2023-11-24 20:00:11
Every Friday, The World Africa presents three new musical releases from or inspired by the continent. This week, a return to the past with the Malian Super Biton orchestra from Ségou, Ghanaian highlife singer Papa Yankson and an album of South African covers by Citi Express.
“Mariana”, by Super Biton de Ségou
Two years after the first volume, the labels Meriuba (Mali) and Deviation Records (France) continue their work of rediscovery of Super Biton de Ségou with the album Afro.Jazz.Folk Collection Vol. 2, released on November 10 on vinyl, CD and digital. Eleven previously unreleased tracks, recorded in the 1970s by one of the key orchestras of the “golden age” of African music, and entrusted to sound engineer Raphaël Jonin in order to remaster them and present them to the public.
Cuban percussions, jazzy brass, funky guitars… We find in this record the mix between Malian cultures (Bambara, Fulani, Mandingo…) and foreign influences which made the strength of the Segouvian group.
“Mummy,” by Papa Yankson
At the same time but in another country, Ghana, C. K. Mann’s group Carousel Seven skillfully fused local highlife with soul and funk. Among the members of this group is the singer Papa Yankson, who went solo a few years later and published the album in 1989 Party Time (Odo Ye Wu).
It is this opus of six avant-garde pieces, pressed at the time in small quantities by the short-lived label Marriot Promotion, that the British from Kalita Records reissued at the beginning of November in vinyl and digital formats. Papa Yankson took highlife even further, using synthesizers and electronic styles then in vogue to infuse it with a touch of disco.
« It’s Too Late », de Citi Express
Finally, we head to South Africa in the early 1990s. Apartheid is still in force and the country is hit by a boycott which prevents local labels from obtaining licenses to distribute music from abroad. Never mind, they will record covers.
This is how the “Citi Express” project was born, led by DJ and producer Quentin Foster. He embarked on work adapting American and British pieces, including Living for the City, by Stevie Wonder, which gives its name to the album reissued at the end of October digitally by the South African label Afrosynth. The six tracks (including an original composition) bear witness to the beginnings of local house, which has a bright future.
Read also: Echoes of Cape Verde: the musical selection from “World Africa” #169
Find all the editorial’s musical favorites in the playlist YouTube of World Africa.
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