We are at stop 3 of our 55 country musical tour of Africa. Today we are in the West African country of Benin, formerly known as Dahomey - as was I when I used to hang out with da youths.
There can be no dispute that Angélique Kidjo is Benin's biggest musical export so it is only right that we start with her. This track is from her 1991 album "Logozo", which was the first time she starting attracting international attention.
As good as Ms Kidjo is, for me Benin's best has to be Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, one of the funkiest bands ever to strut their stuff. They were originally around from 1969 to 1989, but reformed in 2010 after a series of reissues on the Analog Africa label found them a new audience. I was lucky enough to see them live in 2017 and, to quote Lenny Zakatek of Gonzalez, I haven't stopped dancing yet.
The late 1960s and 1970s were a bit of a vintage period for Beninese bands. As well as the Poly-Rythmo boys you could wig out to the likes of Orchestre Super Borgou de Parakou, Gnossas Pedro et Ses Dadjés and today's third selection, El Rego et Ses Commandos.
The last two tracks bring us more up to date. First we have Togbe Adjos who, according to the blurb, "combines ancient West African Vodun percussion with modern global influences". This tune is from his 2020 album "Maman Tchamba", available on Bandcamp for the bargain price of €5. Then we round things off with some Mandatory African Reggae courtesy of Yaya Yaovi. If ever a name was designed to be chanted at football matches it is his.
A month or so back I picked up "Tchink Attack", the 1995 CD by one Stan Tohon from Benin. According to the sleeve notes, Stan is "the creator and auto-proclaimed king" of tchink, a style which is "based upon the meeting of traditional rhythms - tchinkoume - played on water percussions (gotta, sihoun etc) and western electric instruments".
It would appear from the photo on the back cover that Stan also has a vibrant stage show, which involves him man-handling midgets.
I rather presumptuously thought that I might be the first to bring Stan's work to the interweb, but reckoned without the redoubtable Oro and his/her blog. Oro is based in Porto Novo in Benin and specialises in music from that country, with regular trips to elsewhere in West Africa. Earlier this week Oro featured Stan's 1984 album, "Le Roi Du Tchink System", which is well worth a listen. As is everything else that Oro posts.
So, coming in a distant second, here are a couple of tracks from "Tchink Attack".
And here is a clip of Stan miming to his hit single "Asheo". It is quite sedate until an enormous arse suddenly appears out of nowhere after 38 seconds.
Big in Benin, and Particularly Prominent in Parakou. Some vintage African funky jumpy stuff to get you into gear on a Sunday morning, courtesy of Orchestre Super Borgou de Parakou.
The bandwagon rolls on and we reach Niger, a country that has had its ups and downs since gaining its independence from France in 1960. In February 2021 it saw its first peaceful transition of power. Those hoping this would prove a defining moment were quickly disappointed when there was an attempted military coup a month later. That was thwarted but another one in July 2023 was not. The country is currently under its fifth period of military rule.
There is happier news on the cultural front though, as the wider world has started to wake up to the rich musical scene in Niger. This is partly down to the recent success of Mdou Moctar - who featured in our side trip to Length Land earlier in the week - and to the pioneering efforts of labels such as Sahel Sounds.
If you like Mr Moctar and today's selection then I can recommend many other Nigerien artists you may want to check out - Atri N'Assouf,Etran Finatawa, Bombino, Tal National and Toumast to mention just some.
We are going to kick things off with the man who has been described as the godfather of modern Tuareg music in Niger and been cited by Mdou Moctar as his primary influence, Abdallah Oumbadougou. Hailing from the Tuareg capital of Agadez, he was one of the many musicians in Niger and Mali who went into exile because of their involvement in the fight for self-determination.
Today's selection comes from his first studio album "Anou Malane", which was recorded in Benin in 1995 and reissued by Sahel Sounds in 2019. It is a great starting point from which to explore Tuareg guitar music. Sadly Mr Oumbadougou passed in 2020 but he has left a huge legacy.
