Many thanks to Benn loxo listener, Richard, for sending me some great music this week. Much appreciated.

A couple of you have asked for any Angolan music that’s “not Bonga”. A little while ago I featured some music from mid-1970s Angola, stuff released shortly before the Angolan government’s shut-down of all things cultural. Today we’ll hear some contemporary Angolan music by Waldemar Bastos.

Bastos, like most of Angola’s popular musicians with the resources to do so, fled Angola in the mid-70s before the country descended into decades of civil war. People like Bonga headed up to Holland, while Bastos moved to various countries in the USSR. Eventually he settled in Brazil for many years where he restarted to redevelop his musical career, mixing Brazilian samba with Angolan semba. He released his first album, Estamos Juntos, while living in Brazil and began to earn immediate success.

Bastos moved to Portugal in the 1990s where he continues to record and release music. Today’s track comes off his first wide-release, 1998′s Pretaluz. He’s often touring around Europe and North America, so keep an eye-out on those world music tickets if you’re into checking him out live.

Waldemar Bastos – Sofrimento

Following aduna‘s comment I went out at lunch at picked-up Cheikh Lô’s latest. I have to say that at first listen I wasn’t really impressed. Much of it sounded over-produced and featured some rather cliché ‘world music new millennium!’ chord progressions and instruments. I swear, whoever brought the Casio keyboard and wind chimes to Africa should be tried and jailed. I’m also a firm believer that you can’t just tack a little talking drum onto an otherwise unimpressive tune and make it great.

That said, I got home and gave the disc another couple listens because I really like Cheikh Lô, with a particular respect for the way he performs live. Also, while his last album, Bambay Gueej, wasn’t a masterwork, his first album, Né La Thiass, is a true classic and one of my favourite contemporary West African recordings.

With some good headphones on the production is often worth it and after a few listens I caught lots more of the background rhythms and other sounds going on in the music. I can now honestly say that there about four or five tracks I get a good kick out of, and this number certainly depasses what I need to like an album. So yeah, final verdict: give it a few listens before you decide, but definitely worth a buy especially if you’re into the acoustic mbalax scene out of Senegal.

The in-thing to do these days for West African musicians is to combine Senegalese music with sounds and instruments from the Middle East, South America and Asia. Cheikh Lô’s sitting on that bandwagon with Youssou, Thione Seck and the others, and came up with a couple interesting results. As I’ve been on a bit of a Brazilian binge lately (during my African music off-time) I thought I’d feature Lô’s track, Senegal-Brésil alongside my favourite tune to come out of Brazil by the great Jorge Ben.

ps- at the end of Lô’s track you’ll hear them chanting, “Sénégal, jamm rekk.” Jamm rekk translates literally into “peace, only” and is one of my favourite expressions in the Wolof language. Try it yourself: next time someone says to you, “hey man, how’s it going?” look them in the eye all serious-like and reply, “peace, only.”

Chiekh Lô – Sénégal-Brésil
Jorge Ben – Ponta de Lança Africano

After a rather riotous weekend it’s definitely time to take it down a notch. As many of you already know, some of my favourite music coming out of West Africa at the moment is acoustic guitar folk blended with local rhythms, languages and musical styles. Omar Pene’s Myamba, Cheikh Lô and Pape et Cheikh come to mind. Today’s track is right up that alley, and appropriately soothing given my heavy head tonight.

Les Frères Guissé are Haalpular folk musicians originally from the Fouta in north-eastern Senegal. They now live in Dakar and have recently toured in Europe and the States. Today’s track comes from the Acoustik M’balax compilation now available at your local Sandaga market CD stand.

Thanks and a shout-out to Astrid for the fresh, nice-sounding import.

Frères Guissé – Démocracie