I was trying to think of something to post today when a search on Calabash brought me to Egyptian percussionist Hossam Ramzy.

The track is appropriately titled, but beyond that it got me thinking about the “creepy” nature of instrumental Egyptian music, or rather how the melodies and scales often sound, well, scary to my Western ears.

For example, the tunes on Mahmoud Fadl’s album, Umm Kalthum, sound like they could accompany the scene where the blonde girl gets killed in any good horror movie. Listen to today’s track and tell me you don’t picture Dracula lurking in the shadows or murderers, clutching daggers, creeping up on their prey.

Trick-or-treating in Cairo would probably be a pretty wild experience if you worked the right angle. Ben, Murial, you got your pumpkins carved and faces painted? You know I do here in costume-unfriendly Paris.

Happy Hallowe’en!

Hossam Ramzy - Halloween
Mahmoud Fadl - Siret el Hobb

Guest post today by Benn loxo listener, Michael, in memory of the late Lebo Mathosa:

The second time I became aware of Lebo Mathosa was when I saw her picture in a New York Times article about the launch of MTV Africa. The picture showed the blond-maned Mathosa being carried on stage by a bunch of burly men in black suits. The image fascinated me and I Googled her name only to discover I had bought one of her records during a visit to South Africa in 1999.

Back then, she was part of the Kwaito group Boom Shaka where she shared the lead vocals with Thembi Seete. I’ll admit it was the cover with two cute blond-wigged singers that basically sold me on the CD, but when I got it home I was even more impressed with their sound - which to my ears sound like a more organic version of house music.

Mathosa went solo in 2000 and released a handful solo albums among the aptly-titled “Drama Queen.” In South Africa, Mathosa was widely regarded as the natural-heir to the late-Brenda Fassie, who died of an apparent overdose in 2004. So when I learned that Mathosa had died on Oct. 23 at age 29, I wondered what could have killed her. AIDS? Drugs? No, the car she was riding in overturned and hit a tree, the kind of stupid thing that could happen to anybody.

I’m including Gcwala from the Boom Shaka CD to honor her memory.

Boom Shaka - Gcwala (Halo remix)

Almost a year ago Benn loxo listener, Tim, sent me a guest post. It got buried in a heap of e-mail and only re-surfaced the other day:

“You may know Mbaraka Mwinshehe’s music already. A Tanzanian, he was one of East Africa’s most popular musicians of the 1970s, first with the Morogoro Jazz Band and then in his own group, Orchestra Super Volcano. His career came to a tragically premature end in 1979 when he was killed in a car crash in Kenya.

The Morogoro years were covered in the CD Masimango issued by the German Dizim label in 2000. Plans to issue a second volume covering Mwinshehe’s later work were announced in the sleevenotes of that release, but this has yet to happen. A shame this, because many of his songs with Super Volcano highlight Mwinshehe’s propulsive guitar style and impassioned vocal style. It’s the sound of somebody taking a Congolese model and making it his own.

The track I’m sending to you, Shida, was a huge hit. It has been rescued from a cassette I bought in Nairobi 25 years ago and, as you will hear, the sound quality is only so-so.

[...] The sound balance is just the way the tape sounds. In particular, the horns send the dials into the red every time. Maybe the the song would benefit from being cleaned up and remastered by somebody with the technical know-how to do it, but I’ve come to love its ragged edges.

East African music of this era was often recorded for radio and then pirated on cassette. Very little of it has made it onto CD - or at least ones available in Europe and America. Groups such as the Orchestras Super Volcano, Les Wanyika and Les Mangelepa are little known yet deserving of a wider recognition.”

Thanks, Tim. Great tune and an informed post. And yes, I know that’s not the right cover but I don’t exactly have a huge stock of Mbaraka Mwinshehe images at the ready.

Mbaraka Mwinshehe - Shida I & II

The 2006 Wagram compilation that reminded me to re-listen to Thione Seck yesterday, Radio Afrique, is a great compilation for anyone wanting a contemporary, mainly West African mix. I was going to post a track by Cherif Mbaw anyway today.. but instead I’ll focus a bit on this compilation. Definitely worth a buy.

