There are times when you need a helping hand to reach a new milestone. To put together his fourth album, Nimissa, Guinean singer and musician Ba Cissoko was assisted by reputed producer Philippe Eidel, who has managed to draw out each song’s potential and assure some ship-shape production.
As well as playing with an array of Mali’s contemporary music-makers, Makan Badjé Tounkara has carved out a space to share his own stories, which he narrates under his name in a second album, Sodjan. His academic yet modern playing of the ngoni, the string instrument played at the royal court for centuries, leads him irresistibly into the land of the blues.
The prolific artist Franco, who died in 1989, is still a central figure in Congolese music. The compilation Guitar Hero pays tribute to the rumba giant with an unusual collection of songs remastered with debateable dexterity.
Propel Africa into the future instead of rehashing the past: that’s the principle that Damon Alban has tried to develop with Kinshasa One Two, an album by the DRC Music collective, made up of Western producers and Congolese musicians. The intention is commendable and clearly sincere, but tends to get tangled in its own web.
With an appetite for learning almost as big as her vibrant personality, the Malian Fatoumata Diawara has modestly slipped out of her actress persona to inhabit her new role as a singer. The simplicity of her first album Fatou translates her desire to stand forward unadorned.
Among those Cape Verdean artists whose career has reached international heights, Tcheka occupies an unusual, almost paradoxical place, both avant-garde and a bit in the shadows. At 38, with his album Dor De Mar, the former winner of the RFI Découvertes Award maintains his position without managing to completely override a frustrating feeling of under-exploited potential.
Their third joint album, In Trance, takes British guitar hero Justin Adams and Gambian musician Juldeh Camara one step closer to perfect alchemy, and give us a lesson in groove and trance.
When a high-profile Congolese singer decides to interpret a compatriot master musician, it suddenly becomes clear just how many old-style rumba lovers are still around, as shown by the remarkable commercial success of Koffi chante Tabu Ley.
With Songs of Badissa, the Cameroonian singer Erik Aliana and his band Korongo Jam perpetuate the memory of the O’Sananga people: a fragile heritage served up to the world with some superb orchestration and a contemporary slant.
Following kompa crooner Michel Martelly’s election as president of the Republic of Haiti, the singer Bélo delivers his own message on Haïti debout, the third album from the 2006 winner of the RFI Découvertes music award.
Encouraged by the warm reception to his album Ndam, Omar Pene has indulged in more acoustic creation with Ndayaan. The fifty-something Dakarois singer dug through his “attic” full of old tracks and unearthed the original spirit of Super Diamono, the band that is now an institution on the Senegalese music scene.
