Showing Archived Posts

Malian Music Cancelled for 2013 Festival sur le Niger

Posted January 23rd, 2013 at 3:59 pm (UTC-4)
4 comments

As an update to my previous post on the projected fate of Mali’s 2013 music festivals, this quick news post is to let you all know that the Festival sur le Niger has officially cancelled all music programs. See here for the press release in English.    

Posted in Burkina Faso, Mali

Afropean Women Raise the Bar in Contemporary African Music

Posted November 26th, 2012 at 9:02 pm (UTC-4)
19 comments

One of the things I learned quickly when I started doing my Music Time in Africa radio show last April was that there always seems to be a shortage of good female artists. “How can this be?” I asked myself and colleagues in our English to Africa Division. I know from experience living on the […]

Hip Hop/Rap Reigns in Africa

Posted September 10th, 2012 at 5:58 pm (UTC-4)
13 comments

Something about hip hop/rap music is proving to be the most popular tool for African youths to organize and express collective resistance. Just last week, I wrote about the role of rap and hip hop music in Mali as a rising force of youth empowerment against perceived political injustice.  This week, news reports from Angola […]

Posted in Angola, Burkina Faso

Today’s Beat in Burkina Faso

Posted June 28th, 2012 at 2:45 pm (UTC-4)
5 comments

Since June 10th, I’ve been exploring contemporary music from Burkina Faso.  Vocalist/lyricist Mai Lingani is a dynamite artist and performer and I’ve been following her since 2005 when we performed together at Floyd Fest, an annual world music festival that takes place in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Central Virginia.  We performed together again in […]

Music from Burkina Faso

Posted January 7th, 2008 at 11:36 pm (UTC-4)
24 comments

Today I’m going to take you back to the 1960s (and early 1970s) with some great music from Burkina Faso.   Let’s start with L’Harmonie Voltaique, the group that was founded by Antoine Ouedraogo in 1948. They were the first group created to play ‘modern music’ in what was then the French West African colony […]

Posted in Burkina Faso

About

About

Heather Maxwell produces and hosts the award-winning radio program “Music Time in Africa” and is the African Music Editor for the Voice of America. Heather is an ethnomusicologist with Doctorate and Master’s degrees from Indiana University specializing in African Music. She is also an accomplished jazz and Afrojazz/Afrosoul vocalist and has been working, researching, and performing in Africa and the U.S. since 1987.

The Leo Sarkisian African Music Collection >>

Latest Selection

Sidebar Playlist

Listen to Archived Music from 2007-2013