From "Tenere" to Dag Tenere, who are old friends of the blog. Formed by ex Etran Finatawa guitarist Goumar Abdoul Jamil, they released their first record under the name Timasniwen in 2018. When we featured the album here they got in touch, and then did so again in 2021 to let me know that the were releasing a new album under the new name. This track comes from the second album "Iswat" but both albums are great and available at their Bandcamp site.
Another personal favourite of mine are Kel Assouf. Very much from the heavier end of the Tuareg guitar scene, some parts of their 2019 album "Black Tenere" could pass for Black Sabbath. I was lucky enough to see them live in Brussels in 2016 and they blew me and everyone else away. Their front man Anana Ag Haroun - that's him in my photo below - is a very charismatic dude.
Aroudaini Ismaguil is yet another experienced Tuareg musician who has performed with many artists over the last thirty years or so including Koudade and Etran Finatawa (but hasn't everyone?). He finally released his first solo record in 2020. It is called "Amidinin" and you can find it on Bandcamp. Today's track is "Kayyu Teglegh" which is dedicated to the memory of Ghala Addaba, his best friend and first musical partner.
We'll take a trip over to the distaff side now, which is where we find the mighty Les Filles de Illighadad, another band for whom we must give thanks to Sahel Sounds. Hailing from the remote village from which they take their name, Les Filles take the Tuareg guitar sound and apply it to their local traditional music known as 'tende'. The result is something rather wonderful.
You can find all their albums on their Bandcamp site. Today's selection comes from their 2021 live album "At Pioneer Works". Listen to them winning over Brooklyn's beard-stroking hard-bitten hipsters and you will be won over too.
And finally, some MAR. In the early 1990s Salim Jah Peter moved from Niger to Cote d'Ivoire where he sang with a group called Mystic Vibration which gave him an opportunity to hang out with MAR giants like Alpha Blondy and Tiken Jah Fakoly.
A solo artist since 2003, he has not always been appreciated at home by the powers that be. 2008 single "La Paix Au Niger" (see below) and the subsequent album "Hold-Up De Pouvoir" led to him being banned from entering Niger until the fourth period of military rule ended a year later.
We are onto the 39th leg of the grand tour and it is one of the big ones - Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa and sixth most populous in the world.
It occupies a similar position in my record collection, with South Africa being the only country on the continent from which I have more music. Even after getting Fela Kuti out of the way last month and leaving out personal favourites who have popped up here frequently over the years like Orlando Julius and Sir Vixtor Uwaifo I still found myself left with a 'shortlist' of 80 tracks for this post, each by a different artist.
After several days writing and rewriting the perfect selection to the point where it was adversely affecting my work and personal hygiene I decided just to pick ten and get on with it. This is it. They are all top notch tracks in my opinion but with one exception, maybe two, it would probably be a completely different list if I did this again tomorrow.
The two exceptions are both African standards that were very popular well beyond the borders of Nigeria. The first of them is "Papa's Land" by Sonny Okosun.
While many countries were independent by the time it was released in 1977 the song really resonated down in the south where the Portuguese had only recently left Angola and Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe were still officially South West Africa and Rhodesia respectively and the end of apartheid in South Africa was a long way off.
There is another version of the song from 1980 made with Eddy Grant at the controls that has featured here before. That is excellent in its own right but you can't beat the original.
The second standard is "Sawale" by self-anointed Cardinal Rex Lawson. I don't think I am giving away any secrets when I say the tune is nicked from the old Cuban classic "El Manisero", which separately reappeared in the US as "The Peanut Vendor" and in the UK in old adverts for Golden Wonder peanuts. So we will dedicate this to a Portuguese peanut farmer of our acquaintance.
"Sawale" has in turn been adapted and adopted many times by various African musicians since it was first a hit in the late 1960s. If you go back to the Ethiopian leg of the journey you'll find it in the videos there, and Flavour's remade and renamed 2011 hit version kicks off today's visual stimulation.
Having dawdled at length over the first two tracks I am going to rattle through the other eight otherwise we will all have fallen asleep before we get to the music. We kick off with Bola Johnson who, like Cardinal Rex, was big back in the high-life era, although he later became better known as a journalist and radio personality. This track from 1973 is on a compilation of his work called "Man No Die".
