In America, unlike Europe, the wave of music from around the world, under the rubric "world music", has crested and seemingly receded. Fewer artists from non-Western countries are highlighted in the media, tours in America by these artists have become less common (in part because of a much-tightened visa process), and the network of world music radio shows has diminished. As a result, America has to a significant degree missed out on much of the ongoing development of music by artists around the world and that development has been fascinating in many cases. Thanks to the internet, digital techology, cell phones etc, musicians even in far-flung corners of the world are connected to the global grid; they are hearing and being influenced by music around the world to a greater degree than ever before. In short, many more musicians are creating outside a particular ethnic or cultural genre. Musicians are incorprorating diverse musical elements into their music in the most natural, organic way because they are hearing them. So I'm going to take a moment to highight four recent "world music" releases that I think are particularly outstanding...all of them happen to be from Africa.
Thandiswa, a 35 year-old female vocalist from South Africa, is a great example of an artist who has assimilated many influences and used them to create fresh, consistently exciting music. Born in Soweto and raised by activist parents during the apartheid era, Thandiswa began singing by entering talent contests and though she didn't advance far, she was asked at age 22 to join the ensemble that came to be called Bongo Maffin. The group was one of the pioneers of the kwaito style, which became the new urban dance music for South African youth. But unlike dance music in many other countries, kwaito often delivered social commentary and, in the hands of Bongo Maffin, political conciousness, as they blended elements of reggae, soul, township jive and club beats. Thandiswa's powerful vocalising led her to be hailed as "the next Miriam Makeba" (it seems any outstanding new South African female vocalist gets the "next Makeba" tag). Bongo Maffin, as favorites of "conscious" youth, became one of the most popular groups in the country. Thandiswa launched her solo career in 1994 with her "Zabalaza" album, which interspersed tracks of traditional acapella vocals with full-band tracks that blended Xhosa song, mbaquanga, reggae, kwaito, funk and jazz, with Thandiswa's voice soaring over it all. Her follow-up "Ibokwe" came in 1999. Both albums went gold in South Africa. The delightful thing about Thandiswa is that she has assimilated so many different styles so completely that when she creates a piece of music the various elements drawn from different styles come together completely organically. Both albums are delights from start to finish but if I had to just own one, I'd go for "Ibokwe." Here's some video of Thandiswa in action, on a relatively conventional update of township jive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HACpBsSCMpg
Fatoumata Diawara is another female African artist but from a very different part of Africa--Mali--with very different musical traditions. Fatoumata, now 29, came to music in her late teens; she actually began as an actress, studying drama in France and appearing in a number of films by African film-makers. Her experience is cosmopolitan and though much of her music is rooted in the Wassalou musical traditions of her family, like an increasing number of African musicians of her generation, she creates a new pan-African or at least pan-regional style. She also participated in Dee Dee Bridgewater's excellent "Red Earth" album, one of the most artistically successful collaborations between an American jazz musician and African musicians, and Herbie Hancock. Fatoumata took up guitar, playing both acoustic and electric, and this past year saw the release of her debut album, "Fatou." It is a gentle, riverine flow of music that integrates electric bass and percussion with guitars in a way that is African but not tied to any one tradition. Fatoumata herself is a vibrant, radiant spirit in her singing and dancing. Here's a bit of the joyous vibe of Fatoumata Diawara:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E82BifytoYY
Moving to the Northeast quadrant of Africa, we find the Asmara All-Stars from Eritrea. An initial listen to their music may lead you to to identify them as Ethiopian but of course Eritrea, which borders Ethiopia and was fused with Ethiopian by colonial powers, nonetheless has a very distinct and ancient culture and history; the ancient land of Punt was probably located with in the area that came to be called Eritrea. The Ethiopian music scene of the late Sixties and Seventies yielded some of the most unique sounds and rhythms on the planet, a curiously haunting meld of traditional vocal styles, jazz, R & B/funk and, sometimes, reggae (no surprise since Jamaican Rasta musicians looked to Ethiopia as the promised land (and a number of them traveled there, forming a settlement at Shashamane). Apparently many of the leading musicians on the Ethiopian music scene were Eritrean, hence the reason that the music of the Asmara All-Stars sounds reminiscent of classic Ethiopian music. The other reason that the Asmara All-Stars sound uncannily like the great "golden era" Ethiopian sounds is that the music scenes in both Ethiopia and Eritrea were artificially stunted. In Ethiopian, the oppressive military regime that ousted Emporer Haile Selassie, shut down the nightlife scene that had supported the popular bands. So popular music in Ethiopia did not develop for two decades at least. Meanwhile, the Eritrean independence movement led to 30 years of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which effectively islolated Eriterea. So the music of the Asmara All-Stars is in a way like a thawed out classic Ethiopian band that had been cyrogencially frozen for decades. Put together by a French producer, they play a vibrant mix of Ethio-jazz, funk and reggae. Here they are in lives performande; the sound level is low but the performance encompasses about three different songs:
www.youtubecom/watch?v=w_nnYug8Z0
Finally, we have El Tanbura, which, even more than the Asmara All-Stars, is a kind of musical resurrection. In the town of Port Said, a vibrant cafe scene catering to sailors, among others, spawned a healthy array of musicians. In the 1930's, there appeared musicians palying the simsimiyya, an ancient lyre that had been played in the region of the red sea since ancient times. Musicians playing the simsimiyya, and a repertoire of music associated with it, became very popular in Port Said cafes, supplanting other local styles. But as Port Said developed, the vogue for simsimiyya music waned and gradually the musicians who played it stopped performing and resorted to other occupations, such as fishing. In the 1980's, Zakaria Ibrahim, a man who had heard this music as a boy, began searching for these musicians, hoping to resurrect the music before it died out completely. He succeeded in forming El Tanbura in 1989 with many of the master musicians and singers who had popularized the music. They began playing in Port Said to receptive audiences, performing a repertoire of popular folk songs. After some years they found themselves performing to great acclaim in European concert halls. El Tanbura's music is a joyous mix of vocals (a lead singer and chorus) backed by an array of percussion, including drums, tambourines, finger cymbals and triangle, as well as, of course, the simsimiyya. The result sounds to my ears most often like the Berber music of North Africa. Though the material is mostly hoary traditional songs, there is nothing stilted or constrained about El Tanbura's performances. It is beautifully recorded, vibrant, and inviting. It sounds like the communal party music that it is, not much different from what you would have heard in Port Said 60 years ago! Here is a taste of El Tanbura:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJPRMRzyzMs
So there you have it, great new recordings from far-flung regions of Africa, as delightful and fulfilling as anything on the contemporary music scene.