have u heard https://soundcloud.com/parahyena/lutung-bingung-feat-agus-roekmana .. many thanks

Fela Kuti - "Johnny Just Drop (J.J.D.)"

Muyei Power or Orchestre Muyei (muyei means ‘our country’) was one of the top dance bands of the1970s in Sierra Leone. Soundway Records' first collection of music from this West African country (‘Muyei Power: Sierra Leone in 1970s USA’) is an album of rock-infused, 'afro' music from a group that traveled the world throughout the mid 1970s. Fusing elements of electric Congolese and Nigerian music with fast, syncopated, uptempo modernised arrangements of traditional songs, Muyei Power produced a series of unique single-only releases that have been unavailable for 35 years. The rare recordings featured here are a glimpse of a dynamic and powerful band at the very height of its powers.

Even though lyrically Orchestre Muyei focused on traditional themes and songs, the arrangements and formulation of the instrumental side of things still very much reflected the mixed nature of urban Sierra Leone music, exemplified by a small collection of bands that also included Afro National, Sabanoh 75 and Super Combo.

For the early part of 1970s the band toured extensively throughout Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire before making a handful of 45s in local TV and radio studios.

The recordings featured here however come from a period of touring the college circuit in California during late 1975 and early 1976. Later that year, as they played the colleges of the east coast, they gave the tracks to the owner of the African Record Centre in Brooklyn, New York. He initially released two of them on his in-house Makossa Records label as 7-inch 45rpm singles in 1976. The tracks from 1975/6 were then not heard of again until 1979/80 when the African Record Centre released many of them on a series of Makossa Records 12”s that sounded far superior than the 45s that had been released a few years earlier. 

Orchestre Muyei Power finally split up in 1979 leaving no proper album releases and only a handful of recordings for us to enjoy all these years later.  The tracks have been licensed courtesy of ex lead-singer and bandleader Abou Whyte who now lives in New Jersey and performs as a solo artist.

The CD & LP both come with detailed liner notes, with the vinyl being pressed on 180g vinyl with a free digital download insert code.

Pre-order

Muyei Power - Wali Bena

Super Mama Djombo - Assalariado

K.Frimpong : "Abogyewaa"

Oumou Sangaré's single "Yere Faga ft. Tony Allen" is out on all platforms
To stream/download the single and pre-order the album 'Mogoya' on iTunes [Out 19 May] 
▷▷ idol.lnk.to/Mogoya

Oumou Sangaré - Yere Faga feat. Tony Allen

Oumou Sangaré's new single "Kamelemba" [Out on May 12]
Pre-order the album 'Mogoya' on iTunes [Out 19 May] 
▷▷ smarturl.it/Mogoya_preorder

Mogoya

Kamelemba

Oumou Sangaré - Kamelemba

Pre-Order https://jesssahbipeterone.bandcamp.com

Jess Sah Bi & Peter One "Our Garden Needs Its Flowers" LP/CD/ Digital

In the 1980s, Abidjan’s Jess Sah Bi & Peter One became one of the most popular musical acts in not just the Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), but broader West Africa, eventually performing with a full band to stadium-sized audiences at home and throughout Benin, Guinea, Mali and Togo. Although they’d been popular radio and television performers for several years prior, the catalyst for Jess and Peter achieving this new level of stardom was their debut album, Our Garden Needs Its Flowers, recorded and released in 1985. 

In contrast with the heaving funk, disco and reggae sounds of the day, Our Garden Needs Its Flowers was a lush fusion of traditional Ivorian village songs and American and English country and folk-rock music. Jess and Peter sang in French, English and Gouro, delivering beautifully harmonized meditations on social injustice and inequality, calls for unity across the African continent, an end to apartheid in South Africa and the odd song for the ladies, all set against lush guitar riffs, rustic harmonica and rollicking feel-good rhythms. Surprisingly, it’s the first time the album has been re-released in a high-fidelity, legally licensed form.

Jess Sah Bi & Peter One — Apartheid

Out Now on Awesome Tapes From Africa.
https://jesssahbipeterone.bandcamp.com/album/our-garden-needs-its-flowers

Jess Sah Bi & Peter One — Clipo Clipo

"Minmanle?" lyrics in Gouro & English translation below:

(Gouro)
Minmanlé tchanzan tchi?
Minmanlé fêhizan tchié zi o?
Hanle wile hanli yé
Hankazou Dohalo
Minmanle mihé tchibê o mi dja
Minmanlé mifa djika doulo
Yee wiyo hanli yé
Hankazou dohalo

Yéé hanlé wile ylé wile
Bêdji droha handji o
Mi gonin o kadan zoulo
Bolou tchizé wile
Bali zé wilé
Debe fihé o hévozilê
Bolou lé bé o
Y vohaman trêta

(English)
Why the poor?
Why the rich?
That yes that
I don't understand a thing
Why do we kill our neighbor?
Why don't men get along
That yes that
Oh, father, I don't understand a thing
This is my concern
This is our concern
But there you go, I have a solution
Wealth doesn't come without effort
We first struggle and,
Almighty then helps
If you want to be a leader
Expect suffering

Jess Sah Bi & Peter One — Minmanle?

Nterini - A COLORS SHOW

New album out 29 January!

Nahawa Doumbia’s new album Kanawa concisely captures this current moment in Malian history. The singer, whose storied career spans more than four decades, reflects on the immigration crisis from the Malian perspective in the title of her new album Kanawa. Across eight songs recorded in Bamako with a band including traditional and modern instruments, Doumbia merges her early work that relied on a spare expression of her trademark didadi rhythm with the bombastic range of contemporary Malian pop. The beautifully complex musical accompaniment that results is courtesy of the large ensemble she pulled together with producer and arranger (and day one collaborator) N’gou Bagayoko. 

The band features two highly expressive Malian string instruments, the ngoni and the slightly smaller kamalé ngoni, as well as a variety of percussion, drum programming, karignan (a metal scraper) and acoustic and electric guitars. Doumbia’s daughter, a celebrated singer with her own group and busy concert schedule, Doussou Bagayoko sings on “Adjorobena,” a song about patience, tolerance and living in peace. Doumbia weaves together a roadmap of her psyche when it comes to the good and bad life has to offer. She talks about marriage and women leaving home to join another through the metaphor of a tree in the garden; she includes gunshot samples in the song “Foliwilen” to honor the bravery of hunters, soldiers and other courageous people; she uses a bird in “Djougoh” to talk about lazy people; and, in “Ndiagneko” she advises people to ignore critics, just do you.  

Mali has gone through an intense period of regional strife and terrorist incidents over the last ten years and Doumbia roots the album in tragic local concerns with deep global implications. “The meaning of Kanawa is so simple. We see our children trying to cross the ocean all the time. I said that many of our children die in the ocean and some of them die while crossing the Sahara. But I ask them why do they leave their country? They said that they leave because of the family situation or problems like poverty and unemployment. I ask them to stay and work in their country. I call on the UN and African leaders so that we can coordinate our efforts to find a solution, to create jobs for them so that young people stop leaving. That’s why I chose it as the title of my album so that everybody can learn from it and also so that there is a reduction in the number of people emigrating. So that some will hear the message and stay home and grow the land. Leaving is not the only solution. My message is to help the youth find jobs.”

Kanawa

Nahawa Doumbia - Kanawa

Awesome Tapes From Africa is here for you.

Jess Sah Bi & Peter One — Minmanle?

Awesome Tapes From Africa

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