همه جور آجیل

Toumani Diabate on Kora,Kasse Mady Diabate on vocals and Sidiki Camara on calabash.

Sidiki Camara - Sontala (feat Toumani Diabate Kora and Kasse Mady Diabate vocals).

Africa '99  Marocco / Algeria .. sulla rotta di timtubi in moto

07 - Wassiyé - Habib Koité

In the Heart of the Moon

Learn More

Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté - Kaira, from In the Heart of the Moon (2005)

Mali is a fabled land of musical giants and this Rough Guide features the towering figures of Oumou Sangare, Ali Farka Touré and Basekou Kouyate. However the music of Mali is now under threat as never before. In the words of singer Fatoumata Diawara, ‘music has always brought hope in Mali. Music has always been strong and spiritual.’

For more information, visit http://www.worldmusic.net/store/item/RGNET1311

Before the March 2012 coup d’etat of President Amadou Toumani Touré, very few outside of West Africa knew much about Mali (except for perhaps a group of historians and world music devotees). Much of Mali is encompassed by the Sahara desert, which, despite its often scorching temperatures, has been aptly described as an ‘inland sea’, connecting the Arab and Berber cultures of the north, with the Fulani, Bambara, Mandinka and others in the south. After Muammar Gaddafi fell in the Libyan civil war, huge caches of heavy weapons were left unguarded – many ended up crossing that ‘desert sea’ and arrived in Mali. Fueled by outside groups, Al Qaeda gained a stronghold in northern Mali, installing Sharia law, closing schools, and banning so-called ‘Satan’s music’. Tragically, the region that had long been known for its ancient manuscripts, magnificent mud-architectural mosques, and captivating folk music was engulfed in conflict.

Mali’s musicians have never shied away from mixing politics and song. Vocalist Oumou Sangare (who is also a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador) has been outspoken on issues including women’s rights and polygamy since the 1990s. In 2013, when the conflict made it impossible for Mali to host its renowned Festival in the Desert, Sangare helped to take the show on the road, headlining the Caravan For Peace, performing in Tuareg refugee camps in Burkina Faso. Similarly, Khaira Arby (cousin of legendary guitarist Ali Farka Touré) has taken on issues such as female circumcision in her music. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when war threatened to engulf Mali, its leading musicians banded together. Fatoumata Diawara gathered the nation’s leading musicians together to produce a video calling for a peaceful end to the conflict, most of whom are featured on this compilation, including Oumou Sangare, Toumani Diabate, Vieux Farka Touré, Nahawa Doumbia and Khaira Arby.

The role of these musicians cannot be underestimated, as it both galvanized the Malian public, and the international community into action, leading to military involvement by France as well as United Nations peacekeepers that quickly restored calm to most of Mali. Musically and ethnically, Mali is an incredibly diverse country. This album reflects that diversity, featuring driving Tuareg grooves rooted in a nomadic Saharan past, generations-old ‘social advice’ songs, Wassoulou music from the south, and of course there are a host of songs from Mali’s next generation of stars.

Samba Touré: Koye Ma (taken from the Rough Guide To Mali)

Boubacar Traoré - Mouso Teke Soma Ye

Almost as big as the USA, the vast Sahara spans Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.  Despite being the hottest desert on earth, it is home to millions of people whose diverse cultures and traditions create a vivid cultural landscape.  This Rough Guide features the region’s best-loved artists as well as exploring beyond the arid sandscapes to reveal hidden Saharan sounds. 

