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.
Malian Music Cancelled for 2013 Festival sur le Niger
Posted January 23rd, 2013 at 3:59 pm (UTC-5)
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Afropean Women Raise the Bar in Contemporary African Music
Posted November 26th, 2012 at 9:02 pm (UTC-5)
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-5)
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 […]
Today’s Beat in Burkina Faso
Posted June 28th, 2012 at 2:45 pm (UTC-5)
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-5)
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 […]
