Ça va chauffer (in French): Let's dance, let's go crazy and have a good time! This is a four on the floor disco song, but uses the 'rhumba march' rhythm popularized trhoughout Africa by Congoles pop music, as well as a polymetric drumming style I created based on Ugandan influences, used here in a way akin to a dub effect.

CA Va Chauffer

Nongui Taaba (in Mooré): An appeal for love and tolerance. There is enough trouble in the world, so let us respect and appreciate each other. This song is another unusual take on the ouaraba, possibly Burkina's most popular traditional rhythm. 

Nongui Taaba

SAAGA (In Mooré): An invocation asking God to bring rain. In a dry country like Burkina Faso, rain is a rare commodity, and if it fails to come, there will be famine. 

Saaga

To mi to zi (in Mooré): Using the ouenenga rhythm, this song is based on a traditional saying: today, a chicken eats the intestines of another chicken's cadaver. Tomorrow, when this chicken dies, yet another chicken will eat this one's intestines. In other words: what you do to others will come back to haunt you. 

To Mi To Zi

Bobo Yengué (in Bêté and a wild mixture of gibberish assembled from many languages): Zoko Zoko, singing in this native language of Bêté from Côte d'Ivoire, tells the story of an old man who wanted to be young again. He goes to a magician who promises to accomplish the task. But when the old man comes home, he looks in the mirror to find that a disaster has occured, he has been turned into something completely different. We never find out exactly what he has become. 

Bobo Yengue

La voix du Boulgou (in Bissa): Mai pays tribute to her ancestors, from the Boulgou region. The song is based on a recording of traditional singer we made on a trip to Garango, in Boulgou province. 

La Voix Du Boulgou (after H.A. Bambara)

Ligdi (in Mooré): A song about money and the many negative things money can lead to: jealousy, corruption, violence. Several varieties of the ouaraba rhythm are used here. 

Ligdi

Naab Koobo (in Mooré): A traditional tale told to children, using personified animals to illustrate moral values. Various creatures are asked to help the king with the harvest. All agree to come under the condition that their foes do not. They are told their enemies are not being asked, but that is false; in the end, all come together and eat each other up until only the largest (the hippopotamus) is left. The rhythm is a madeap programmed version of a traditional Mooré rhythm, the ouaraba.

Naab Koobo (arr. L. Ligeti)

Sankar Yaaré (in Mooré): Mr. Sankara's Market (no relation to Burkina Faso's former president Thomas Sankara) is a market in Burkina's capital, Ouagadougou. The song is about going shopping at the market and the goods available there. It is built on found sounds recorded at the market: music coming from ghettoblasters, people bargaining, metalworkers pounding away, etc.

Sankar Yaare

Gom Zanga (in Mooré): Welcome to Burkina Electric, welcome to Burkina Faso. Feel free to say anything that's on your mind, you will be welcome. The song uses a rhythm we created based on some popular local dance rhythms. 

Gom Zanga

Burkina Electric's innovative, original fusion of traditions and rhythms from Burkina Faso (West Africa) and club/dance electronica represents a new direction in world music. A collaborative unit of 5 musicians and dancers, its members are based in Burkina Faso and the U.S.

BURKINA ELECTRIC is the first electronica band from Burkina Faso, in the deep interior of West Africa. Based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital, it is, at the same time, an international band, with members living in New York, U.S.A. and hailing from Cte d'Ivoire and Austria in addition to Burkina Faso. Burkina Electric's music combines the traditions and rhythms of Burkina Faso with contemporary electronic dance culture, making it a trailblazer in world music. This diverse and talented group consists of four musicians and two dancers who collectively participate in the creative process and represent disparate musical genres and sounds from across the globe.

Rather than recycling well-known rock and funk rhythms, Burkina Electric seeks to enrich the fabric of electronic dance music by using unusual rhythms that are rarely heard and little-known even in much of Africa. This includes ancient rhythms of the Sahel, such as the Mossi peoples' Ouaraba and Ouenega, but also new rhythms of their own creation. The band invites you to discover that these exotic rhythms groove at least as powerfully as disco, house, or drum & bass! 

Burkina Electric

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