best of africa
31Oct08
Later today, the eMusic homepage will begin previewing our guide to African music, but the list is so freaking great I wanted to give everyone a sneak peak here first. You can check out the hub here. Basically, what you are getting there are tons and tons and tons of amazing records touching on a bunch of different African styles. We vouch for every album on there. They are all incredibly great. Take a look and let us know what you liked and what we missed.
This hub has taken over my life. Also, for UK people, here’s one scrubbed clean for available releases on your side of the pond:
UK Afro Hub
Wow this is really great!
I strongly recomend the Rail Band album that gets an honorable mention.
Still holding out for the Orchestre de la Paillote . . .
I was hoping that this hub was being introduced as part of a rollout for the second and third volumes of the Nigerian Special compilation series on Soundway Records.
Still, there are many — many — great records profiled on this hub. At an absolute minimum, you have to save a download for “Petit Sékou,” featuring an awe-inspiring guitar solo by Sékou Diabate, of Bembeya Jazz National (a solo, BTW, that’s very different in tone from solos by the other African guitar greats I’ve heard).
Awesome, yancey and co! One of the reasons eMu is so addictive, the editorial (official and user generated) by like minded music nuts. Yay. I’ve got a lot of it but can’t wait to stickybeak through the rest.
The only major thing I might suggest is a sub-category for North Africa. It does kinda get lost next to the juggernauts of Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia etc and is often stranger to western ears but there’s some great stuff there mixing saharan African, Arabic, Jewish etc influences. eg Maurice el Medioni, Mahmoud Fadl, Noureddine Alane, Oum Kalthoum of course, Khaled.
There is a spotlight on Rai already http://www.emusic.com/lists/showlist.html?lid=17941578
OK, got the George Sibanda, Various Bilongo and Various Ouelele. All wonderful.
One of my favorite music writers — Joe Tangari, of Pitchfork — regularly reviews and writes about “world music,” especially African music. And in surfing the internet to get some additional information about some of the discs featured in the hub, I stumbled on several of Tangari’s feature articles for Pitchfork that focus on these discs and this region. I’ve linked them below.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/49334-rebel-blues-in-the-sahara-a-desert-guitar-primer
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/46907-dusty-grooves-3
I had many of the discs listed in the hub, but I’ve just added the Rail Band, George Sibanda and Terakaft, and I’m strongly considering a few more. It’s an excellent hub. Thanks, guys.
Yancey et al,
These hubs are excellent, and I hope you continue putting more of them together. I think lots of people don’t take advantage of the amazing back catalog of stuff that emusic has, and the hubs, I think showcase this a little better than the dozens for some reason. (The reggae 101 hub was great. I’d already been amazed by the depth of the emusic reggae catalog — greensleeves, wackkies, blood and fire, etc. — but there was plenty in there I hadn’t found yet.) Keep up the good work.
This looks really good, I think that there’s many essential releases included that would be very useful for anyone wanting to explore some of this music for the first time, acts like Tinariwen, Etran Finatawa, Orlando Julius, Orchestra Baobab, Orchestra Super Mazembe and the Ethiopiques series are well worth bringing to the attention of people who may only have heard the longer-term popular acts, outside of the immeadiate audiences, like Sunny Ade and Fela.
I agree with Amanda (NankerPhledge) on maybe splitting up the very generalised ‘African’ category, it’s a bit like lumping so much of emu’s catelogue into a ‘European’ one.
A plug for an emu album that I’ve recently downloaded some of, and enjoyed a lot, try sitting still to much of it for more than 10 secs!
[url=http://www.emusic.com/album/-Bottletop-Presents-Sound-Affects-Africa-MP3-Download/11012222.html]Bottletop Presents Sound Affects: Africa[/url]
does anyone know if that new “Highlife Time” album from Vampisoul is good? Also how about the “Love’s a Real Thing” compilation on Luaka Bop? Thanks!
@ pneumatictubes, I don’t have them, they’re unavailable to download from emusic in my country, but the samples seem fine examples of 70′s west African music. You can listen to the whole of the Highlife album on last fm, maybe the other one too, but not here in the UK.