Isn’t Majojo a cool song? I heard this at a couple friends’ houses while in Dakar. It’s the kind of tune that perks up some music-aware heads at dinner parties. Makes me want to lay into an organ.. there’s something so sexy about the wurlitzer-esque sound.

Cherif Mbaw’s 2005 release, Demain, is good all-round. That track Kollère is what first made me give it a listen last year. The Sally Nyolo track on Radio Afrique, Tilma, is also a great make-Monday-easier tune.

Nyolo is from Cameroon which is where my friend Marta is getting married at the end of the year. Congrats again, Marta.. I’ll try my best to make it down!

Cherif Mbaw - Majojo
Sally Nyolo - Tilma

I have a great in with the Xhosa - I can pronounce the name of their tribe. While in Namibia a few years ago I spent some hours trying to perfect the various clicks and pops of the Xhosa language and it’s paid off.

I was just at a great brunch in Paris and there was a guy there who was born in Lesotho. What a great conversation starter: “one of my favourite African authors is Zakes Mda, a X(-pop!-)hosa author from South Africa…” See? Languages get you places, even if you only know a few syllables.

Today’s track has nothing to do with the Xhosa people, brunches, Paris or Zakes Mda. It’s off an album that many of you may have, but that I’ve recently rediscovered. I’m still riding the Dakar nostalgia after my week there.. memories of dancing late at night at the Kili to Thione Seck. Unfortunately the construction along the Corniche has killed the Kili and Soumbé vibe a bit these days.

Seck’s 2005 release, Orientation, is the result of his travels to Egypt and India. On the album he unearths oriental influences in his local Senegalese mbalax style and adds new Egyptian and Indian sounds to the mix. The result is mixed but some of the tunes, such as the one I’ll post today, are amazing.

I’ve had a lot of champagne and orange juice so I’ll keep it short. Have good Sundays..

Thione Seck - Doom

Positive Black Soul was one of the first Dakar hip-hop groups to break onto the international scene. They’re universally respected by hip-hop kids in Senegal, and helped inspire a whole generation of new rap groups. Thanks to PBS and those early years of Dakar hip-hop’s rise there was suddenly underground rap fans in places like NYC and Paris whocould rhyme-off a half-dozen Senegalese rap groups, from Pee Froiss to Pacotille to BMG44.

Since PBS’ heyday Daara J has emerged as the new popular Senegalese rap group. However, PBS’ members are still recording and releasing successful albums.

One of the PBS stars, Awadi, recently came out with a new album, Sunugaal, that was all the buzz in Dakar while I was there. After giving it a few listens I was a bit let down. His first record was pretty solid, and while it didn’t quite have the freshness of PBS’ earlier stuff, it was still well worth a listen. The new one is too.. I don’t know.. unoriginal?

I look to East Africa now for new rap releases. In my opinion the Dakar hip-hop scene is trying way to hard to sound like 50 Cent instead of focusing on their biggest musical advantage: a rich local musical heritage that they could draw-on to create their own brand of creative, Senegalese hip-hop.

That said, I’ve never posted Awadi on this site from either his new or old album so we’ll hear some today. Both tracks are off his first album since in general I think it’s a better release. The first track reminds me a lot of Reflection Eternal so I’ll also post their track, African Dream.

Awadi - Le cri ou peuple
Awadi - Neye Leer
Reflection Eternal - Africa Dream

Just enough time for a quick post today from a 1999 African funk music compilation that I re-found recently.

Today’s tracks are a funky reminder that afrobeat and its derivatives weren’t just an anglo-West African phenomenon. Great bands like Mombasa, Matata and others rocked the Kenyan soul and funk scene during the 1960s and 1970s.

I also thought of today’s songs because a friend was asking for tips for a song that “you’d listen to while walking down the street.” Both of these tracks are good mood, long walk classics. If you see a guy on his bike on rue Saint Honoré tonight, bobbing his head to an inaudible beat, it’s probably me singing these tunes to myself.