The early 1970s was also when the local mutant Afro-rock scene started to emerge, and Soundway Records excellent 2008 "Nigeria Rock Special" compilation picks out many of the highlights. I have gone with Tabukah 'X' about whom I can tell you nothing at all apart from the date of the track (1975). Soundway seem to have stopped selling the album but it is available through some other outlets.
We skip forward to the early 1980s for the next few selections. First up is trombonist and singer Fred Fisher Atalobhor with a song originally released on his 1981 album "No Way" but now more easily found on his "African Carnival" compilation. Next is Akaba Man from Benin City, one of the pioneers of what was known locally as Edo funk. You can find several of his tunes on "Edo Funk Explosion Vol. 1" along with the great Sir Victor Uwaifo and others.
Julie Coker's career was sort of the reverse of Bola Johnson's. Nigeria's first ever TV presenter, she was already a star of the small screen by the time she decided to turn her hand to music in the mid 1970s. "A Life In The Limelight" brings together some of her best bits, including this disco smash from 1981.
I am sure the gossipers and scandalmongers Julie rightly castigates do not include any Igbo lady socialites as they are all paragons. If they were not why would Onyeoma Tochukwu Nnamani pay them such fulsome tribute. I can tell you no more about Mr Nnamani other than that this is from his 2019 album "Nnamdi Kanu Nno Ije". I found it on EMusic but if you are not a subscriber the tax dodgers seem to be your best bet.
For our penultimate tune we pop back briefly to the 1980s to catch up with juju giant Sir Shina Peters. This track comes from his 1986 album "Sewele". And we round things off, as we always do, with the Mandatory African Reggae slot. It comes courtesy of the late great Ras Kimono and I have selected the title track from his 1994 album "Lone Ranger".
Our journey through Africa is taking a slight detour today to visit a country we inadvertently drove straight past - Sierra Leone.
We should have gone there directly from the Seychelles but I foolishly deleted my list of Sierra Leonean artists from the document I have been using to plan posts and by the time I noticed we were already in South Africa. Many apologies to all concerned. Better late than never, we have now arrived and I hope you will agree it was worth the wait.
We'll start in the 1970s, an era when big bands and orchestras bossed the scene all over West Africa. We have featured some of them on our earlier visits to the likes of Benin and Senegal so it seems only right that we should do the same in Sierra Leone.
The band in question is the mighty Afro National. If you buy only one greatest hits album by a Sierra Leonean band from the 1970s this week make it their "African Experimentals (1972-1979)". It includes today's track, first released in 1972 on their self-titled debut album.
One of Afro National's friendly local rivals back in the day was Muyei Power aka Orchestre Muyei. A popular live act across the region, they made very few recordings before splitting up in 1979. But somehow in 2014 Soundway Records managed to track down some sessions that the band had done while touring in California in 1976 and released them as "Sierra Leone in 1970s USA".
Next we turn to the man considered by many to be the king of palm wine music, the late great S.E. Rogie. Palm wine evolved in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the first half of the last century when local musicians fused traditional melodies with calypso rhythms learnt from visiting sailors, becoming popular in the 1950s and in turn being an influence on the development of highlife music.
Mr Rogie started recording locally in the 1960s and later in life lived first in San Francisco and then London. It was during this period that he really started getting recognised beyond Sieera Leone and neighbouring countries. This track comes from his 1991 album "The New Sounds of S. E. Rogie", recorded three years before his death. That particular album is not on Bandcamp but you can find his final album and two volumes of his 1960s recordings there.
From palm wine we move to bubu, the traditional music of the Temne people from northern Sierra Leone. Janka Nabay took it on himself to modernise the sound, and after emigrating to the US in the early 2000s to escape the civil war released a number of albums on Luaka Bop and other labels before sadly passing away in 2018. Today's selection comes from 2012's "En Yay Sah".
You often hear tales of musicians overcoming hardships before achieving success, but few have had to ensure quite as many as Sorie Kondi, as his biography explains. A blind street musician, a chance encounter with an American recording engineer gave him the chance to have his music heard by a wider audience, a chance he grabbed with both hands. This track is from his 2013 album "Thogolobea". You can also find some more recent recordings (as The Kondi Band) on Bandcamp.
