The Magic System way

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?

African reggae

Alpha Blondy licks his wounds

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.

The teachings of Maurice Kirya

As he came to the end of a long tour of Africa that took in 22 venues, and in the lead-up to his final concert in Paris on 4 April, the Ugandan singer Maurice Kirya gave RFI Music his first overview of the human and musical adventure that has impacted his professional and personal life.

Album review

Wendo Kolosoy

Sold together in a single box entitled Botyiaki Ntembe, and remastered for the occasion, the two albums, Nani Akoleka Wendo? and Banaya papa Wendo by the singer Wendo Kolosoy were both key pieces in the career of the Congolese singer, who died in 2008 at the age of 83.

Congolese music

JB Mpiana brings us the horse dance

After co-founding Wenge Musica, the flagship Congolese music group from the late eighties, singer JB Mpiana has set out to defend his star status with a double album, Soyons sérieux, which serves as a platform for launching his new horse dance.

Album review

Ishumar 2 compilation

The compilation Ishumar 2, nouvelles guitares touarègues is a yardstick measuring the progress of Tuareg guitar playing. It paints an instructive portrait of the musical movement and marks out the distance covered since Tinariwen erupted onto the world music scene at the end of the nineties.

Guinean music

Sayon Bamba’s nomad planet

From Conakry to Brussels, the Guinean singer Sayon Bamba Camara is a young woman of the world. Her third album, Dougna presents a daring marriage of the Mandinka tradition and electronic music.

Kirya’s African journey

From Libreville to Bobo Dioulasso, via Douala, Accra and Cotonou and other places, the Ugandan singer Maurice Kirya has been continuing the African tour he started one month ago. The winner of the 2010 RFI Découvertes award has been giving RFI Musique his impressions of the trip.

Maurice Kirya under Malabo’s charm

The winner of the 2010 RFI Découvertes award, Maurice Kirya, has just commenced the first part of a tour that will take him and his musicians to fourteen countries in Africa with 22 concerts in under two months. The Ugandan singer shared his travelling impressions with RFI Musique.

Maurice Kirya, bridging cultures

There are just a few days until his performance in N'Djamena, Chad, on 6 November as part of RFI’s special operation, but Maurice Kirya, recent winner of the Prix Découvertes 2010, already has a long career behind him. Today, the Ugandan singer acts as a bridge between Western and African cultures. And entertains us all in the process. Portrait.

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Cameroonian music

Macase reshuffle their act

They’ve performed their Bantu Groove at venues all round the world. Thirteen years after their first album, and despite losing several of the group’s charismatic members, Mascase are back centre stage. The band boasts a new line-up and some brand new tracks, but their desire to blend Bantu music with modern rhythms is unchanged.