If you can understand French you’ll get a little history lesson from today’s track. Regardless, you have to appreciate the amazing list of Mande musicians who appear on this recording:

Bako Dagnon, Kemo Conde, Kemo Kouyate, Alkaly Camara, Djelimady Tounkara, Lafia Diabate, Kasse Mady Diabate, Kandia Kouyate, Mama Sissoko, Sekouba ‘Bambino’ Diabate, Kerfala Kante, Djessou Mory Kante, Mamadou Diabate, Baissa Kone, and many more.

Kora, balafon, guitar and wonderful Mande singing by many of the best musicians currently alive in West Africa. Buy the album here.

Mande All Stars – Nare Maghan

I’ve mentioned many times how Senegalese salsa music used to be the big thing in Dakar in the 60s and 70s. Aside from Youssou N’Dour, the Orchestre Baobab is probably the most well known Senegalese group. The other day I posted some Mar Seck, a big name among the older musical generation here.

Laba Sosseh is another great salsa musician. Born in The Gambia, Sosseh moved to Dakar in the early 60s where he started to play with the Etoile de Dakar, Youssou N’Dour’s first band that Mar Seck also sung with. In the 70s Sosseh worked in NY and Cuba with groups like Orquestra Aragón and Aboudou Lassissi.

Today’s track is off the album, El Maestro: 40 ans de salsa. If you’re using this site to learn a little Wolof, the title means “Give me your hand.” If you understand this much you’ll get most of the lyrics, with the exception of “xale bi.” In Wolof this literally means “a child” but is more commonly used to refer to a young woman or your girlfriend. One of my favourite expressions in Wolof is, “xale yi dangay waaru,”which roughly means, “The ladies, they’re nuts.”

Laba Sosseh – Diokma Sa Loxo

We have a guest post today by Benn loxo listener, Dominique.

“Kevin Volans is a South-African composer that studied and worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen in the 70’s. In 1986 he started working with the Kronos Quartet, with whom he recorded the chartbusters “White Man Sleeps” and “Pieces of Africa”, well, sort of… The track presented here was composed in 1980 and somehow ended up on the ‘unpublished work’ list. It was written for 2 specially tuned harpsichords and rattles, and is very much in debt to Shona Mbira music. I had never heard harpsichord sound this groovy!”

Thanks for the music, Dominique. Great stuff. You can buy the album here.

Kevin Volans Ensemble – Mbira

I promised the other day that I’d post some more Senegalese mbalax music.

Mbalax star, Ndongo Lô, has a hard, classic mbalax sound filled with swift and complex percussion and enough synth to make any Casio hater cringe. His music is currently really popular at Dakar nightclubs and on the local radio.

Lô grew up in one of Senegal’s most dynamic – and poorest – neighbourhoods, Pikine. In 2000, when he was 25 years old, he released his first album, Ndoortel. It became an instant hit and Lô went on to release three full-length albums during the next four years. Lô appeals to the Senegalese masses because of his strong Mouride beliefs and his humble background. He sings only in Wolof about things your average guy from Pikine can relate to.

Unfortunately, Lô died this past January at the young age of 30 of some unspecified illness. Apparently after getting word of his death, thousands of his fans from Pikine and elsewhere tried to storm the hospital where he was being kept. The police had to dispatch a large group of armed gendarmes to protect the hospital from Lô’s grieving fans.

Lô was buried in Touba following a big ceremony attended by many prominent Senegalese, including lutteur exceptionel, “Tyson”, and big marabout, Serigne Mbacké.

Ndongo Lô & Papa Ndiaye Guewel – Deg Deg

I was going to pull an All Mbalax, All The Time week here at Benn loxo, but unfortunately I left today’s mbalax pick at the office. We’ll pick up again with some Dakar “Manhattan of West Africa” sabar sounds tomorrow, but for now let’s take a quick dip into that other side of Senegalese music: la musique des vieux, la salsa senegalaise.

Mar Seck used to sing with Etoile de Dakar, Youssou Ndour’s original Dakar band before it reformed as the Super Etoile. He split from the band early – rumour has it his ego was too big for backup – and went on to pursue solo projects and more salsa-oriented groups like Number One. He managed to form quite a rep here in Senegal but never quite reached the kind of international recognition that Youssou enjoys today.

Regardless, Mar Seck is well-loved in Senegal and has some good tunes floating around. True, Senegalese salsa will forever be the music of old folks around these parts, but I love it. Put a little whiskey in me and I’ll grab K and whip her around the dancefloor like there’s no tomorrow.

ps- the name of today’s track can be roughly translated as “rather rotund, seriously dominating Senegalese matriarch.”

Mar Seck – Diongoma

I’ll soon be leaving Senegal and I’m starting to get pretty reminiscent. Dakar is a great city, one that you should try to visit at least once in your life. Horrible for tourists, known for its filth and street hasslers, it’s also home to some of the nicest people, best nightlife and cosmo meets traditional in all of West Africa. From the dive bars of plateau to the nightclubs of Pikine, it’s a wonderful place that, after nearly two and half years, I’m only beginning to understand and appreciate.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised when a Benn loxo reader, Dominique, wrote me a nice e-mail asking me to post some mbalax music. I have so many great memories of sweating my ass off at 4am in Dakar nightclubs, shaking it as best a white boy can in an impossible attempt at sabar to the mbalax rhythms.