Remember what I was saying about Sorie Kondi facing more hardship than most? Well since typing that I have learnt that Mash P, the man occupying the MAR slot in this post, was not just a street youth but a child soldier in the civil war. This possibly tops Mr Kondi. Either way, Mash P's experiences certainly entitle him to ask "Mr President, Wat Ar Gwan?" (featured below and the title track of his 2016 album).
I cannot confirm whether the P stands for potatoes.
After a few weeks with no live music I went to a couple a gigs last week that could be described as 'interesting and varied'.
On Bank Holiday Monday Mister F and I ambled over to the Sebright Arms in Hackney to see three bands for £4.50 (two pounds less than a pint of their distinctly average beer - one of two is a bargain). We were there specifically to see the band that was bottom of the bill, Tamesis.
Tamesis are an old-fashioned folk-rock band in the style of Trembling Bells and (for older readers) Trees, with a great singer in Maisie Ashford and some fine guitar work from Joseph Jones. Nothing wildly original but if you like that sort of thing you will like them a lot. I know I do.
I'll skip over the second band as my sainted mother taught me that if you can't say anything nice it is better to say nothing at all, so we'll head straight to the top of the bill. This was Last Apollo (a.k.a. Lucy Rice), an Irish indie singer-songwriter. Not my sort of thing really but she is a strong and very personable performer.
After a rest to recover from all the excitement I headed south of the river to Peckham on Thursday for a memorable double bill.
First up were Ichigo Evil. Impossible to describe but if you head over to Charity Chic's place and listen to "A Fish Needs A Bike" by Blurt and then imagine that sung by a Japanese man who seems to have based his vocal style on Eek-A-Mouse you will have the general idea. They were very entertaining live but probably not the sort of thing I'll listen to a lot at home.
Really though we were all there for the headline act, the great Cabo Verde funaná band Grupo Pilon. Originally formed in Luxembourg in the mid-1980s they remain popular with the Cabo-verdiano diaspora across Europe and have started performing regularly again in recent years. This was apparently their first ever gig in the UK which might explain why the large group of ladies of a certain age next to me were getting very overexcited.
They played a great set and were decidedly funky all the way through. The keyboard player was definitely the man of the match. He cajoled the keyboards into making some extraordinary sounds, from cheap horror film soundtrack to muffled farts, but made them all work with the groove.
Here is a track from each of the acts mentioned above. You can find all of them on Bandcamp if you want to hear more (and why wouldn't you?).
As a bonus on Thursday we were treated to a very good DJ set by Ian Parton of The Go! Team between the bands. So here are some videos from the Team to finish things off, the first featuring Benin's fabulous Star Feminine Band.
I was on the Eurostar coming back from Paris earlier this evening, laden down with newly acquired CDs from Mali, Guinea, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire and Benin, which you will no doubt be subjected to soon enough. It was about 8.50pm local time and this came up on the iPod shuffle (no it did, it really did). Spooky!
Here in the UK we are facing yet another election and some pretty unappetising choices. We could do with some wise advice. Who better to provide it than Adviser Nowamagbe?
I don't know much about the Adviser apart from the fact he comes from Benin City in Nigeria and has released copious numbers of albums with titles such as "Vote Out Buhari Now!", "Mr Subsidy, Are You From Niger Delta?", "Political Nonentities", and - helpfully for us - "Another Election, Masses Know Your Way". "Emwen" comes from that album.
Linguists among you might also be interested to know that his lyrics have been used to form the basis of an academic treatise on the Edo language. It controversially asserts that "contrary to earlier claims, Edo is not solely an agglutinating language". No doubt that will provoke an avalanche of comments, please try to keep them polite.
After kicking our Grand Tour off in Algeria last week we got in the van, hit the Trans-Saharan Highway heading south, and roughly 5000 miles and a couple of ferry crossings later rocked up in Angola.
Not surprisingly, we are now a bit knackered. So it would have been very easy just to play five tracks from 'Angola Saudade 60-70', a magnificent 4 CD box set I picked up in Aviero in Portugal a few years back. I believe George knows the record shop.
