Photos by Banning Eyre

Without a doubt, it is more challenging today for African and other international acts to tour in the United States than it was a decade ago.  The rising expense, difficulty and unpredictability of acquiring performance visas has scuppered many would-be tours.  In addition, record companies that once embraced international music and helped underwrite tours have scaled back—in some cases, disappeared—in response to a fast-changing media landscape and disappointing sales figures.  Just the same, Afropoppers in New York City this summer could be excused for not noticing that anything has changed since the poppin’ 90s.  This city continues to find the ways and means to produce an astounding array of talent from around the world each summer, much of it presented outdoors and free of charge.  Two venues—Central Park Summerstage, and Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park—deserve special credit for diligence and commitment to international, and particularly African, music.  Some of the groups that graced these stages this summer moved right on to the lucrative, well coordinated summer festival circuit in Canada, visiting few if any other US venues. 

So in the spirit of sharing at least a reflection of New York’s summer glory, we offer what is becoming an Afropop Worldwide tradition, the summer wrap-up photo essay.  Armed with cameras, Afropop’s Banning Eyre caught as many of the summer shows as he could and what follows is a generous selection from the thousands of photographs he took.  We didn’t catch everything by a long shot.  But it was a rich feast of spectacular talent.  Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, hot off winning the prestigious WOMEX Award made two great New York appearances, including a soulful set at S.O.B.s.  From Los Angeles, Ozomatli pumped out the jams in an early show at Central Park Summerstage, followed the next weekend by Joe Black (African reggae) and Idan Raichel of Israel, featuring two terrific Ethiopian singers, Wagderass Avi Vese and Cabra Casay.  This concert was mobbed, reflecting the phenomenal worldwide success of the Idan Raichel Project.

Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 kicked off July with a hot, historic show at S.O.B.s, one of just four concerts Fela’s less-famous—but arguably more rootsy and soulful—son has so far given in the U.S..  He’ll certainly be back.  Another debut came from a young roots act from Zimbabwe, Bongo Love, who performed at Mo Pitkins in July.  Nomadic Wax, an organization dedicated to African hip hop put on a great Global Underground evening at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, featuring Bamboo (Kenya), Chosan (Sierra Leone), and Foundation Movement (Liberia, Puerto Rico).  BAM Metrotech, a great noon-time venue in downtown Brooklyn, continued their great, free concert series.  Unfortunately, The Mahotella Queens had to cancel their Metrotech show, and Andy Palacio’s also did not happen, due to a weather related flight delay, but Toumani Diabate and the Symmetric Orchestra redeemed all with a sublime, July set. 

Fallou Dieng, one of today’s top Senegalese mbalax singers, made a number of New York appearances this summer.  The one we caught at the Harlem Karate Club was a truly African affair, with the band taking the stage after 1 AM, and the place packed by 2:30.  Perhaps the most extraordinary and unusual show of the summer was the Sudanese Festival of Music and Dance at Central Park Summerstage in late July.  (You can click through to reviews of these two events.)  Vieux Farka Toure played a short, noon time set in Manhattan in July.  If you didn’t catch it, Vieux will be back with Tinariwen in early November.  We caught one more brilliant July show at S.O.B.s, Tcheka, one of the most exciting artists to emerge from Cape Verde in many years.