Let’s ease into February with some instrumental music…

Diely Moussa Kouyaté is a Guinean guitarist most famous for his work with Salif Keita. He’s also recorded with Mama Sissoko, Kante Manfila, Souad Massi and other big name African artists.

He’s one of those musicians who quietly holds it down in the background, strumming beautiful melodies in the shadows on stage. You can hear some nice examples of his playing on Keita’s latest album, M’Bemba.

It was a great pleasure to discover that he has a 2002 solo release entitled Sebe Alaye. I came across it quite by accident at a Paris médiathèque. If you want to hear more you can grab a copy at the Fnac.

Diely Moussa Kouyate – Bamananke

eMusic has a surprisingly great collection of early Kenyan recordings, thanks in large part to the Orchard re-releases of music belonging to the Music Copyright Society of Kenya. You heard some already in that ever-popular post about Juma Muhina about a month back.

eMusic has always positioned itself as a spot for young, DRM-unfriendly listeners who are mainly into “indie” music. Their homepage features music by people like Sufjan Stevens, Damien Jurado and Tom Waits, as opposed to iTunes’ Westlife and Beyoncé. It’s nice that a company like eMusic is exposing the Pitchfork generation to some jewels of early African recordings.

Fadhili William is one such Kenyan treasure in the eMusic collection. The collection of his songs recorded between 1963-67 is just the kind of simple, guitar-jangle music that I’m into after a nice weekend in Amsterdam. The dialogue in the middle of Big City Blues is particularly amazing.. cracks me up every time.

Fadhili Williams Mdawida – Big City Blues
Fadhili Williams Mdawida – Wee Jane

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

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

A long time ago some of you asked for some more Namibian music. While browsing in a Parisian world music store I spotted a compilation I’ve been meaning to grab for a while, A Hand-Full of Namibians. The album was put together in 2004 and released in 2005 by On The Corner records with the help of Papa Wemba, among others.

As with all these kinds of compilations, it’s a mixed bag. However, three or four really solid tracks make the album a good buy. Most of the artists are young and not very well known outside of Namibia adding to the appeal.

I picked two tracks off the album for today’s post. The first reminds me of a Namibian Dave Matthews (in a good way), and the second is more what you might expect to hear from Namibian modern folk/pop music. Enjoy.

ps- slight screw-up with the e-mail notification. It’s fixed now, but if you’re not getting notification e-mails for new posts please sign-up again. The unsubcribe feature works again, too.

Ras Sheehama – Inotela
Sebulon Gomachab – !Uri Piris

Readers of this site will know that I have a soft-spot for afro-cuban salsa (and the sweaty, whisky-tinged nights that I associate with it.) Many a long workday has been made right by an evening of salsa, either on the stereo or the dancefloor.

The rhythm brings back memories of the ever-lovely K in a sundress, Ed striking a culturally shocking breakdance move, and of out of tune bands at Fouquets, Hotel de la Poste and various nightspots in Dieupeul and Castor. Ah, Dakar, tu me manques.

Today I’m yet again working late, watching the sun cheekily set outside my office window. Let’s turn to Djeli Moussa Diawara for salvation, yeah?

Diawara is a Guinean kora player who used to play in the Rail band during the 1970s and later recorded some stuff with Mory Kanté. Does this guy have any solo albums? None that I have/could find, so please educate me in the comments if he does.

I grabbed today’s track off an easy to find (to offset all the recent rather obscure posts) and well put together compilation, Salsa Africa. The album is worth buying, especially if you don’t already have a copy Bantous De La Capitale‘s El Coco.

Djeli Moussa Diawara – Salda Hora

Number one seller at Stern’s? This album is hot hot.

From the master of the Malian blues, Ali Farka Touré, and the master of the Mande kora, Toumani Diabaté, comes a beautiful, acoustic instrumental album called In The Heart Of The Moon.

I’ll write more about Ali Farka Touré tomorrow and you might have already read about Diabaté here. For now, just relax and enjoy the music.

Great for my mid-workday coffee break when I close the door to my office for an oh-so-sweet 15 minutes of peace.

Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabeté – Simbo

When I was in Boston a few weeks ago K surprised me with a great gift: Celestine Ukwu. Now, if you’re a big music guy like myself I don’t think there’s anything sexier than a cute girl with good taste in West African highlife. Thanks, Kate.

During the 1960s Rex Lawson and a host of other Igbos popularized highlife music before it fell out of favour during the civil war of 1967-70. By the mid-1970s, however, the Nigerian highlife scene had started up again with bands like the Oriental Brothers, Prince Nico and perhaps most importantly, Celestine Ukwu.

Ukwu’s style is slightly different from that of his contemporaries; he was apparently a soft-spoken, relaxed kind of guy and this is reflected in the music he plays. You’ll hear slower rhythms and even things like steel slide guitar poking up from beneath the palmwine acoustic. Even the name of his band is pretty chilled-out: Professor Celestine Ukwu and the Philosophers National. Why don’t bands give themselves names like that anymore?

You can pick-up today’s track at Stern’s on Celestine Ukwu Best Collection Volume 1.

Celestine Ukwu – Ife Sina Chi

Fatai Rolling Dollar, the ex-highlife music legend from Lagos, Nigeria, is staging a comeback at the tender age of 78. His recently released album, Won Kere Si Number, is enjoying great success in Nigeria. Dollar, whose real last name is Olagunjo, suddenly finds himself playing loads of gigs and getting some media attention from major Nigerian publications.

Fatai Rolling Dollar, like so many other highlife musicians of the 60s and 70s, was largely forgotten during the 1970s when Nigeria entered its sketchy phase of multiple military dictatorships, corruption and violence. For years he worked as a security guard and did some gigs as a church guitarist. It wasn’t until 2003-2004 that anyone remembered his music or he recorded anything new. Jazzhole put out three new albums in two years and suddenly he was a household name again.

Unfortunately his albums’ success didn’t make him any money. He still lives in a dusty one-bedroom in Mushin, Lagos. To quote Lagos’ Sun News, he “doesn’t even have a car” and until recently had to play his guitar on the street for smokes. Not surprisingly, Fatai feels that Jazzhole, the label/store that released his album, is ripping him off. If you’ve ever been to Lagos you’d understand that this is entirely possible, even though Jazzhole has a great reputation and is one of the better West African music stores.

Following the success of his latest release he’s now split from Jazzhole and is putting together an album for wider global release with a guy named Barry White (no, not the dead, smooth talking master.) Look for it soon and in the meantime here’s some music from Won Kere Si Number. Sorry for no purchase links but I think you can only buy this in Nigeria.

ps- thanks again to Didier for this CD. I’m very jealous that he got to see all this great music in Lagos last week.

Fatai Rolling Dollar – To Ba Fe Mo Dollar (acoustic version)

Continuing with the Mali theme, today we’ll hear some old Salif Keita and Kante Manfila music. This year they released The Lost Album on the French label, Discovery. It’s an interesting collection of previously hard-to-find tracks recorded in 1980 in the Ivory Coast. Most of the songs were only available on Nigerian vinyl until they were found and polished up by Discovery.

What makes this collection cool is that it pre-dates the traditional music renaissance amongst West African musicians. While the track I posted today isn’t maybe the greatest example of this (even though it’s my favourite), most tracks are kora, balafon and guitar-based tunes with traditional melodies and rhythms. This kind of return-to-your-roots sound wasn’t in fashion in 1980. Instead, reggae, funk and pop dominated West African music. The fact that Keita and Manfila were producing this kind of album at the time further proves their status as true visionaries for the West African world music sound that has emerged in recent years.

Salif Ketia & Kante Manfila – Wara