For those not in the Senegalese know, mbalax is the music in Senegal. Popularized by the likes of Youssou Ndour, Thione Seck, Omar Pene and more, it has become the unofficial national sound. I’ve written before about how it never ceases to amaze me how local mbalax sounds dominate all aspects all aspects of nightlife – and taxi radio listening – when in other West African countries I’ve visited European and American influences run wild.

Last year Abdou Guité Seck’s album, Coono Evolution, was one of the big hits. Seck’s most successful single, Modou Modou, was repeated almost as much as Youssou Ndour’s 2003 single, Sa Ma Yaye.

Abdou Guité Seck hails from St-Louis, Senegal, a city on the Mauritanian border in northern Senegal. It’s one of my favourite spots in the country aside from the Casamance. You can get a good feel for the city in a great book I bought recently, Albin Michel’s Saint Louis du Sénégal. The picture on today’s post is also one I took in St-Louis a couple years ago.

Now, please, when you listen to this song there is a serious chance that your first reaction is going to be “what is this cheesy crap?” That’s the classic Western first-time reaction to mbalax music. But give it a few tries, and while you’re listening close your eyes and picture a beautiful Senegalese woman dancing the ventilateur. This was the big dance last year where Senegalese women present their jolies marmites to the men and shake them at about 200 rpms. Then, and only then, will you understand what the sabar is all about (and why it was banned at one time in some countries).

Abdou Guité Seck – Modou Modou

Nigerian “fuji” music, named after the Japanese mountain symbolizing love, has taken many forms over the years. I posted some rather hard-core fuji a while back and several of you pointed out that this wasn’t the kind that you were used to. Today we’ll check-out a better known musician, Adewale Ayuba. He plays a brand of fuji called bonsue named after his band, the Bonsue Fuji Organization.

Fuji is the Nigerian Muslim north’s answer to juju music from the south. It mixes traditional Yoruba, Were and Arabic singing styles with high-speed drumming on hand palm drums (Omele), metal percussion instruments (Agogo), tambourines (Saworo) and gourd shakers (Sekere). It’s wildly popular in Nigeria and dominates many nightclubs across the country.

Today’s selection is the opening track off Ayuba’s album, Formula. I couldn’t read the name off the photocopied jacket, so if you know it please post a comment.

I picked this CD up in Lagos during the big fuel strike of 2003. Because there were no buses or cars on the roads to get people from A to B the traffic was better, the area boys were fewer and the crowds in general disappeared. The downtown markets and neighbourhoods, normally a no-go for Oyibo (Yoruba slang for white people), were open to explore. I found a few gems at some generator-powered music stores/stands in the near-empty streets.

Adewale Ayuba

Here are the last re-posts. Sorry I couldn’t get to all of them, but bandwidth is precious.

Raw, uncut Keita
Never leave home without it
Apolitical Sudan
Funky Lagos

A Benn loxo listener, Joe, wrote me an e-mail today from Sri Lanka including a request for some more Nigerian hiphop.

I grabbed a few tracks by Mode 9 off africanhiphop.com the other day. A couple of them are pretty good, including the one I’ll post today.

Mode 9 was an Abuja-area rapper on Payback Tyme records who’s apparently moved to Lagos now. Who knows if he’s still producing any music, but anyone who can pull off a lyric like “slaughtering fools, like a bunch of crazy Toaregs,” gets my respect. Listen to the end to see if you can understand any of the brokan, Nigeria’s unofficial language.

The second track I’m posting is actually a video by Terry Tha Rapman – sorry about the Windows Media format. Mode 9 and Terry The Rapman were both part of the Abuja rap crew, SWATROOT.

This thing is seriously funny. My favourite line has to be, “who needs Calvin Klein when you got Coco Klein?” as he’s sifting through a classic West African street market.

ps- has anyone else been to Abuja? I find it pretty funny that a city so stale (à la Brasilia) could produce a rap scene.

Mode 9
Terry Tha Rapman – I am a Nigerian

I had a great Senegalese independence day weekend. Parties and dinners with friends, sifting through massive street markets, line fishing in a pirogue, relaxing with K, and two really great concerts. I had the privilege to see both Orchestre Baobab and Bembeya Jazz in one weekend!

I love how each member of Orchestre Baobab has a completely distinct personality, and their play these days is super-tight. The crowd really got into the music despite the Just4You jazz club setting. Bembeya, though not as charismatic as Baobab, were musically amazing and by the end of their set were really rocking out. Some of those guys must be pushing 70 or 80 now but it didn’t show at 2am – by the end of their show they were ripping it up for those who stayed late. Sekou Diabate is an incredible guitarist and when he lays into those soukous riffs it sounds amazing.

I’ve posted music from both of these groups already, but the shows were so great I feel that I have to put up some more. Read the original posts here and here, and then pick up some new music below. The Orchestre Baobab track is off their classic early 80s album, Bamba. They did a good version of this song the other night. The Bembeya track is off a 2000 re-issue of Hommage à Demba Camara.

ps- Three more reposts today: Stella Chiweshe, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Franco & Rochereau. I won’t be doing reposts very often and they’ll only be up for a week, so get your requests in now!

Orchestre Baobab – Autorail
Bembeya Jazz National – Beni Barale