Reviews

Jaku Mumor (Ancestral Spirit)

Okaidja Afroso

Born into a family of musicians and storytellers on Ghana's Atlantic coast, Okaidja Afroso learned to sing seafaring songs as...

Reviewed in issue December/2022

Sonbonbela

Baba Commandant & the Mandingo Band

According to a somewhat over-excited press release, the third album by Burkina Faso's Baba Commandant & the Mandingo Band is...

Reviewed in issue December/2022

Archeology

Montparnasse Musique

Montparnasse Musique are an unstoppable Afro-Futurist dynamic duo: Algerian-French DJ/producer with a visual arts background, Nadjib, and South African house...

Reviewed in issue December/2022

Crossroads Kenya: East African Benga and Rumba, 1980-1985

VARIOUS ARTISTS

It's indicative of how the music of East Africa has been overshadowed by its West African cousin that none of...

Reviewed in issue December/2022

Kekete Bue

Kanda Bongo Man

One of the first Congolese artists to come to Europe and popularise the commercial soukous sound at the beginning of...

Reviewed in issue December/2022

Hi-Life Jazz

Gyedu-Blay Ambolley

Hi-Life Jazz is a super-cool and joyously good natured new release from the Ghanaian veteran. This is his 35th album...

Reviewed in issue December/2022

Joudour

Majid Bekkas

Bekkas has been a Gnawa fusion artist for more than three decades, founding his Gnaoua Blues Band back in 1990,...

Reviewed in issue December/2022

Netsa

Minyeshu

Those who read the interview with her in these pages four years ago (December 2018, #143) will know that Minyeshu...

Reviewed in issue November/2022

Afar Ways

Yanna Momina

The 74-year-old Momina is a member of the nomadic Afar people, a Muslim ethnic group who inhabit the desert regions...

Reviewed in issue November/2022

Viyezgo: Vimbuza from Mzimba South

Amaliya Group

Vimbuza is a ceremony of the Tumbuka people of Malawi, where people become healed through trance and the possession of...

Reviewed in issue November/2022