Music from Saharan WhatsApp

Sahel Sounds’ groundbreaking 2011 compilation Music from Saharan Cellphones opened the world’s ears to the massive network of democratic digital distribution flowing underneath the popular musical culture of Africa’s Sahel region. A decade later, technology has moved on and so have Sahelian music fans. Over the course of 2020, the label released 11 EPs of music sourced from WhatsApp. Each EP was available for one month only, with all profits going straight to the musicians – Music from Saharan WhatsApp showcases the best of that bunch.

The result is a snapshot of a wide range of trade-pop styles from across Niger, Mali and Mauritania. All sorts are represented here – traditional lutes are plucked alongside microtonal electric guitars, djembés and calabash beat alongside drum machines. There’s raw Songhai and Touareg rock, Mauritanian wzn wedding music, Nigerien synth-folk, and even the first Wodaabe guitar band. All tracks were recorded directly onto phones in a variety of locations and scenarios, and the sound is understandably lo-fi. While this adds charm to most tracks, some suffer from it, the digital artefacts and overzealously-applied automatic noise-cancelling getting in the way of the music itself. As with its spiritual predecessor, this compilation gives a great window into the Sahelian music scene as it exists on the ground – but be prepared for some variable sound quality.