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Thursday 2 September 2021

The Pride Of Port Louis

We had our first ever visitor from Mauritius last week, so to mark the occasion here are a couple of tracks from "Soul Sok Séga", a compilation of 1970s Mauritian music that came out on Strut Records a few years ago. It is still available on Bandcamp in various formats, and no doubt elsewhere too.

To quote from the marketing blurb: "Séga is the traditional music of Mauritius and is known as the blues of the Indian Ocean. Though initially marginalised, by the mid-1960s séga music had become a symbol of national pride and identity for Mauritius. With the advent of electric instruments, the influx of funk, soul and jazz from the West and the growth of LPs, séga went commercial. Dancefloors started grooving to a more soulful, funky séga beat".

"Soul Sok Séga" - Ti L'Afrique

"Z'Enfant Misère" - John Kenneth Nelson

 

Of course, the trend of once scorned music becoming both popular and progressively more funky during the 1970s was not limited to Mauritius. 

PS In other exciting news, since preparing this post we've had our first ever visitor from South Sudan. I'm on the case. 

3 comments:

  1. Erni Goggins - international superstar. Nowhere is out of bounds

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    Replies
    1. Coming from a much revered polymath that means a lot.

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  2. I'm not sure which of us is the more obesssed with these Osmond videos. Those Osmond brothers, they certainly put a lot of work into the videos. Rather sadly, it's that video I lsitened to first, now it's time for the first two tracks you posted.

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