Each Wednesday, The World Africa presents three new musical releases from or inspired by the continent. This week, an electro trip from Nancy to Niamey with the French duo Taxi Kebab, the Nigerian group Studio Shap Shap and the Parisian collective Acid Arab.
« Ardina », de Taxi Kebab
Born from the meeting in Nancy between Romain Henry and Leïla Jiqqir, Taxi Kebab is defined as a duo “disorienting psyche”. A designation that “refers to the pervasive feeling of getting lost, metaphorically, musically and even physically”, explains the singer, whose amplified buzuq (a long-necked lute from the Near East) and lyrics in Darija (the dialectal Moroccan Arabic, her father tongue) mingle with synth pads and drum machine loops of his accomplice. At the end of March, they published Ardina, a piece that Leïla Jiqqir presents as “a wandering in the land of the ancestors” and which announces their first EP, Visions al 2ard, scheduled for June 17.
“The Park”, by Studio Shap Shap
But who are these wild beasts that set Niger on fire and sound? This is Studio Shap Shap, a band of five musicians who combine rare traditional instruments – the duma, a goatskin percussion, the komsa, a camel-skin lute, and the kindé, a kind of harp – with a bass, electronic samples… and some animal cries. After a first album, Château 1, released in 2016, they return to blow their winds of madness with an EP of four titles, the modern world, arose the 1is april. On the same day, they uploaded the music video for the track The park, filmed in Niamey and which opens with a quote from storyteller Boubé Diallo, dean of the group who died in August 2019.
« Staifia », d’Acid Arab (feat. Radia Menel)
It’s been ten years since the Acid Arab collective, formed by French musicians Hervé Carvalho, Guido Minisky, Pierrot Casanova, Nicolas Borne and Algerian keyboardist Kenzi Bourras, has been making the rhythms and voices of the Maghreb resonate in Parisian evenings and festivals around the world. whole world. As they finalize their third album, due in October, the group has released the 1is avril un working on remixes Remixed, on which a dozen electronic music producers intervene, including the Tunisian Ammar 808. At the end of March, Acid Arab also published the very beautiful clip of stafia, a title released on his previous album, Jdid (2019), and which sublimates the voice of the Algerian singer Radia Menel.
Find all the editorial staff’s musical favorites in the YouTube playlist of the World Africa.