Africa music reviews

John Barry's score to OUT OF AFRICA is one of the most skillful and memorable ever written. The themes will play over in your mind. Put this one on and just sit back and relax. Beautiful.

My son brought this CD from Spain where he was visiting friends. To my surprise, I listened and could not give it up. Made a copy on a minidisk, so that he could use the CD.
The whole thing is based on the Latin tradition - there is even a gentle spoof on a Chilean Union song " Pueblo Unido". You will find infectious take offs on merengue, a Mexican idiom etc. Get my drift ? "Espanoles a Bailar" features a steely female voice accompanying the customary 2/4 Euro Beat chanting "uno dos tres quatro" and the background crowd chanting "Espana,, Espana.." interminably, but you will dance and laugh (or smile) with it. Well, I better quit, this thing is really hard to describe in its aggressive sublety, the guy enjoys all kinds of "his" heritage and plays hard with it, even Peruvian pan pipes. Forget all this stuff about "La Bomba", it is included here, but it seems to me it is not a strongest track.

Buy this CD. I purchased this lp in 1988 and it is still my favorite recording by the great Papa Wemba. In the late 60s and early 70s, Wemba helped revolutionize Congolese music by founding Zaiko Langa Langa. This is the group that dropped the guitars and sped up the music. At some point Wemba left the group to become an African superstar. This produce in Europe retains the energy and vigor of his album aimed at the African market, while containing stunning production values and incrediable performances. The songs are varied and each one contains more creative ideas than many musicians have in their whole life. Wemba sings a beautiful ballad, a mutwache, and straight ahead soukous. Wemba has a voice like a bird. After 12 years, this album still resonates in my head. This record is great for dancing, driving, and simpley listening to.

Bongs delievers another great album of Angolan music. This is very easy to listen to and I highly recommend it to fans of world and African music.

Miguel Castro has come out with sooooo many cool cds and this one shows his love for world percussion; from the russians to Japan to the pygmies. It is an incredible work of art!!!

I have listened to this CD and I tell you , it�s really awesome.
Though is not in english but is got that rythm that will make you to fall into a deep peaceful sleep. I recommend it. Check out the songs like Nkosi sikelela and Hosana. It�s really an african treasure! Up the Africans!!

"Columnie" is the best song on this album, but they are all good. My favorites are (after "Columnie"): "Eloigne-toi", "Solide", "Artiste", and "A la derive d'mes maux non". Anybody who likes reggae or R&B should love this album. It's better than "Tant qu'il y aura" and "Princesses Nubians" by Les Nubians.

This set of drumming and percussive instrumentals is surprisingly compelling; I hadn't expected to be that into it, and then became transfixed as the waves of rhythm overtook me and carried me along. Five different groups perform on this well-paced collection: The El Hadj Ensemble specializes in Ghanaian and Senegalese drumming; Ipelegeng, Matodzi and the Soweto Ensemble represent South Africa and a group called African Works adds a "bush" beat to many tracks. Often these groups perform collaboratively, and the cumulative effect is quite nice. After decades of brisk, somewhat jarring drumming albums, it's nice to hear the recording methods and the presentation softening up a bit, so that the melodic and textural depths come out more clearly... There's no pop fusion going on here; the drumming is fairly pure, but it's also kind of laid back and pleasant to space out on, with plenty of stylistic variety. Very nice.

Whether or not you need this 2-disc set all depends on the status of your Oumou Sangare collection. It must have been quite a shock and disappointment for people who wanted, but did not yet have all 3 of her previous albums, to see them all go out-of-print. If you do not own any or all of Woroton, Moussoulou, or Ko Sira, you need to buy this. Period. If you already own all 3, this is not an essential purchase for you. That could be considered the end of my review, for all intents and purposes.

I have all 3 and when I saw the release of this disc, I have to admit I was disappointed. In a perfect world, the 3 previous albums would have stayed in print, and this would have been a 2 or 3-disc set made up of live material as well as the new (to those of us not in Africa) studio tracks included here that are from the Africa-only cassette release, Laban. This would have been my first choice because that way we all would have gotten much more new material. Let's face it, anyone who has heard Oumou in concert knows that she is phenomenal. I can't imagine anyone who has been to her concerts not thinking it was one of the best concerts they have ever been to. She is truly a gift to us all. Chicago '99 is the performance that proves this to me.

