Reviews

Hora Kota

Bonga

Exile is a terrible thing, but its pain has often been a hugely creative spur for many artists. The subsequent...

Reviewed in issue Apr/May/2012

Strings That Sing

Baobab-Gateway

This is Baobab-Gateway's debut album, featuring a unique combination of traditional West African, Ugandan and modern instruments. Tanzanian-born Dougie Hudson...

Reviewed in issue Apr/May/2012

Sodjan

Makan Badje Tounkara

If ngoni virtuoso Makan Badje Tounkara looks like he might be out to cash in on Bassekou Kouyaté's extraordinary success...

Reviewed in issue Apr/May/2012

Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane

Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane

If you thought the comeback of Orchestra Baobab was heart– warming, the debut solo album of Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane will...

Reviewed in issue Apr/May/2012

Kelmti Horra

Emel Mathlouthi

Is this the sound of post-revolutionary Tunisia? Perhaps. Certainly it is a self-assured, outward-looking and proudly individual debut from a...

Reviewed in issue Apr/May/2012

Bush Animals Don't Like Hunters: Music of Sierra Leone Vol 1

VARIOUS ARTISTS

This is a remarkable collection of field recordings collected from different regions across Sierra Leone between 1965 and 1970. Cootje...

Reviewed in issue Apr/May/2012

Benin – Yoruba Music

VARIOUS ARTISTS

This is a double CD of field recordings made in 1958, 1969 and between 1996 and 1999, lavishly pre¬sented like...

Reviewed in issue March/2012

Stockholm-Dakar

Sousou & Maher Cissoko

To get the back¬story out of the way first: Sousou and Maher Cissoko grew up on two different continents –...

Reviewed in issue March/2012

Gakondo

The Mighty Popo

This is the fifth album from Canada-based Jacques ‘Popo’ Muri-gande, a singer and guitarist from Rwanda born in a Burundian...

Reviewed in issue March/2012

Empreinte

Oudaden

Named after the mountain sheep of the Atlas, which are regarded as a symbol of freedom by Berber (Amazigh) people,...

Reviewed in issue March/2012