With her third solo album, Gagner l’argent français, Mamani Keita repeats her partnership with the multi-instrumentalist and arranger Nicolas Repac. A chance for the Malian singer to look back over the highs and lows of her career, and pinpoint what makes her feel proud.
It’s exactly a decade since the death of Francis Bebey: Cameroonian singer, multi-instrumentalist and cultural agitator. RFI Musique looks back over an exceptional artist’s career.
The Franco-Cameroonian duet Les Nubians, who settled in the States after the success of their 1999 album Princesses nubiennes, express all of their innovative “Afropeanness” on Nü Revolution. RFI Musique met up with the two sisters, Hélène and Célia.
It’s thirty years since the king of Jamaican musician Bob Marley died on 11 May 1981. The star that personifies the sound of reggae shone far beyond the world of music, offering words of wisdom to support the oppressed. And many still find solace in his message.
With his new album, 99, Congolese pianist Ray Lema has moved away from the intimate world of solos and trios to get back with a band. On 99 (the figure used by French bureaucracy to denote people born outside France) he muses in music on the consequences of globalisation and French and African identity, and nurtures dreams of a better world defined by a tolerant cultural melting pot.
In Kidal, at the start of the Mali desert, each musician is to a certain extent a child of the Tinariwen, the engine of the Touareg scene. In Toumastin – their second album – Tamikrest acknowledge their roots and reveal more than a glimpse of their ambitions. RFI Music interviewed Ousmane, the group’s pillar and one of its singers.
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.
