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April 27, 2005
love's a real thing : the funky fuzzy sounds of west africa
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This compilation of music made at the late 60s/early 70s crossroads of African pop and folk forms with American acid funk and rock displays all of the features and flaws of genre compilations. It's full of widely varied gems, but it's sometimes hard to find a real thread connecting everything, and it can all seem a bit disjointed. The criteria for inclusion seem pretty loose - some songs seem like fairly normal Afropop with long not-as-blazing-as-you'd expect guitar solos; others are perhaps slightly pie-eyed but hardly psychedelic. There's hard funk, James Brown aping, mellow Mali music, Afro-Cuban groove, and lots in between. But it all adds up to a survey of music that clearly influenced the development of a variety of modern African forms.
If you're new to this kind of thing, there are better places to start - in recent times, my favorites have been Ghana Soundz and Nigeria 70. But you can't go too wrong here, either. In a way, it's the most diverse Afro comp I've heard.
Almost worth the price of admission alone is William Onyeabor's "You Better Change Your Mind". A funk lecture in charming political idealist nonsense, this tune contains the only lyrics I've ever heard sternly admonishing Canada for hubris in the same class as the U.S., Britain, and China. Cool it, Canucks. The track is a real find, sure to star on eclectic mix discs all over.
William Onyeabor - You Better Change Your Mind (mp3)
Super Eagles - Love's A Real Thing (mp3)
Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Contonou Dahomey - Minsanto Le, Mi Dayihome (QT video) at Luaka Bop site
Posted by borrowed_tunes at April 27, 2005 11:03 PM
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