Sean Barlow, producer of Afropop Worldwide and Afropop.org, recently traveled to Essen Germany for the annual WOMEX gathering where some 2,000 professionals devoted to world music in the fields of media, record companies, artist management, concert presenting, etc. gathered. Here is his report and photos.

The marathon of concerts, panel discussions, meetings, networking, and inspirational sessions at the 2004 edition of WOMEX in the industrial North Rhine-Westphalia heartland of Germany once again proved to be well worth the long schlep.

Highlights from WOMEX 2004 included warmly received performances by artists we know: Kekele doing their classic rumba; the Gangbe Brass Band blaring trumpets, trombone and tuba; Didier Awadi's Dakar-based hip hop doing a scorching rap "J'Accuse" lambasting Bush and the war in Iraq, French and Belgian colonialists; and more; Adama Yalomba playing the instrument he invented, the yalomba, and his high energy band of young turks out of Bamako.

WOMEX always blows you away with artists you never saw before. For me, number one in this stratosphere was Ba Cissoko from Conakry Guinea. Ba Cissoko plays kora in tandem with Sekou Kouyate on "electric kora" who occasionally flys into effects-enhanced sounds. Shades of Jimi Hendrix. Might seem hokey on paper but it works beautifully. Ibrahim Bah showed off us virtuosic riffs on calabash percussion and Kourou Kouyate laid down groovin' bass lines. What a sound! Just four guys from griot families with fresh arrangements of the classical West African Mandinka repertoire as well as original compositions commenting on modern life in Africa.

See Banning Eyre's review of Ba Cissoko's fiery first international release, "Sabolan." (You can also get fair trade digital downloads from our Music Shop). We love that album but seeing the band live of course takes it to another level. Ba Cissoko and Sekou Kouyate also do lovely harmonizing and our recording of them singing acapela backstage at WOMEX will be a memorable moment from the upcoming Afropop Worldwide program. Let's hope Ba Cissoko makes it to the U.S. sometime soon...Insh'Allah...

Another direct experience from a band whose record I much like but never saw live is Daara-J from Senegal. Talk about beacoup energy on stage! The three rappers/singers-N'Dongo D, Faeda Freddy, Aladji Man--had the crowd singing, jumping and connecting with African hip hop like no other group I know. In a backstage interview they painted the broad canvas of African tradition sending hip hop out to America and America sending it back to Africa for hip hop artists today communicating to the youth in local languages about local issues. Thus the name "Boomerang" on their well-received first international release which placed #3 in the top 30 albums for 2003/2004 in the poll of world music programmers done by the EBU World Music Charts Europe. (Daara-J also won a BBC Radio 3 World Music Award in 2003.)

Another artist new to us was Seu Jorge from Brazil. A totally captivating ensemble of guitar, cavaquinho, percussion and voices. It's in the tradition of choro. He varied the energy with duets with a guest artist. If you've seen the film "Cidade de Deus" ("City of God"), Seu Jorge starred in that. The film is inspired by Seu Jorge's own story of growing up in the favelas of Rio ruled by drug gangs and pumped up by deejayed outdoor dance parties. Our interview of Seu Jorge backstage revealed that his songs today keep faith with a tough critique of the imbalance of political and economic power in Brazil today.

Other artists I saw for the first time at WOMEX include Jil Jilala, the band who revolutionized Moroccan popular music in the 1970's and Gabriel Rios, a Puerto Rican singer and guitarist living in Belgium whose stage charisma that reminds you of Latin pop mega star Marc Anthony but whose sound is very much his own thing.

Mory Kante did not perform this WOMEX but he dropped in for a day of press interviews. I asked him about his wonderful new acoustic album "Sabou." Mory told us he has two bands-one electric and one acoustic. He'll bring his acoustic ensemble to play the second annual Global Fest in New York in January 2005, co-presented by the Public Theater and World Music Institute as part of the Association of Arts Presenters Conference (APAP).

A thrilling part of WOMEX 2004 for Afropop Worldwide was the screening of our first film "Festival in the Desert: The Tent Sessions" co-produced by us and Link TV. The screening attracted a standing room only crowd and received warm applause at the end.
Manny Ansar, the Festival Director who lives in Mali, told me he loved the film, especially the interviews. The film features intimate, informal performances by Haira Arby, Bocar Madjo, Ali Farka Toure, Lobi Traore, and Baba Djire. "Festival in the Desert: The Tent Sessions" got its broadcast premiere on Link TV on December 4th.
(More details on www.afropop.org and www.linktv.org).We do not have rights to sell DVDs of our film, but several of our interviews are also featured in a related film "Festival in the Desert" that is available on DVD in the U.S. on World Village/Harmonia Mundi. Several presenters approached us at WOMEX about screening our film and we are in the process of working this out. Stay tuned.

Legendary record producer Joe Boyd put together a provocative panel on "Taking Stock: A Philosophical Look at The State of World Music", featuring comments by Joe, Lucy Duran of BBC Radio 3, and Marc Benaiche of France's Mondomix. Highlights from the lively discussion and comments from the audience will follow on Afropop.org.