Kanzafula

This album is more transnational than the subtitle (Afro Iraqi Sufi Music) suggests. The instruments used include a synthesiser, saxophone and violin. Non-Western instruments include a bansuri, gimbri and kora, but they are not instruments traditionally used in Iraqi Sufi music. Rather, they are a result of the cosmopolitan Toronto where Moneka, a Baghdadi who traces his roots to Kenya, has been based for the past nine years. The styles mixed in the album are just as diverse—funk, soul, jazz, psych and even a bit of reggae (‘90 Days’). Moneka wrote most of the songs, while a couple of tracks are newly arranged traditional pieces. One has to dig further to find traces of Sufism or Iraq zikr in the background of ‘Sidi Mansure’ and the maqam mode in ‘Chi Mali Wali’. The rest of the album is a fusion shaped more by Toronto than Baghdad.