Matata were BBC’s Best Band in Africa in 1971 but unfortunately they faded away by the mid-70s. Mombasa I know much less about. Can someone fill us in?

You can find both of these tracks on the quality compilation Africafunk from the guys at Harmless Records.

Mombasa - African Hustle
Matata - Talkin’ Talkin’

I often ramble on this site about how much I love the fusion that goes on in a lot of African music. From the Beatles-influenced sounds of Nigeria in the 60s, to the soul and funk styles of the 70s, to 80s synth pop explosion, to contemporary, bluesy acoustic music in West Africa… most of my favourite African music is a hybrid of traditional rhythms, melodies and instruments with the Western sounds that I grew up with.

This is the part of the record where someone states the obvious - that I’m an ex-pat, so of course I like the “Westernized” African sound. But I’d argue that for both locals and people like me it’s the fusion styles, not the traditional in the true sense of the word, that appeals to the vast majority of listeners. Localized forms of jazz, soul, hip-hop, pop and even rock’n'roll have developed in their own African ways to become some of the most popular musical styles across the continent.

A few of you have written to say that you’ve either used music you found on this site in remixes, or that you’ve been influenced by the sounds to make music of your own. So today we’ll hear some contemporary musical fusions that have gone in the reverse direction, from Africa back to the West. This time, however, it’s not African immigrants and salves bringing their native sounds that will come to form soul and jazz. Instead, it’s DJs and musicians from America who, thanks to the Internet and overall diversity, just dig the sound of a Ghanaian guitar or a Cameroonian pop tune.

Vampire Weekend, a group from NYC, use very West African-sounded guitar licks and percussion to produce a seriously catchy pop song. Mike Ogletree loved that Keng Godefroy track I posted a while back so he decided to give it a remix. I wonder what Keng would think if he heard this version.

I invite anyone whose music has been influenced by tunes you’ve heard on Benn loxo, either directly through sampling or indirectly, to send it along. If it’s good I’d be more than happy to post it on the site.

Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Mike Ogletree - Bon Voyage

The last of my Dakar dispatches is yet another track from the Sénégal Flash series, this time off the Ndar edition.

There’s something lovely about the sound of warped tapes. It reminds me of being in taxis, stuck in traffic for hours, sucking up the diesel fumes, captivated by the activities in villages or neighbourhoods outside.

For some of the longer trips we used to buy tapes from guys working the traffic at the rond point near the autoroute. That way we’d get our pick of tunes for the ride, since sometimes listening to Youssou N’Dour Live At Bercy for the 100th time just wasn’t cool. The drivers were usually happy to oblige because they’d get to keep the tape after the trip.

I remember one trip to Saint Louis (which is called Ndar in Wolof) with my first set of roommates when all we could find for the ride was a couple Viviane casettes. Normally I’m not a big fan, but listening to our driver try to sign along, totally out of tune and with a huge stick in his mouth was priceless. I’d never before heard a Senegalese man hit the Viviane high-notes.

It’s been a fun week. Back to Paris now. Cheers and love to all my Dakar people, both old and new.

Ifan Bondi - Xaleli Africa

When I first moved to Dakar a few years ago we would often go to this tiny bar up in Sacré Coeur III to see Soulaymane Faye play. He’d sit there in the corner in his leather pants, strumming his guitar as we sipped sweaty Gazelles at the bar, sometimes chewing on tasty grilled fish. Souleymane has since moved on to bigger and better things, but I’ll always think of sitting in this bar with my friends on Thursdays whenever I hear his music.

Unfrotunately the place is long since gone, but there are still plenty of holes in the wall to take its place. Had a great night yesterday filled with a few of my favourite dive bars around Baobab, Castor and Plateau. The night swung between Ivoirian hospitality to Senegalese cool to dirty salsa and late night, bleary-eyed fun. Nice way to end off the Dakar trip.

Today’s tracks come off the Dakar edition of Sénégal Flash. You’ll hear an early, possibly pre-leather panted Souleymane Faye with synths that actually “work”, along with a tune by Pape Djiby Ba that I’ve really been digging this hot Dakar afternoon.

