This Week's Playlist #45 - The African pioneers edition
Week #45 - The African pioneers edition
TL;DR: I'm running a weekly newsletter with 5 songs and a short description, and a matching Spotify playlist if you want to subscribe.
For the non-Spotify readers, there is a Youtube link for each of the songs on the cover.
Hello everyone!
I focused on a various range of topics and countries since I've started this newsletter but not on Africa.
Here are 5 songs from my collection about some of the African musician pioneers I've been listening to across the years.
Let's go!
Fela Kuti, inventor of the Afrobeat genre of music, emerged from Nigeria to become both a musical and cultural messiah for his country in the '70s. Zombie is one of his massive hits, taking a stgance against the military power in Nigeria in that decade.
Mulatu Astatke - Yèkèrmo Sèw (A Man of Experience and Wisdom)
Another classic, here, from the inventor of Ethiojazz.
Nihiloxica harnesses the full force of the ancient Bugandan drumming tradition of Uganda and focuses it on the contemporary dance floor through a dark lens of techno beats.
Another pioneer here, Mamman Sani Abdullaye is a legendary name amongst Niger's avant garde & early West African electronic music.
Toure Raichel Collective - Azwade
A collaboration track (or album, rather) to finish this week. Idan Raichel is one of Israel's top-selling pop musicians. Vieux Farka Toure is a virtuoso guitarist from Mali. A random connection in a German airport led to an amazing collaboration of 2 albums. A very meditative and unscripted, improvised jam session.
Until the next time, Godspeed!
Thomas
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Previous episodes
Week #43: The Halloween edition
Week #42: The London edition
Week #41: The Jetlag edition
Week #40: The Coolio edition
Week #39: The trumpet edition
Week #38: The Armenia edition
Week #37: The Piano edition, volume 2
Week #36: The Red Thread edition
Week #35: The Taylor Hawkins edition
Week #34: The Summer Bank Holiday edition
Week #33: The Readers' digest #2: the Jazz edition
Week #32: The Palestine edition
Week #31: The City edition (& a heavy metal bonus)
Week #30: The Piano edition
Week #29: The Heatwave edition
Week #28: The Bastille Day edition (+ another a heavy metal bonus)
Week #27: The "Best albums of 2022 so far" edition
Week #26: Happy summer
Week #25: The Hellfest edition
Week #24: The Pride edition
Week #23: The Basketball edition
Week #22: The Bank Holiday edition (+ another a heavy metal bonus)
Week #20: The Vangelis edition
Week #19: The Saxophone edition
Week #18: The Lebanese edition
Week #17: The "Labour Day" edition
Week #16: The "My friends got talent" edition
Week #15: Happy Easter
Week #14: Famous bands I started to listen to at the age of 40
Week #13: The Number of the Beast edition
Week #12: The Fat of the Land edition
Week #11: The Modern Soul voices
Week #10: Heavy metal goes pop music
Week #09: The Mask edition
Week #08: RIP Mark Lanegan
Week #07:
Week #06:
Week #05: The readers’ digest
Week #04:
Week #03: Albums for 2022 2/2
Week #02: Albums for 2022 1/2
Week #01: Happy New Year