Tag: Afropop

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Art Feynman is a Californian-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and from “Feeling Good About Feeling Good,” the first single off his full-length debut, Blast Off Through the Wicker, the Californian singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist specializes in a genre-defying sound that possesses elements of krautrock, Nigerian Highlife, Afrobeat, trippy psych rock fuzz and Graceland-era Paul Simon pop. And while recorded on four-track tape, Feynman maintained the track’s easy-going, motorik meets Afrobeat groove without he use of loops or drum machines, which points both to dexterous musicianship and careful attention to craft. But perhaps more important, this track may arguably be the funkiest and most unique songs I’ve come across this year.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Humanist and Globalist Pop Sounds of Daby Touré

Daby Touré is a Mauritanian-born, Paris-based singer/songwriter, who has had a lifelong love and obsession that began with listening to The Police, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson over the radio; however, he can trace the origins of his music career to when he taught himself the basics of guitar, while possessing an instinct that music was to be his life.

As a teenager, Touré relocated to Paris and his lifelong passion for music gradually drew him away from his studies in business; in fact, Touré began fully immersing himself in Paris’ jazz scene. And after several years of experimenting with his sound and songwriting, Touré met electronic music artist and producer Cyrille Dufay in 2003 — and the duo collaborated on Touré’s critically applauded breakthrough album Diam, an album that was signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records. Interestingly, as a result the Mauritanian-born, Paris-based singer/songwriter opened for Gabriel during the renowned British artist’s 2004 Growing Up World Tour, which allowed Touré to have a growing international profile — with the album being added to playlists across France and the UK.

In 2006, the Mauritanian-born, Paris-based singer/songwriter was nominated for Discovery of the Year in that year’s BBC World Music Awards and he released his sophomore effort, in which he collaborated with sound engineer Ben Finlay, who has worked with Peter Gabriel, Sting, Simply Red, Jeff Beck and Robert Plant; and mixer and engineer Tom Oliver, who has worked with Sinead O’Connor, U2, Seun Kuti, Tony Allen, Susheela Raman and Charlie Winston. The following year saw the release of his third full-length effort Stereo Spirit, an album praised internationally for material that possessed catchy hooks and singalong-worthy lyrics — while pushing his sound towards the genre-defying.

By 2009, Touré collaborated with bluesman Skip McDonald on the Call My Name EP, an effort that Sing Out! described as being “neither African nor blues, but instead pulls from both and also from rock, a touch of pop and even dub for a unique, appealing and — its as to be said — quite commercial sound. The two voices and styles complement each other perfectly, and the songs they’ve created – for they seem more like creations than compositions – summon up echoes of their histories, but end up in a hybrid that’s essentially completely new.” With the success of his collaboration with McDonald, Touré has collaborated with an increasing number of internationally recognized artists including French pop artists Francis Cabrel and Maxime Le Forestier on Touré’s 2012 French language effort Lang(u)age — and he’s performed alongside Bob Geldof, Rihanna and Enzo Avitabile, among others.

As Touré explains in press notes “I was born in Africa And all the traditional music I picked up when I was young is still in me and that doesn’t change. But in my music I am still searching, and mixing, and trying things and that’s what I am doing now. I have travelled far from the ‘traditional’ or ‘folkloric’ music of my country.” In fact, over the past few years, the Mauritanian-born, French-based singer/songwriter has increasingly has merged the linguistic sounds of the six languages he speaks while moving towards a more globalized and universal sound — all while maintaining the accessibility that won him international attention.

Although his most recent effort was 2015’s Amonafi, which was released through renowned indie label Cumbancha Records, the internationally renowned singer/songwriter will be in town for two sets at Subrosa on Thursday night and to celebrate the occasion, released the music video for album single “Oma.” Sonically “Oma” is a breezy pop song that owes a debt to dub and reggae as much as it does to traditional African folk music in a seamless fashion and with an infectious, crowd-pleasing hook Throughout, Touré sings in several different languages — including English for part of the song’s hook, which gives the song a jet-setting, globalist universality. And yet, the song draws from a personal experience. As Touré explains of the song “One day as I was walking down the street, I passed a woman and her children. She was alone, sitting on the ground, and asking for charity and nobody seemed to care. This woman spoke to me that day. She inspired this song. Oma is this mother’s cry.”

The recently released music video for the song is a fairly straightforward take on the song, that follows after the song’s thematic concern with the video having Touré encountering a homeless woman and her child, and Touré approaching this woman and her child for a friendly and empathetic conversation that influences his song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Massama Dogo (lead vocals, guitar), Clayton Englar (sax), Megan Nortrup (sax), Scott Aronson (bass), Franck Martins (lead guitar). and Aaron Gibian (percussion and drums), the Washington, DC-based sextet Elikeh has developed a reputation for material that sonically has been classified as Afropop, as it draws influence from Western Africa — frequently meshing traditional Togolese rhythms with rock, funk, jazz with lyrics that deal with global themes and personal journeys.

Dogo, the band’s leader was born in Togo and while in the African nation, he played and sang in several local bands, including a local band also named Elikeh, with whom he released one album, Nyade in 2007. Several years later, Dogo relocated to Washington, DC met the current lineup and then wrote, recorded and released their 2010 Stateside debut, Adje! Adje! The sextet’s 2012 release Between 2 Worlds featured renowned Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Toure and Further and Dark Star Orchestra‘s John Kadlecik received international attention in World Music circles.

As the story goes, the band was considering calling it quits, finishing out the songs they had booked and moving on to other creative endeavors. During a band meeting in which the members of the band were going to discuss their future and splitting up, the band’s guitarist Frank Martins kept playing the entire time. He came up with a musical idea, someone else would join in, another band member would join in and then everyone began jamming — until they developed a song. One of the sax players had recorded the jam session and while listening to that session, the members of the band realized that their break up talk was premature. “We’re all excited about the band now,” Dogo mentioned in press notes. “It’s lucky the guitarist didn’t want to put down his instrument. The EP saved us.”

 That jam session inspired “The Conversation,” which appears on the Washington, DC-based sextet’s recently released Kondona, an EP that gets it title from ” a ceremony they hold every five years in the northern part of my country,” Dogo explains. “It’s an initiation, a way to welcome the young men into the adult part of the community. It seemed right for what had happened to us, although we still have a long way to go.”
The EP’s first single the aforementioned “The Conversation” manages to possess clear elements of Afrobeat and sounds partially influenced by Fela Kuti (in particular Afrodesiac/Open and Close and Expensive Shit/He Miss Road-era Fela) and contemporary American Afrobeat bands, including fellow DC area band The Funk Ark, NYC’s Ikebe Shakedown and others,

as the song begins with an introductory section with soaring organ chords throughout  before establishing the tight, percussive groove that holds the entire song together, and allows for each section and each instrumentalist to show off their immense chops — and conversing with each other throughout the length of the song. Of course, each region of the world specializes in subtle variations of the genre so that Togolese Afrobeat won’t be exactly the same as American Afrobeat or Nigerian Afrobeat — and in the case of Elikeh, the band’s sound possesses subtle elements of highlife, the genre that influenced Fela, thanks to its upbeat feel. But interestingly enough there’s subtle elements of pop and other African traditional sounds, which helps to set them apart from a very crowded DC Afrobeat scene. And yet somehow, from listening to this single it’s surprising to me that they’re not much larger than what they currently are; hopefully, the blogosphere can get it right.