Souleymane Faye - Aminta Ndiaye
Pape Djiby Ba - Andeu Bolo

More music from the Sénégal Flash series today, this time off the Kaolack compilation.

Kaolack is a city of about 300,000 people in Senegal’s Siné-Saloum region. It’s a major transport hub for Tamabcounda, Dakar, The Gambia and Senegal’s south, so most people living in Senegal have spent at least some time there, myself included.

Unfortunately, aside from transport activities there isn’t much going on there. The city is quite poor these days and pollution is a big problem, hence the efforts of groups like Teranga Kaolack to help get the city back on its feet. The city does, however, have a great mosque - check-out the picture on today’s post.

Back to the music. I know nothing about Sahel, the first group you’ll hear, except that their track Bamba is an amazing-sounding, early mbalax earful. Ouza’s balad, Bouba, is great, too, because it makes me think of so many Senegalese concerts I’ve been to: long, long proclamations in the middle of every second song, with money stuffed into the performers’ shirts by adoring fans; random guys hopping up on stage to dance, or sometimes just to chill-out; awkward slow dances and shy smiles between normally separated men and women.

Sahel - Bamba
Ouza - Bouba

I stumbled upon a nice compilation by the Parisian label and production house, Arion, yesterday. It features a few artists and songs from various Senegalese and Malian communities, notably some nice kora by Lamine Konté and great vocal work by Mariam Diakité that accompanies Soungalo Coulibaly’s djembe drumming.

Compilations like this are good in the sense that they seamlessly mix Senegalese and Malian music, showing how the political borders have nothing to do with the cultures they enclose. The Peul, Mandingue, Fulani and even Wolof communities and their music span much of West Africa.

Both Konté and Coulibaly have had long and successful careers as ambassadors for their respective instruments and styles. Thanks to an active new generation of kora players like Toumani Diabaté, the instrument has become quite well-known outside of West Africa. It’s thanks to big-name griots like Konté and others, however, that the musical and playing styles were preserved over the years. Similarly, Soungalo Coulibaly’s djembe playing has brought it to a wider audiance, though I’m pretty sure the Baye Falls I can hear hammering away at their sheep skins right now would’ve kept the tradition alive and well for many years to come.

You can buy several of Coulibaly’s albums from Arion, and much of Konté’s music can be found at Sonodisc.

Lamine Konte - Telephonista
Soungalo Coulibaly - Jina Musa

I think the last time time I was in Louga was when a sept-place (think Peugeot station wagon that somehow fits seven passengers) broke-down on the way back from Saint-Louis. It was late at night so I decided to stay a while rather than sit by the car, waiting for the small, motor oil covered kids to finish fixing the engine. I wandered into some downtown bar with a take-away chawarma and ordered a Flag. They were playing warped casettes full of old music just like this.

I’m not sure why I haven’t stumbled upon the Sénégal Flash compilations before, but they’re amazing. They’re great collections of older, sometimes hard to find music usually only available on bad quality casettes. Each is named after a different city in Senegal or The Gambia, though I’m not entirely sure why since the music on each disc is mostly by groups from Dakar.

Either way, I love it. More Sénégal Flash cities to come…

ps- the title is an obvious shout-out to the good people over at Awesome Tapes From Africa.

Star Number One - Faran Tamba
Guelewar - Wartef Jiggen
Baobab Gouye Gui - Yen Saay

I’m finally done a week of work so I have some time to hit the markets, wander Dakar by day and pick-up lots of music. Today alone I bought 23 albums, all of which I’ll share with you over the next few weeks.

The other night I was having drinks at Just4You and saw a great group of young guys comprised of a percussionist, a couple kora players and a singer/rapper. The tempered Wolof rapping mixed with more traditional, mandigue-style singing sounded amazing overtop of the talented kora play. Unfortunately they didn’t have any music to sell.

That’s ok, though, since today at one of my favourite music shops up near Cité Claudel I discovered a new, young Senegalese musician named Alune. He’s a Dakarois bass player whose father was a symphonic orchestra conductor. By the age of 13 he’d picked the bass and five years he was selected to play in Ismael Lo’s band.

