African Music Podcast

Every year, the hippest new sounds from South of the border invade New York City for the Latin Alternative Music conference, and every year, Afropop is here to tell you about it. Latin Alternative is psychedelic cumbia, Chilean hip-hop, Mexican indie-rock, Panamanian dancehall, and just about anything that fails to fit into the typical Latin pop formats. The conference brings acts large and small from around the Americas to perform, from well known-favorites such as Ozomatli, to promising indie artists destined to be the Next Big Cosa. This year, you'll hear exclusive interviews and performances from Argentine roots reggae master Fidel Nadal, Panama youngbloods Los Rakas, Miami cumbianeros Locos Por Juana, and analog Afrobeat innovator Chico Mann, and plenty of others.

Central America, a narrow, mountainous, and largely impoverished stretch of land spanning seven countries, is a surprising and under-exposed Latin American musical hot zone. The region's bizarre and tumultuous history has led to a fascinating mix of cultural influences - Spanish conquistadors, British pirates, and American banana companies have at one time or another vied for power. Add to this mix presence of large indigenous enclaves, Anglo-Caribbean migrants, the Afro-Arawak Garifuna and Mosquito peoples, and the many musical influences of the Caribbean, and you have the makings of a very interesting musical tapestry. Salsa and merengue, soca and calypso, reggae and reggaeton - it all comes together in Central America. In Part 1 of our program, we'll dig in to Afro-Mexican son jorocho from the Eastern port city of Veracruz, find out how the African-derived marimba has taken over in Mayan Guatemala, listen to Creole accordion music from Anglophone Belize, and travel the Caribbean coast of Honduras, searching for the last remaining parranderos, the guitar-slinging Garifuna storytellers. Special interviews and performances by Aurelio Martinez, the torch bearer of the Garifuna sound worldwide today.

This is the first of a three part series celebrating Nigeria's 50th anniversary of independence this November. Nigeria celebrates the 50th anniversary of independence from the British this month and Afropop Worldwide celebrates Nigeria's rich musical heritage--juju, afrobeat, apala, highlife, fuji as well as many many distinctive traditional music cultures. We'll hear Afropop's recordings of and interviews with the greats--Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, juju pioneer I.K. Dairo, fuji powerhouse Adewale Ayuba, afrobeat creator Fela Kuti. The finale for the show will be an interview with King Sunny Adandeacute; talking about his spectacular, just released album, "Baba Mo Tunde", his first international album in 10 years. We only wish we could play the 31 minute track!

Part 3 of our special 3-part series celebrating Nigeria's 50th anniversary of independence. The musical Fela! opened on Broadway in January 2010, and won eleven Tony nominations and three actual awards later in the year. It is an unprecedented landmark for African music in mainstream American culture. This is all the more amazing when you consider what an edgy, controversial character Fela Analukapo Kuti really was. In this program, we hear excerpts from the cast recording, and new Fela reissues. We meet the star of the Broadway show, Sahr Ngaujah. And we hear from three of Fela's children, including bandleader Seun Kuti, on the man, the myth, and the musical.

Every once in awhile we like to dig into the Afropop archive of our exclusive live recordings and play one of our favorites for you. This is one, featuring the rai singing stars Chaba Fadela and Cheb Sahraoui live at SOB's in New York City in the early 1990's. The singing is out of this world, the North Africans in the crowd are ecstatic and the band is smoking.

In a new edition of Afropop's popular music-in-diaspora series, we catch up with a wide variety of US-based acts playing African music. We hear stateside African hip hop from Blitz the Ambassador, RandB gone Ethiopian from Debo Band and Tommy T, Afropop meets indie rock from San Francisco's Aphrodesia, and the latest Mande rock from Toubab Krewe of Ashville, North Carolina. Also featured, Max Wild's bubbling Zimbabwe boogie out of New York City. Plus new work by African artists resident in the US, including Thomas Mapfumo (Zimbabwe), Abdoulaye Alhassane Toure (Niger), Malika Zara (Morocco), and Razia (Madagascar).

Every year a unique gathering of some 3,000 delegates from around the world converge at WOMEX for four non-stop days and nights of music from around the world. Your trusty Afropop guides will be amongst them and bring back live concert recordings, intimate studio sessions and interviews with the likes of Oudaden from Morocco led by the soaring voice of Abdellah el Fouah, Damily bringing his rollicking tsapiky from southern Madagascar, Samba Chula de São Brazil playing a primordial version of samba that is in danger of dying, Sexteto Tabalá de Palenque, an acclaimed Afro-Colombian group from legendary Palenque, Malick Pathandeacute; Sow and Maoba from Senegal and Belgium and many others. You too can be an armchair WOMEXican!

Georges Collinet and Banning Eyre work their way through a formidable stack of the best new CD releases of 2010. King Sunny Ade, Angelique Kidjo, Konono No 1, The Spanish Harlem Ochestra, Joan Soriano, Lobi Traore, Bassekou Kouyate, Johnny Clegg, AfroCubism... It's a loooong list. Plenty of gift ideas for the music lovers in your life.

Continuing our coverage of WOMEX 2010 in Copenhagen, we enjoy concert recordings, live studio sessions and interviews with fantastic artists we already know and love such as Papa Wemba and Dobet Gnahorandeacute; as well as artists we've never met including Nathalie Natiembandeacute;, FatoumateDiawara and the winner of the prestigious annual WOMEX award, Danyèl Waro from La Randeacute;union. Plus we'll pick tracks from some of the choicechoice 100+ CDs we bring home.

A new season of Hip Deep kicks off with a remarkable journey among the forest people of the Central African Republic. The polyphonic, hocketing vocal style of this region's forest peoples ("pygmies") is one of the most singularly beautiful musical expressions in Africa, one that has entranced outsiders since the time of the pharaohs. Ethnomusicologist Michelle Kisliuk has spent nearly 25 years immersing herself in this music, and wrote a landmark book about the lives and music of the BaAka people in the Central African Republic. Kisliuk believes deeply in the performance experience--learning by doing--and this program will initiate listeners into one of the most enchanting and mysterious musical practices in Africa. The program also deals with the BaAka's problematic encounters with neighboring ethnic groups, Christian missionaries, and modernity in general.