Oct 31/06
Hallowe’en on the Nubian Nile
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:
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:
The 2006
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. 
Just enough time for a quick post today from a 1999 African funk music compilation that I re-found recently.
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.
The last of my Dakar dispatches is yet another track from the Sénégal Flash series, this time off the Ndar edition.
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.