Dec 5/07
When mailmen bring me rumba
Ooh.. a big package from Stern’s arrived yesterday.
A Benn loxo listener suggested that I have a listen to a new collection of Dar Es Salaam star Maestro King Kiki’s rumba from the 70s and 80s, Maestro of Tanzania.
It’s a great collection. My only gripe is the production quality; so much of what is going on in the background is hard to make-out because the levels and acoustics are all over the place. Still, a fun listen.
King Kiki is actually Congolese but he’s one of Tanzania’s most popular musicians from the older generation. We’ve been sort of working a Congolese music in other countries vibe recently, so King Kiki fits nicely into the mix.
I would tell you more but the lack of liner notes and my general lack of east coast African music knowledge leaves me hanging. Once again, I ask the more-knowledgeable-than-I Benn loxo listeners to fill us in.
And thanks for the tips- they keep my collection growing.
Tags: congo, rumba, tanzania
A while ago Benn loxo listener extraordinaire, Fabian, sent me a vinyl rip of the Western Jazz Band’s album, Vigelegele.
I’m determined to eventually get a post in for every single Original Music release. I know that many of you, or at least those who read often, may already have these albums, but bear with me. It’s a personal goal to collect and post a sample from every album in the OM catalog.
There’s something really sexy about the word ‘rumba’. It’s also a bit of a misnomer in that over the years it came to represent a variety of Cuban-influenced musical styles popular across Africa, not all of them ‘rumba’ in its original sense.
I happened to sit beside