Alune’s first solo release, Mbolo, is a well-produced mix of many musical styles. I just noticed that he played at the Sattelit Café in Paris a couple days ago and was featured on RFI. This guy looks set to get big if he keeps it up.

Alune - Mame
Alune - Sokhna ci

Many of my friends here have had a relatively rough rainy season. Despite the sun, surf and mean brochettes there are occasional downsides to living in Dakar. One friend has typhoid, another has malaria, a few are stressed for reasons best described by financial stamps and rubber cachets, and others are contemplating leaving and how to make that happen. For these reasons and more I picked a mean mbalax tune entitled Solidarité for today’s post.

Not to start-off on a downer or anything… for me at least things are going great here. Freshly-squeezed orange juice and a Walf Fadrji newspaper in the morning, a spicy ceebu jën at lunch, work all day and then sweaty bars with JB and Gazelles at night. The nightlife is near dead because of Ramadan, but it creates a kind of eerie-but-pleasant ambiance in the fluorescent-lit restaurants, bars and clubs.

The sun is hiding behind a thick veil of hivernage clouds but I think it’ll clear up by the weekend. Then there’s the beach, maybe some diving and maybe even a trip down south to enjoy. In the meantime I’ll try to hit the markets tomorrow and Friday and pick-up some more music.

This song is really popular in Dakar at the moment. You’ll hear it in taxis, bars, nightclubs and hissing out of tiny radios held closely to the ear by the thousands of property guards scattered around downtown.

ps- my brother is getting married! Ben, I’ve been raising Flags and Gazelles to you all week. Congratulations.

Nder - Solidarité

I’m finally back in Dakar for a week after nearly a year and a half away.

I got home at 6:30am this morning after a fantastic Paris Nuit Blanche. There was just enough time for about an hour of sleep before I had to leave for the airport.

During the flight the skies were clear so I got a beautiful view of the Saharan dunes 12000m below as we flew over Morocco and Mauritania. Feeling very tired and with a mean hangover, I can’t tell you how good the humid, hot Dakar air felt when it hit my face as I stepped off the plane.

The city hasn’t changed too much since I left. There are more generators humming outside of hotels and market stands (a sad testament to Dakar’s dying electrical infrastructure), the Cathedral and Corniche mosque got makeovers, the roads are a mess from major construction projects, but Dakar is still Dakar.

There are dudes lying out on mats in the street, exhausted from the heat and Ramadan fasting, that smell of diesel, sweat, smoke, Maggi and okra hanging in the air, Lebanese dishing out tasty midday burgers stuffed with fries, onions, meat, eggs and who knows what else, rabatteurs trying to follow me around as I shop for records, street kids playing football in front of fast-moving, rusty and beautifully painted public buses… I could go on and on. I missed this place.

I’m about to meet an old friend for Gazelles and dibi at a great maki up in Castor but I wanted to get a quick post in as a way of welcoming me and, by extension, the Benn loxo community, back to Dakar.

Two tracks today. One live Youssou N’Dour track that really shows the incredible energy that he has on stage, and another mbalax tune that most likely not at your local record store. Mbalax is, after all, the unofficial national music.

Youssou N’Dour - Ndakaru
Assane Ndaye - Baye laye

Lately I’ve been getting so much new music from Benn loxo listeners that I can’t keep up. Big thanks for all the great sounds coming my way. I promise I’ll get to all of it.. just give me some time and keep tuning in.

Several of you have asked for more Kenyan music and that champeta post a while back got some great feedback. With these two requests in mind, Benn loxo listener, Fabián, came through with a classic Orchestra Super Mazembe track in both its original format and as a champeta remix. You can also check-out his web site, Africolombia, with much more music.

Apologies in advance if I got the champeta group name wrong - please correct me, but it wasn’t clear from the song tag or some armchair research who exactly recorded this tune.