For more information, visit www.worldmusic.net/sahara

The Sahara spans a humungous 3,600,000 square miles across North Africa, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. Its photogenic undulating sandscapes have seduced travellers, artists and storytellers for centuries. 
Since the ancient empires of Nubia, the Great Desert has been inhabited consistently: Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Berbers, Ottoman Turks and European colonialists are among the tribes that have lived in its realms. Among the Sahara’s present-day inhabitants are nomad Fulani, Tubu and Tuareg peoples who recall stories of ancient battles forcing their ancestors to seek refuge deep in the desert where they carved out a way of life, constantly moving onwards, respecting the moods and winds of the desert herself. Religion is largely Islamic in the region with cultural remnants of Christian, Pagan and Jewish traditions audible in local dialects and traditions. 
Today religious and traditional factions across the Sahara jostle against each other making for a vivid political landscape, not without conflict. Of course political passions inform musical expressions, many of which are portentously highlighted on this insightful album. Etran Finawata from Niger strive to promote unity - their band members are from both the Wodaabe and Touareg ethnicities which have historically been rivals. Mariem Hassan is a Saharawi singer whose music pays tribute to old poems written by Ali Bachir and Lamin Allal, artists from her oppressed nation who were forced to live in exile. The title of her 2012 album El Aaiún Egdat (El Aaiún on Fire) casts a striking comment on the largest city in the Western Sahara, which is under Moroccan occupation. Toureg de Fewet are from Libya and are inspired by their homeland’s traditional song  repertoire.
Other artists bend expectations, re-working familiar pop genres into new, surprising formations. Anansy Cissé sucks up all the brilliant things about well-trodden West African ‘Desert Blues’ trope and spits them out with a new agitated attitude. Moudou Ould Mattala hails from Mauritania, his guitar style has Pink Floyd-ian inspirations. AGS & EJ represent the North-Eastern reaches of the Sahara on track ‘Ya Salam’. Salamat, headed up by Percussion Mahmoud Fadl, explore Nubian elements of Egyptian music, as does Ali Hassan Kuban. Malian rising star Djama Djigui speaks a new language with his tamani (talking drum).

Mariem Hassan: Legneiba (taken from The Rough Guide To The Sahara)

Cheikh Lo - Degg Gui

3-track edit taster: Balaké / Kambelé Ba / Fanta

Artist:Amadou Balaké
Title: In Conclusion
Label: Sterns Africa 
Album release: July 20th, 2015

After a career that spanned a half-century in which he became the most famous musician from Burkina Faso and a legend of African popular music, Amadou Balaké died last year at the age of 70. This album contains his final recordings.

Born Amadou Traoré in Burkina Faso when it was still the French West African colony of Upper Volta, he was given the name Balaké by Guinean fans who especially liked the way he sang the Mande classic of that title. By that time (the late 1960s) he had been performing as an itinerant singer, guitarist and percussionist all around West Africa. On returning to his homeland in 1970, Amadou Balaké sang with a succession of groups in the capital, Ouagadougou. Building on widely popular Afro-Cuban and funk styles as well as the Mande repertoire modernized by such bands as Guinea’s Bembeya Jazz and Mali’s Rail Band, he incorporated local warba dance rhythms into his music and sang primarily in the Mossi language of Burkina Faso, establishing a distinct Burkinabé sound.

It was a sound that traveled well as Balaké resumed his roving. He recorded his first album in Accra, Ghana, in 1976; his second in Lagos, Nigeria; the next two in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and then his classic salsa album, Amadou Balaké à New York, in that city with some of its top Latin sidemen in 1979. He was based in Paris for most of the ‘80s but eventually settled in Ouagadougou. In 2000 Ibrahima Sylla, the pre-eminent African record producer, invited Balaké to join the international salsa supergroup Africando — a match made in Spanish Harlem, one might say, considering that Balaké preceded Africando in working with Latin musicians in New York. With Africando Balaké recorded four albums and toured far and wide.

He was still giving weekly shows in Ouagadougou when the French music journalist Florent Mazzoleni met him there in 2013 and produced the recordings that would prove to be the old master’s last testament. Accompanied by young local musicians, he revisited some of his favorite songs, including his namesake, “Balaké”, which he had never previously recorded. Captured mostly in one take with few overdubs, these tracks present a performer seasoned by decades of experience and in full command of his art.

