Viewed as the song that spawned African reggae, Brigadier Sabari came to light three decades ago in an Abidjan studio on Alpha Blondy’s first album. We look back on the story behind a ground-breaking song and the album that featured it, Jah Glory.
The Ivoirian guitarist and band leader, Mao Otayeck, who has played alongside some of the great names in music and authored a first album entitled Yeredon
Along with the promise of summer comes Touté Kalé, the sixth album by Ivoirian ambiance makers, Magic System. It may not be very original, but it seems set for success in discos and the charts. So what’s their magician’s secret?
Exactly thirty years after he first emerged in the Ivoirian media, reggaeman Alpha Blondy called on the solid, united band that has accompanied him live for years to record Vision, a frequently introspective album devised while on tour.
From the 1960s to the 1980s Abidjan underwent an extraordinary development, starting as the capital of Ivory Coast and ending up a cultural beacon of all Francophone Africa. Galvanized by the energy of the city and the "Ivorian economic miracle", the musicians of the period created whole new genres of music, as rich in inventive energy as the burgeoning era itself.
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.
