Reviews

• 
  May 9, 2013

  Dur-Dur Band, Vol. 5- Awesome Tapes From Africa

  This album, recorded in 1987, is the fifth digital-age re-release of the masterful Dur-Dur Band, who were big stars in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, in the 1980s. This re-release, from Awesome Tapes From Africa, is true to the (internet) label’s name: the audio is … Read more »

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  May 3, 2013

  Mali Meets Latin America: Remix EP

  Last year we reviewed Amadou & Mariam’s seventh studio album, Folila, and our feelings were a little mixed- we loved the sound, but we also couldn’t help ourselves from thinking that we heard it before. The album was chock full … Read more »

• 
  May 1, 2013

  Didjak Munya- “Oxygène”

  Didjak Munya, of Kinshasa, has been a widely respected member of the city’s Hip-Hop community for over 15 years. With Oxygène, his second solo album and first international release, Didjak acts as both performer and producer, and on the album, … Read more »

• 
  April 16, 2013

  Ghost Town

  The first time that DJ Spoko’s music got serious international attention, it wasn’t under his name. It was 2008, and DJ Mujava’s indelibly raw “Township Funk” was a trans-global revelation, a stripped down groove made out of the barest of … Read more »

• 
  April 10, 2013

  Jama Ko

  Bassekou Kouyate, the pre-eminent master of the humble West African spike lute—called ngoni in Mali—offers a grand summation of musical, personal, and even military history in his third CD with the group Ngoni Ba.  First, there have been some changes … Read more »