Welcome! Let's Begin!

Welcome to Poly-Rythmo d'Afrique. First things first, let me tell you a little about myself: My name is Steffan and I come from Brooklyn, New York.

This blog is a product of my obsession with African music of all kinds. I am by no means an expert, but collecting and learning about music from Africa has been a hobby of mine for a few years now. The idea behind this blog is to not only post music, but to give readers some historical and social context to the music as well.

OK. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's begin! I would like to use this first post to give you a sample of some of the kinds of sounds you can look forward to hearing on this blog.

Charlotte Dada - Don't Let Me Down
First up is Ghanaian singer Charlotte Dada with a great Beatles cover. I haven't been able to find much info on her, but I really love the song so I decided to post it. This is off a compilation album called "Money No Be Sand-1960's Afro-Lypso, Pidgin Highlife, Afro-Soul, Afro-Rock" (Original Music, 1995).

Onesmus Musyoki & Kalambya Boys - Katelesa
This song is an example of the kind of music made by the Akamba (Kamba music) of south-central Kenya in the 60s and 70s. Kamba music, which is still popular today, is often grouped under a Kenyan style of pop music known as "Benga." The Kamba forms of Benga are generally characterized by the presence of quick-paced, higher pitched rhythm guitar loops, as you can hear in this song. It is heavily influenced by a type of Afro-pop originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo called Soukous. I really like Kamba Benga and plan on dedicating a whole post to it somewhere down the road.

Orchestre Hi-Fives - Belina Mon Amour
This band formed in Lubumbashi, DRC under the name Bana Kibushi Batano. Then in 1965 they moved to Tanzania and changed their name to the Hi-Fives.

East Africa saw a huge influx of Congolese immigrants in the 60s and 70s as a result of civil unrest in the Congo. These immigrants brought their music with them and East African radio waves were quickly saturated with music made by Congolese musicians living in East Africa. Ever since then, East African pop has been heavily influenced by these Congolese sounds. I plan on doing an entry in the very near future on Congolese musicians in East Africa so I will not include any more info here (you'll just have to wait for my post).

Ashanti Afrika Jah - Onyame
This song acts as a more well-polished example of the legendary West African music genre called Highlife. You will be hearing plenty of Highlife of all kinds on this blog because of how good it is and because of how much of it there is. Highlife music was born in Ghana and developed out of the big band sound popular among European colonizers and the urban elite, as well as from palm-wine music. Palm-wine music is the term for the music that had its beginnings in the local palm-wine bars along Ghana's coast and was associated more with the country's lower class. True highlife, as we know it today, popped up in the mid to late-50s, but the golden age of highlife came in the years following independence (1957) and lasted through the mid-70s. Highlife has begun to influence a lot of American pop music (e.g. Vampire Weekend, High Places, etc).

Tinariwen - Matadjem Yinmixan
I love Tinariwen. This is off their newest album "Aman Iman: Water Is Life" (interesting side note-the title of this album comes from a Tuareg proverb: "Aman iman, akh issudar," meaning "water is life, milk is survival." Some of the members of Tinariwen are in another band called Terakaft and they just released their second album: "Akh Issudar"-clever, right?). Anyway, this is an example of the type of music made by the Tuaregs of Mali, Niger, Algeria, and small portions of Libya and Burkina Faso. The music is often called Desert Rock. I will have a full post on this very soon, but this type of music is often very political and talks of the marginalization of the Tuareg people by the governments of the countries in which they live.

Fool's Gold - The World Is All There Is
Finally, I wanted to include one example of how the West has adopted and integrated African music into their pop industry. Fool's Gold is an LA-based collective of up to 12 musicians. The band's lead singer, Luke Top, comes from Israel, so most of their songs are in Hebrew. Enjoy!

Well, that's it for now. If anyone actually reads this, I hope they get as much pleasure out of these songs as I do. Look out for my next post (my first real post) which will be on Biafran Highlife.