Reviews

Love in Africa

Kodjovi Kush & Afrospot All Stars

Inspired by his jazz musician father, Kodjovi Kush started his first band aged just 15 and has since played with...

Reviewed in issue March/2018

Praise Drumming

Bengt Berger & Bitter Funeral Beer Band

Bengt Berger has studied and performed music in Ghana, specifically Ewe drumming, and funeral music from the north. He returned...

Reviewed in issue March/2018

Gili Yalo

Gili Yalo

Gili Yalo's love of singing came about through hardship. As a five-year-old, he escaped the Ethiopian famine on foot. Music...

Reviewed in issue March/2018

2017

Leila Gobi

Born near Gao in northern Mali, Gobi certainly has an arresting voice. Her high-pitched, nasal timbre slices mercilessly through the...

Reviewed in issue Jan/Feb/2018

Xamle

Batch Gueye

Growing up as a dancer in Senegal and reinventing himself as a singer in the UK, Batch Gueye is starting...

Reviewed in issue Jan/Feb/2018

Sanikoya

Debademba

This is the third studio album from Malian griot singer Mohamed Diaby (son of Ivorian griotte Coumba Kouyaté) and acoustic...

Reviewed in issue Jan/Feb/2018

Banjul-London

Jally Kebba Susso

Originally from the Gambia, but resident in London since 2002, Jally Kebba Susso is a kora player but he's not...

Reviewed in issue Jan/Feb/2018

Bone Reader

Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band

Washington DC isn't an obvious place to look for Afrobeat. Yet in the land of suits and carpeted corridors, Chopteeth...

Reviewed in issue Jan/Feb/2018

Dounia Tabolo

Boubacar Traoré

Now in his mid-70s, Traoré was allegedly playing African blues guitar even before the late, great Ali Farka Touré. His...

Reviewed in issue Jan/Feb/2018

Sixty/Black to the Future/Notes of Life

Hugh Masekela

With Masekela's live dates cancelled while he recovers from prostate cancer, this budget-price reissue of a trio of classic albums...

Reviewed in issue Jan/Feb/2018