Even though I was disappointed to see that the vast majority of this set is previously-released material I already owned, I still had to buy it. I had heard OF the Laban cassette in the past couple years but never heard it, and it kinda drove me nuts knowing there was new Oumou out there that I couldn't get my hands on. Now that I have heard the new stuff, it turns out that (at least in my opinion) none of the new tracks are at the level of the older stuff. It's not that I don't like the songs, though. It's the fact that the new stuff is more electronic. I prefer stripped-down Oumou. For me, she could do an album with nothing more than herself, her female back-up singers, a ngoni and a calabash player and *POOF*, magical album. The new tracks are the exact opposite of that. Keyboards, programming, smoother production, etc... Actually I don't mind the drum programming on a couple tracks, but some of the keyboard stuff is just way too smooothie-pop layering for me.

Having said all this, for what it is... a Best Of album with some new tracks... it is excellent. It truly does have all her best songs from the first 3 albums. In order, I have always ranked her albums (favorite to least) as Ko Sira, Moussoulou, and then Worotan. Ko Sira and Moussoulou both being fantastic almost from beginning to end, and Worotan being okay overall with some bright spots.

So, 5 stars because the stuff from the previous albums is still fantastic, but I take away a couple stars for the production style of the new tracks, but then I give a star back because like I said, now that the first 3 albums are gone, this is the perfect digest of those albums. This is jam-packed with her best songs... and her voice!

If you don't have the other 3 albums, do not hesitate to buy this. You will continue to miss out on some great stuff if you don't.

OUMOU is a two-cd set tribute to the range of her skills: Oumou has been described as the 'songbird of Wassoulou', and is Mali's diva.
�Her roots lie in the musical traditions of Southern Mali, and her songs comment on social problems in women's lives as well as more universal metaphors of heroism and the human condition.

I have explored African music pretty seriously in the past few years. Oumou Sangare is quickly becoming my favorite African artist. A great blend of traditional instruments, confident lead vocals, and wonderful backing vocals. I have not heard the original 3 albums separately from this collection, but there are NO songs to be missed on this set. I suspect that holds for all her recordings. If you like any African music at all, you must check out Oumou.

I've never been particularly fond of re-mix albums. They are often very gimmicky and add little to the original studio recordings. Fortunately, that is not the case here.

PUSH IT TO THE MAX is a seven track EP of five songs. Two re-mixes of "Mr. Brown" from Zap Mama's SABSYLMA album are particularly intrigiung. The original version was an a capella tribute to James Brown that takes you back to the African motherland. Since Brown's music has been heavily sampled by hip-hop artists, it is not surprising that "Mr. Brown" gets a hip-hop treatment here on the Chris Cuben mix. However, an alternate ambient mix is more distinctive.

The EP also features a double dose of "Nostalgie Amoureuse." The first re-mix called the "Push It To The Max Bootleg" and is very uptempo and danceable. The DJ Wally mix maintains the slower and moodier sound of the original recording. "Nostalgie Amoureuse" was one of the most emotionally moving tracks from Zap Mama's 7 album with the possible expection of "Poetry Man." The latter is also featured here with a refreshingly subdued re-mix. The last minute of the track is very mellow.

Rounding out the CD are "Bottom" (originally from ADVENTURES IN AFROPEA) and "�a Varie Varie" (which would find its way to ANCESTRY IN PROGRESS later).

Overall, PUSH IT TO THE MAX is a decent re-mix set. Unless you're in a dancing mood, you might still want to go back to the original versions.

I was quite surprised by this CD though I was hasitant to buy it at first. The reason, it only has 7 songs with a total runing time of 36.21 minutes. Song 1 "Nostalgie Amoureuse and song 5 "Poetry Man" were familiar to me (but with new arrangments). Both are featured on the 1997 Zap Mama release "Seven". All I can really say overall about this CD is that I can do some sho nuff dancing to it. It is very energetic and upbeat.

The biggest surprise on the CD is song 3 "Mr. Brown" written by Marie Daulne. "Funky, real Funky is Mr. Brown. The CD is worth it for this song along. If I'm gleaming from the lyrics correctly, Mr. Brown is accapella, which is extrodinary, but not suprising with Ms Daulne being the musicologist/anthropologist that she is.