Each Wednesday, The World Africa presents three new musical releases from or inspired by the continent. This week, the blues takes us on a journey between the United Kingdom, Mali, the United States, Algeria, Belgium and Sierra Leone with the new albums of Ali Farka Touré (posthumous), Nasser Ben Dadoo alias “White Feet” and Bai Kamara Jr.
“Chérie”, by Ali Farka Touré (feat. Oumou Sangaré)
Two legends of Malian music on the same track, Darling, recorded in 1995 in London. One very much alive, Oumou Sangaré, and the other disappeared, Ali Farka Touré (1939-2006). The Wassoulou diva, a great friend of the “desert bluesman”, appears on three of the nine tracks included in the guitarist’s posthumous album which will be released on Friday March 10. Entitled Traveler, this one brings together previously unseen footage captured in different places and at different times in his career, over a period of fifteen years, on the road between two concerts or in the studio between two takes. Treasures revealed today by producer Nick Gold, from the British label World Circuit, in collaboration with Vieux Farka Touré, Ali’s son.
“Yema”, by White Feet (feat. Vieux Farka Touré)
We find Old Farka Touré on Bud, a piece from Blue Legacy, the new album by Nasser Ben Dadoo alias “White Feet”, released at the end of February. In this disc, the French guitarist and singer born of Algerian and Egyptian parents, originally from Marseille but now living in Burgundy, thus brings together the blues of the Saharan desert with that of the Mississippi delta. Without forgetting his North African roots, his deep and powerful voice abandoning the English of New Orleans and Chicago for the Arabic of Cairo or Algiers on the titles Roubla et Immigri – or French on Laurier rose –, for an invitation to travel where the melancholy of the blues is sometimes charged with an explosive rock energy.
« Good, Good Man », de Bai Kamara Jr & The Voodoo Sniffers
By hearing Good, Good Man, one imagines a man singing, guitar in hand, at the edge of a bayou infested with alligators. Yet it is the work of a pure “Afropaean”, Bai Kamara Jr, son of a former Sierra Leonean ambassador to Brussels. With his group, The Voodoo Sniffers, he has just released the album Traveling Medicine Man, whose title was inspired by his maternal grandfather, born in 1901 in northern Sierra Leone: « Educated by Protestant missionaries, he then traveled across the country to provide medical care,” specifies the musician, who presents this opus as ” Following [sa] perpetual quest to make coexist [en lui ses] two homes, Africa and Europe”.
Find all the editorial staff’s musical favorites in the YouTube playlist of the World Africa.
The Africapitales festival brings together Paris and Kigali
From March 3 until March 26, the Parisian district of Goutte d’Or vibrates to the rhythm of Rwandan culture thanks to the Africapitales festival. Initiated in 2022, this multidisciplinary event which, as its name suggests, focuses on a capital of the continent, this year chose Kigali as its focal point, after Bamako during its first edition.
On the program, theatre, contemporary dance, exhibitions, readings, meetings-debates, screenings… and of course concerts, with two musical evenings. The first, called “Kigali Acoustic Night”, will take place on Saturday March 11 at the FGO-Barbara and will see singers Weya Viatora, Tania Rugamba and guitarist Samuel Kamanzi succeed each other on stage. The second, on March 26 at the modern Lavoir in Paris, is devoted to the artist Makembe, who “merges Rwandan music with world music”.