Tag: Afro Caribbean Music

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mariaa Siga Teams Up With ODDY on Hopeful “Boukanack”

Over the past handful of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering Senegalese singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay Mariaa Siga. 

Siga continues an ongoing collaboration with ODDY on the slow-burning and heartfelt “Boukanack,” which pairs a shuffling and twinkling reggae riddims, bursts of soulful and meditative horn with the Senegalese JOVM mainstay’s gorgeous and expressive delivery. “Boukanack” continues a run of material that blurs and transcends cultural and international boundaries while celebrating diversity in all forms. With “Boukanack” in particular, the song is anchored in a much-needed message of peace and hope for all humanity.

Directed by Mao Sidibé, the gorgeously shot accompanying visual for “Boukanack” is set in beautiful Senegal and offers a slice of daily life in that country; but perhaps more importantly, the video celebrates diversity — both within the country and outside.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Mariaa Siga and Oddy Team Up on Empathetic and Soulful “Immigration”

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you’d recall that I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering Senegalese-born and-based singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay Mariaa Siga. 

Siga recently collaborated with ODDY and Rascat on an effort that features five distinct versions of the Siga and ODDY co-written tune “Immigration.” Each version showcases distinct mixes and arrangements, including a dub interpretation by Oddy and Rascal, an intimate acoustic version and a Nyahbinghi/rasta drum version.

The Senegalese JOVM mainstay shares a dub version of “Immigration.” Anchored around a mournful horn line, a shuffling riddim and a rubbery, throbbing bass line, the song’s arrangement serves as a lush and soulful bed for Siga’s gorgeous and expressive vocal. The song is written from the perspective of the immigrant and the migrant — in particular, young Africans — who have been forced to leave their homelands for safety, for a better life or to live out big dreams and so on. But it’s written from a place of much-needed empathy with the understanding that close to one-billion humans across the world are picking up what’s left of their lives and are on the move right now.

The question will be how will those in the global north respond? So far, it’s been with selfishness, cruelty and recrimination. Shame on us.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Legendary Calypso Rose Teams up with Carlos Santana and The Garifuna Collective on “Watina”

Born Linda McCartha Monica Sandy-Lewis in Bethel Village, Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago to a religious, fisherman father and a stay-at-home mother, the legendary Calypso Rose first started writing her own songs when she was 13. In the 1960s, the Mother of Calypso emerged as the epitome of Caribbean music: Her first commercial successes included 1966’s “Fire In Me Wire,” which she performed with Bob Marley & The Wailers in New York the following year.

Throughout her lengthy almost 60-year music career, the Mother of Calypso has written more than 1,000 songs and recorded over the 20 songs — all while being the first major female calypso star. Her lyrics frequently tackle issues like racism and sexism: in fact, her towering influence on calypso forced the renaming of the Calypso King competition to the Calypso Monarch, which she won in 1978.

Since 2015’s Far From Home, which featured multiple collaborations with Manu Chao, Calypso Rose’s career has seen a resurgence — with booming attention internationally. She has been busy spreading calypso around the world, playing around 200 shows in a four year span including sets at Les Vielles Charrues, We Love Green, and WOMAD festivals, as well as Paris‘ Olympia Hall. In 2019, the calypso legend played at Coachella, becoming the oldest artist to ever play the festival.

Throughout her career, the calypso legend’s work is rooted in a remarkable and infectious optimism: While she continues to tackle issues like feminism, sexism, racism and the fight for a better, fairer world for individuals and for everyone, her work has always seen her bring up hedonistic subjects like partying, sex, the energy of youth and the like with a playful, knowing sense of wisdom and humor, which continues on her forthcoming album Forever, which is slated for a an August 26, 2022 release through Because Music.

Forever‘s material in particular conveys strong messages about the status of women in the various neighborhoods across the world she’s come to know well and love: Jamaica, Queens, NYC; her homeland of Trinidad and Tobago; Paris; and Belize. Each of these places have influenced and nourished her work — and in each, was where portions of the album were recorded. Unsurprisingly, the global spanning nature of its recording, allowed for so many difference influences on its overall sound: The material draws from across the Caribbean Diaspora, including rocksteady, soca, ska, mento — and of course, calypso.

The album sees the calypso legend presenting original material with a distinctly modern approach and revisiting some of her greatest classics. The end result is an album that attempts to speak to everyone — and to transcend all ages. Forever sees the Mother of Calypso collaborating with a diverse and eclectic cast of artists new and old throughout it’s 14 tracks, including Manu Chao, soca king Machel Montano, Jamaican dancehall icon Mr. Vegas, Toulouse, France-based emcee Oli, electronic duo Synapson and a lengthy list of others.

Forever‘s first single, the shuffling, genre-defying “Watina” which sees the Queen of Calypso collaborating with Belize’s The Garifuna Collective and the legendary Carlos Santana, who contributes some fiery and lysergic guitar licks effortlessly meshes dancehall, ska, soca and calypso in a crowd-pleasing, accessible and celebratory fashion — while telling a larger story of the ills of colonialism and slavery that’s familiar throughout the region.