Orchestra Super Mazembe is actually a Congolese band by origin, forming as Super Vox in Likasi, Congo-Kinshasa, in the mid-60s. After meeting up with the Super Eagles in Zambia a few years later the band decided to hit-up the booming music scene in Nairobi, Kenya. Since Nairobi already had another band named Super Vox they changed their name to Super Mazembe, which roughly translates into “huge bulldozer”.

From the mid-1970s onwards Super Mazembe released several big hits in Nairobi, maintaining a large following right-up until the late 80s. Today’s track was released in 1983. You can find it on Earthworks re-release, Giants of East Africa.

Orchestre Super Mazembe - Shauri Yako
Dogar Dis - Quedo en las tablas

Were/are any of you into Arthur Russell? The driving bass drum and repetitive melodies in Juma Muhina’s recordings with Nairobi Matata remind me a lot of his music.

If you know Arthur Russell, your first reaction might be that Kenyan Swahili rumba doesn’t have much to do with early disco pioneers. But give today’s track a listen and tell me they don’t go great together on a mix. The release dates are roughly similar and who’s to say the dudes in Nairobi Matata didn’t have a secret love for underground NY disco? Not so secretly, I wish there had been more fusion along these lines.

Dada Mwajuma was a popular tune when it was originally released in 1977. It was produced by the accomplished musician Isaya Mwinamo Asiebera, who also produced albums for many of the other big local groups at the time such as Orchestra Mazembe (some of their tunes coming tomorrow if I have time), Daudi Kabaka and Orchestra Viva Makale.

Big thanks goes out to Benn loxo listener, Zim, who pointed out the Juma Muhina album amongst numerous great Music Copyright Society of Kenya re-releases on Orchard now available on Emusic. I’ll be featuring a few over the next while.

This reminds me how a friend of mine would quietly mix Xplastaz into French hip-hop parties, or how I try to hide amazing West African funk tracks on soul mixes for people who wouldn’t normally be into it. Which reminds me… check back tomorrow.

Juma Muhina - Dada Mwajuma (Part 2)
Arthur Russell - Dinosaur L / Go Bang (Francois Kevorkian mix)

While living in Dakar I never quite figured out was why I had so many conversations like this :

“What’s your favourite kind of music?”
“Rap, RnB.”
“Oh, yeah. Cool. What groups are you into?”
“You know, Jay-Z, Daara J, 50 Cent, Pharrell and Phil Collins.”
“Did you just say Phil Collins?”
“Yeah, I like to chill-out to Phil Collins, maybe mix it up with some Usher.”

It’s at moments like this where I feel very Canadian/French/not-Senegalese. Could someone from Dakar please tell me why Phil Collins is so loved in Senegal? Seriously, he’s been top 10 radio play for as long as I’ve known the country.

To make matters even more confusing, another Benn loxo reader reports that you can’t go a day in Rwanda without hearing some Kenny Rogers.

Now don’t get me wrong- I love a little Phil and Kenny. I’ll even admit that when I dug-out my copy of I’m Not Moving I was all, “Damn, Phil!”

Hopefully we get some answers. I’d also like it if someone to finally gave me a good answer as to why are there dozens of Madonna and/or Rambo stickers on every public bus in Senegal. Not to mention the classic Dakar-new-arrival question, “why do radio stations play the complete Chariots of Fire title track before the news at 6?”

I bet this one will really scare the podcasters who never read the posts.

Phil Collins - I’m Not Moving
Kenny Rogers - Ticket To Nowhere

Many of you wrote comments and e-mails praising the music from August 21st post on Momo Wandel Soumah. Thanks to several offers, I got my hands on a copy of his 1990 release, Matchowé.

The whole album is fantastic. Wandel’s West African-infused jazz sextet handles the fusion of musical styles perfectly, and his strange but lovely voice ties it all together. Among others, their cover of John Coltrane’s Afro Blue and the first recording of the song I featured last time, Toko, are gems.

I have a million things to do today so I can’t say much more, but if you’re curious about Wandel or his music check-out this article over at Afropop.

Momo Wandel Soumah - Bokme
Momo Wandel Soumah - Afro Blue
Momo Wandel Soumah - Toko