In Summer 1973, Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” peaked at 35 on the American charts. Originally the A-side of a France-only single issued in 1972, the song had been discovered by New York DJ David Mancusso. After Mancusso repeatedly played it, “Soul Makossa” was licensed by Atlantic, charted and became integral to what was bracketed as disco music. The Cameroon-born Dibango had been making records under his own name since 1961 and “Soul Makossa” was his breakout track. So much so, he recorded a reconfigured version to advertise Toyota cars. “Happiness on the African road” was guaranteed.As a Read more ...

The river of sound from Mali never stops flowing. War in the Sahara and the constant threat of Jihadists haven’t stopped the ceaseless wave of creativity that surges through the West African country.The Malians speak of music giving courage, of song’s capacity to warm hearts. Vieux Farka Touré’s latest in a line of splendidly "encouraging" albums is guaranteed to move, get you up on your feet. and celebrate. The Touré family aren’t griots or praise-singers but members of the warrior caste, and their hereditary vocation is palpable in the great power of their music.A massive counterblast to Read more ...

New global sounds this month include tracks from the scintillating new album from Malian diva Oumou Sangaré, electro-Sufi grooves, Afro-folk from Koral Society, the soundtrack from They Will Have to Kill Us First (about the struggle of Malian musicians against extreme Islamicists) and classic Cuban nostalgia from Celina González and Estrellas de Arieto. Not to mention some contemporary Japanese composition and São Paulo Frippertronics. TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW CLICK HERE 1. Quantic feat Nidia Góngora – “E Ye Ye”2. Tinariwen – “Tiwayyen”3. Oumou Sangaré – “Bena Bena”4. Read more ...

This is a bit of a curiosity. Kasai Allstars were bought to our attention by producer Vincent Kenis almost a decade ago, after he’d had great success with those masters of the amplified thumb piano cacophony, Konono 1. Though the Allstars also have a fondness for thumb pianos (likembe) played through cranky homemade amps, their music has more space and melodic content and utilises a greater variety of instruments. In fact, listening to them is such a seductive, transportive experience that it comes as a surprise when, three edgy, buzzy, trancy songs in, a classical vocal choir imposes its Read more ...

Mulatu Astatke has carved out a particular niche within music. He is a one-off purveyor of what Brian Eno called “jazz from another planet”, smoky, mysterious and playful. He’s about the only artist you could describe as both transcendent and sleazy. The sleazy bit is mainly due to the colours of the horns and vibraphone, suggesting a less than salubrious nightclub, and he himself has something of the demeanour of a lounge lizard.He studied classical music at Trinity College in London at more or less the same time as that other musical visionary, Fela Kuti ( I’d pay to watch a docudrama of Read more ...

Because so many African albums that get an international release feature tastefully neutered acoustic guitar, pretty scatterings of kora notes, and lyrics centred on some imagined ideal Africa, it is a blessed relief to hear something as punchy, confrontational and insistent as this explosion of beats and hollering from Ghana’s King Ayisoba. What’s also incredibly canny about this record is how the producer Arnold de Boer (of the excellent Dutch post punk outfit the EX) manages to throw in electronica atmospherics and hip hop bottom-end without it for one moment sounding forced or Read more ...

Tamikrest’s fourth album is well-presented, good enough, but a little hamstrung by what have become the clichés of the modern Touareg genre: the lilting rhythms of a camel cruising slowly across the dunes, intertwined guitars that smoothly swirl bewteen old Tamashek melodies and gentle riffs that might have come from the Deep South. The lyrics touch on the politics of the Southern Sahara, and the Touaregs’ tragic position at the mercy of conflicting interests – political, economic and religious.Music that bewitches around a campfire, under the vast canopy of the Milky Way doesn’t have the Read more ...

Those of us who saw the first, 1977 TV adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots in our teens still remember the shock and horror at its handling of a subject about which we knew little, American slavery. We know a lot more now, but the visceral reaction to inhumanity and injustice is no less strong. That's thanks to the high production values of the latest version, its gift for finding the right actors, and the often giddying cinematography of an honourable mainstream parallel to a towering masterpiece among movies, 12 Years a Slave.Roots, originally commissioned by the History Channel, may be more Read more ...

For a young singer like Joel Culpepper, blessed with a fine set of vocal chords and remarkable skill in using them, there is a wellspring of black singing tradition to draw from – from gospel and blues through to soul and contemporary R&B. There are echoes in his sensual and seductive singing of Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Prince and many others. Like many African- American or Afro-Caribbean talents before him, and in tune with ancient African tradition, he pays homage to his teachers and yet manages at times to strike out into new territory all of his own.The production, in the assured Read more ...

Another peripatetic global music update from theartsdesk's Peter Culshaw, hosted by Music Box Radio. This edition features forthcoming album releases from hard salsa revivalists La Mambanegra, a remix from heroic desert rockers Tinariwen and electro Tunisian stars Bargou 08. We go to Brazil for the adventurous Sāo Paulo singer Luisa Maita and preview new jazz tunes from Brad Mehldau and E.S.T. There’s a new track from rebel star Manu Chao. Out this month is the new album from Aurelio, already in various music to-look-out-for-in-2017 lists. His cool take on garifuna music from Beliza and Read more ...

The arrival of this oppressively atmospheric 19th-century historical drama is being trailed as the BBC's bold attempt to break the Saturday night stranglehold of soaps and talent shows. No doubt they were encouraged by the success of all those Saturday night Scandi dramas on BBC Four, and if Taboo falls short it won't be because of a lack of stellar names.Front and centre is Tom Hardy, starring as the previously-presumed-dead James Keziah Delaney who suddenly reappears in London in 1814 at his father's funeral. Hardy is also co-creator (with his dad Chips) and co-producer of Taboo with his Read more ...

Cities, the fastest growing habitats in the history of the world, provided the subject for the sixth and final programme in Planet Earth II, the series that came a decade after the original Planet Earth programmes set new standards for television coverage of wildlife and nature.The follow-up confirmed that they are still being set, even though we have become accustomed to intrepid cameramen getting close to subjects never seen before, and tight narrative editing that gives us both visible and verbal comprehensible sequences, all anchored by the comforting familiarity of David Read more ...