Tracklist: 
1. Kambélé Ba 
2. Bar Konon Mousso (Musicien c'est pas quelqu'un) 
3. Lamizana
4. Naaba 
5. Massa Kamba 
6. Kèlè Bila 
7. Fanta 
8. Wayi Queligi Yéllé 
9. Balaké 
10. Oyé Ka Bara Kignan
11. Yélle

Personnel:
Vocal: Amadou Balaké Guitar: Michel Diansoro 'Haute Tension' Ngoni, percussion: Boubacar Djiga 'Papa' Balafon, percussion: Sanou Dara Bass, bass ngoni: Luc Kyendrebeogo Drums: Jean Sorogo 'Bosco' Trumpet: Georges Théodore Vindou 'Alpha' Saxophone: Yizih Organ: Father Ben Backing vocals: Sanou Dara, Moustapha Maïga, Aïda
Produced by: Florent Mazzoleni

Buy iTunes

Amadou Balaké: In Conclusion (album release July 20th 2015): free download 3-track taster

Keeping an ear to the ground for today’s Malian sounds, these tunes were specially recorded for this release and feature inspirational new artists yet to be heard outside their homeland.

For more visit www.worldmusic.net/lostinmali

Nainy Koné: Ne Sabou

Born out of an impromptu studio session in New York, Touristes brings together Malian singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Touré with American vocalist Julia Easterlin. 'A B'ashiye' is one of the album's most powerful illustrations of Touré's reputation as the 'Hendrix of the Sahara' and Easterlin makes no qualms in letting it take centre stage. 

Read more: http://www.stampthewax.com/2015/10/29/premiere-vieux-farka-toure-julia-easterlin-a-bashiye-its-alright/
Listen on Youtube: http://bit.ly/a-bashiye
Buy: http://www.touristesmusic.com/sounds/

Follow:
@sixdegreesrecords

Vieux Farka Touré & Julia Easterlin - A'Bashiye (It's Alright) (STW Premiere)

As part of the Pan African Space Station program in 2009, Toumani Diabate appears live in concert for his first run of South African performances in Cape Town. The king of the kora offers an incredible solo set in the equally beautiful setting of St. Georges Catherdral. 

Recorded live at St. Georges Cathedral, Cape Town, RSA on the 2nd October 2009. 

Toumani Diabate - kora

www.toumani-diabate.com

Toumani Diabate - St. Georges Cathedral, Cape Town, 2nd October 2009

Five Great Guitars - African Blues Tour
Live recording 2011

Special guest: Habib Koité
Jan Kuiper: guitar
Zoumana Diarra: guitar, kora, balafon, n'goni
Erwin Java: elektric guitar
Digmon Roovers: guitar-bass
Mousse Pathe M'Baye: percussion
Dramane Diarra: percussion

Sound: Neil Denholm


Five Great Guitars - Titati (HQ)

Il s’agit d’une captation de répétition.

Zimbabwe - Rokia Traoré et le choeur Passerelle

Get the album here: http://glitterbeat.com/glitterbeat_store/

Recorded at Studio Mali in Bamako, in the autumn of 2012, Samba is joined by
his regular band members Djimé Sissoko (n’goni ) and Madou Sanogo (congas,
djembe) and guests such as the legendary, master of the soku (a one-stringed
violin) Zoumana Tereta and the fast-rising Malian neo-traditional singer Aminata
Wassidje Traore. Additionally, Hugo Race (The Bad Seeds, Dirtmusic, Fatalists)
contributes an array of subtle atmospherics on guitar and keyboards.

Samba Toure - Be Ki Don

Kanan Neni - Rokia Traore

Tired beat of life-ضربان خسته تکرار

African and World Music specialists since 1983. 

First British record label to release recordings by Salif Keita, Youssou N'Dour, and Franco &amp; OK Jazz. 

Dedicated to bringing to the world the sublime music of Africa and its diaspora.



Amadou Balaké: In Conclusion (album release July 20th 2015): free download 3-track taster

Iain Scott

Recent comments

Antonio Martinez

uassaluka !

Related tracks