But that is not in the spirit of this particular adventure so you are only getting two, starting off with a classic garage band racket courtesy of Noombe Jazz. I think I may have featured this before but you can't have too much of a good thing. Dig that screaming!
The Dikanza Do Prenda merengue tune that follows leads nicely into the Irmãos Almeida (Almeida Brothers) track. The brothers Moniz and Beto de Almeida originally had solo careers but teamed up in the mid 1990s and achieved much greater success. Beto sadly died ten years ago but Moniz is still going as far as I can tell.
Kuduro is an Angolan dance music that became very popular in the 2000s and early 2010s catching on throughout the Lusophone world. There was even a film made about the scene and a few hip types like M.I.A jumped on the bandwagon. It is not really my cup of kissângua but I felt I should include an example as it is possibly Angola's only notable musical export. So that's where Queima Bilha fits in.
We finish up with some MAR (Mandatory African Reggae) courtesy of Pitshú, an Angolan singer now living and working in Brazil. This is from his 2013 album 'Pitshú: 2', available on Bandcamp for a mere $7. It's a bargain.
This will be my last post for a couple of weeks. I am heading off to South Africa this afternoon for a major Goggins family event and a bit of a holiday. Obviously I hope to dig out some more Tsonga Disco while I am there.
To tide you over, we are opening the vaults (there was a sort of clue in the title, I suppose). The link below takes you through to all 100+ Tsonga tracks that we have posted here since the blog started a couple of years ago. So for all you fans of Peta Teanet, Paul Ndlovu, Penny Penny, Joe Shirimani, General Muzka and the rest of the gang - fill your boots!
I realise Cannonball Adderley himself is not an African, but the song is by the great South African composer, singer, jazzman and all round top dude, Caiphus Semenya. I will have to do a special on him when I get back but in the meantime, here he is in concert with his missus, Letta Mbulu.
And we finish off with the traditional "Ernie's off on his hols" clip. Have fun, see you in a couple of weeks.
You lot are in for a treat. While in Paris at the weekend I strolled from Marcadet Poissoniers Metro to Boulevard Saint Martin, visiting about ten shops selling CDs from Francophone Africa along the way. I have come back with a bumper bag of goodies.
I try to stock up on Congolese music when I go to Brussels, so this trip I mainly concentrated on West Africa. I have picked up stuff from Senegal, Guinea, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, Gambia and Guinea Bissau, along with a few random selections. Artists include some old friends like Nahawa Doumbia and Fode Baro, but most of the names are new to me.
It is going to take me a while to sort through everything but I am sure we have some lovely surprises in store. To tide you over, here is something else from the same neck of the woods - a couple of tracks from an excellent compilation called "Legends of Benin", released last year on Analog Africa.
In the absence of any El Rego clips on YouTube, let's go for something about as different as it is possible to get - a German Schlager version of Sir Douglas Quintet's "Mendocino" performed by a man in a dreadful checked jacket:
I had an excellent evening yesterday, being entertained by the artistes formerly known as Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou (now rebranded as Le Tout-Puissant Orchestre Poly-Rythmo).
There were ten of them on stage, and judging by their ages I would guess about half of them were from the original 1970s line-up and the rest were recruited when they reformed in 2009. The infusion of relatively new blood has certainly paid off, as they were decidedly sprightly and funky.
The lads are touring to promote their new album, "Madjafalao". They played most of it last night and, judging by their performance, it is well worth getting hold of. Until you do, though, here are a couple of old favourites to tide you over.
"Se Tche We Djo Mon" - Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou "Zizi" - Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou
Links stay up for a month or so. If you are an artist or copyright holder and want me to remove the link, or if you want to get in touch for any other reason, e-mail me on leggies27@hotmail.co.uk.
I rather presumptuously thought that I might be the first to bring Stan's work to the interweb, but reckoned without the redoubtable Oro and his/her blog. Oro is based in Porto Novo in Benin and specialises in music from that country, with regular trips to elsewhere in West Africa. Earlier this week Oro featured Stan's 1984 album, "
