vangu (Maxim Soki) and Soki Dianzenza (Emile Soki). The younger Soki brother, Emile, was only 16 at the time.

They went on to make many recordings during the early 1970s, playing alongside other rumba orchestras in the Zaire scene like Orchestre African Music and Orchestre Lipwa-Lipwa. Pepe Kalle was one of their most well-known members, joining the band in 1972 for a brief stint. Future Congolese stars Kanda Bongo Man and Diblo Dibala also played with Bella Bella in the early 80s.

There are currently three different five-volume “best-ofs” floating around, though I recommend the ones you can buy at Stern’s. Today’s track can be found here and here.

ps- Thanks again, Alex, for the wonderful music.

Orchestre Bella Bella – Tikela Nga Mobali

You can now subcribe to a Benn loxo du taccu “new post” e-mail list.

If you subscribe, everytime I put some new music up on the site you’ll get a simple text e-mail with a link to the new post. Just toss your e-mail address in the box to the right there and click “sign up” to get going. You won’t get anything but new post notifications and your address will be safe in my personal database for no one else to play with.

Starting from today, I’m also going to podcast the songs on my posts.

Today we’re going to listen to a track by a “Malagasy Traditional Music Ensemble”, Tarika Sammy. They sing and play southern-Madagascar sounding music, making use of traditional instruments and multi-part harmonies.

The group formed in 1982 in Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital city, though they didn’t release their own LP until 1996. Unfortunately they haven’t released anything since – anyone know if they’re still together?

This post’s selection comes off their one and only full-length solo release, Beneath Southern Skies from Shanachie records.

Tarika Sammy – Tsarovy (Remember)

Damn, what the hell happened? I used to have all the time in the world. Now I’m at work and it’s 5:40pm and all I can say is this:

If you couldn’t look to Benn loxo du taccu for your Senegalese hip-hop needs, what then? Here’s some Dakar-area old school hip-hop. Well, old school in Dakar hip hop terms: a couple tracks off Jololi’s year 2000 compilation, Da Hop.

ps- Sorry about the skip or two. Scratched CDs are tough to rip.

Posse & Doudou – Africa Lakalé
Boul N’Baï – SIDA