With “Watina” in particular, Calypso Rose and company pay homage to the Garifuna, a Caribbean people scarred by slavery, excluded from history and memory but whose population is spread across the US, as well as the coasts of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Calypso Rose’s beloved Belize, which has been a part of her life in some fashion for over 40 years. “Watina” was originally a local hit for The Garifuna Collective, founded and led by Andy Palacio until his death in 2008.

Interestingly, “Watina” was produced by Calypso Rose’s longtime, Belizean-born producer Ivan Duran. Duran worked with Palacio and The Garifuna Collective and according to Duran, the legend was the only person, who could recapture the frenzy and impact of the song while respecting Palacio’s legacy.

By recording and re-imagining the song with many of the same casts of musicians sees the Trinidadian legend reaffirming her ties to Belize while continuing to exploit the dichotomy between the song’s upbeat, festive spirit and its social — and historical — message.

Directed by Andrés Arochi Tinajero, the gorgeously cinematic, accompanying video was shot in Hopkins Village, Belize. The video lovingly captures Black and Afro-Latino joy, dedication and love in a way that makes my heart sing — and is infectious.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Emerging Artist Mighty Koba Releases a Summery Club Banger

Mighty Koba is an emerging and somewhat mysterious Cameroonian-American singer/songwriter. His latest single “Whine Poko” sees the emerging artist seamlessly bridging multiple cultures and styles with a slick and breezy dance floor friendly production featuring elements of Afrobeat, Afropop, reggae, dancehall and soca paired with an infectious, razor sharp hook.

With the temperatures dropping a bit here in the Northeast as we push further into Fall, “Whine Poko” at the moment is simultaneously, a nostalgic blast of summer and the sort of song you want to wine down with that pretty young thing at the club.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Italian Percussionist Gabriele Poso Releases a French West Indies Inspired Banger

Gabriele Poso is an acclaimed Italian multi-instrumentalist, master percussionist, Worldwide FM presenter and director of the Yoruba Soul Orchestra. Poso’s musical passion has taken him around the world, Initially to Rome, then to Puerto Rico, Cuba and most recently, Berlin. Between 1998 and 2001. Poso delved deeply into the study of Afro-Cuban percussion — first at Rome’s Timba School of Music, under the guidance of Roberto “Mamey” Evangelista, one of the country’s most important representatives of Afro-Cuban culture and music. In late 2001, Poso relocated to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he attended the Universidad Interamerica de Puerto Rico and continued his studies, which culminated with a masterclass at Havana’s Escuela Nacional de Arte.

Poso’s solo debut 2008’s From The Genuine World was released through Osunlade’s Yoruba Records, which de supported with tours across Europe and elsewhere. His sophomore effort, 2012’s Roots of Soul was released through German label INFRACom! Poso’s third album, 2014’s Invocation was released through German label Agogo Records. 2018’s Awakening was released through British label Barely Breaking Even. 2019’s Batik was released through British label Soundway Records. Interestingly, each album found the Italian percussion looking east, across the Atlantic for inspiration and rhythms.

n October 1, 2021 release through Wonderwheel Recordings. Recorded in Leece, Italy, almost entirely by the Italian master percussionist, the stars of the show are drum and percussion. And much like its predecessors, the album’s material finds Poso continuing to look across the Atlantic for inspiration and rhythms — this time the French West Indies, in particular Guadeloupe and Martinique. “I’m in love with everything about the sound of their drums, it’s very unique warm and deep sound,” Poso explains.

“I put a lot of attention to the sound on this record, exploring new ways for me to record, through analog tape and different analog tools, such as analog delay,” Poso says of the forthcoming 10-song album. “That’s very much present in the whole album and gives a new direction to my sound with a psychedelic touch and a dancefloor attitude that is stronger than the previous album.”

“La Bola,” Tamburo Infinito’s second and latest single features a dancehall and soca friendly bass line, the sort of spaced-out reverb that the late, great Lee “Scratch” Perry would love, exultant horns drenched in reverb, and seemingly infinite layers of Afro Caribbean percussion. The end result is a euphoric, club banger that’s soulful and lovingly crafted.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Afro-Caribbean Sounds of Charlotte Adigéry

Charlotte Adigéry is an up-and-coming Belgian-Martiniquais singer/songwriter and her forthcoming David and Stephen Dewaele-produced EP Zandoli is centered around storytelling, her mother’s critical lesson of rhythm’s relationship to musicality, the importance of a sense of humor in a difficult work, and more important, her ancestors musical traditions. 

The EP’s opening track and latest single is the propulsive and trance-inducing “Patenipat,” a track built around thumping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and a chanted chorus “zandoli pa the ni pat,” a Creole mnemonic that translates into “the gecko didn’t have any legs.” (A zandoli is a commonly found lizard across the Caribbean that’s frequently found climbing the walls of homes across the region.) Interestingly, while based around contemporary electronic music production, the song draws from the Afro-Caribbean tradition, recalling rhythmic drum lines and dance routines  — with the participants moving towards a religious ecstasy.

Directed by Joaquim Bayle, the cinematically shot visuals draw from religious ceremonies with Adigéry and all of the participants driven by the propulsive rhythms of the song.