Afropop Worldwide

[APWW PGM #725] globalFEST is New York's annual January multi-genre musical kickoff--12 bands on three stages in one wild night at Webster Hall. We hear highlights from the 2016 edition including new roots sounds from Haiti (Lakou Mizik), Colombian champeta (Tribu Baharu), suave Afro-jazz from Somi, Lebanese music maverick Simon Shaheen with his new ensemble Zafir, and lots more. The artists speak, but mostly, we give you a front-row seat for one of New York's most exciting musical happenings.

[APWW #226] [Originally broadcast in 1996] The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was an astounding explosion of African-American cultural innovation, producing art, literature, poetry, and of course, fantastic music. In honor of Black History month, we are encoring our tribute to this magnificent period. We’ll hear from stars like Mamie Smith, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, as we use their music to explore the often-fraught history of Manhattan’s heights.

#724 Produced by Ned Sublette air date 2/11/2016 In Africa, drums don't only play rhythms, they send messages. “Ancient Text Messages: Batá Drums in a Changing World” explores an endangered tradition of drum speech in Nigeria, and how that tradition changed and thrived in Cuba, where large numbers of enslaved Yoruba arrived in the 19th century. Producer Ned Sublette speaks with ethnomusicologist Amanda Villepastour, language technician Tunde Adegbola, and drummer Kenneth Schweitzer about how language and music overlap.

[APWW #632] [Originally aired in 2012] It’s Carnival week again! Which means party time in Trinidad, Haiti, Brazil, Louisiana and much of South America. Below, find links to sites about Carnival, stream it live and/or check it for the road-march contenders. Also be sure to check out past programming on Carnival.

#705 Africa in America: Ladies Edition uplink: 1/28/2016 APWW focuses on 3 remarkable women: Marie Daulne, founder of the genre-bending vocal group Zap Mama, collaborating with Antibalas, and we hear them live in concert. Madagascar-born Razia introduces her new tri-continental CD, Akory. And Somi tells her story from her days as a Midwestern girl with African ancestry, to her musical career in New York, to her adventurous 18-month stay in Lagos, Nigeria, and her new album, The Lagos Music Salon. These stories and more in a music-packed hour of Afro-femininity!

Music is a powerful means of expression in Jamaica--a platform for fierce commentary, and a bellwether for the social and political climate on the island. In Jamaica, when local newspapers, broadcast media and elected representatives don’t tell the whole story, you've got to listen to the music! With the help of scholars and artists like Max Romeo and King Jammy, this program delves into the way that Jamaican popular music has always sharply commented on partisan politics in Jamaica while also revealing that Jamaican politicians have often attempted to co-opt and subvert reggae’s liberating messages for their own purposes. Particular attention is paid to the turbulent Cold War era of the mid-1970s, when foreign influence led to what was basically an undeclared civil war and reggae’s popularity was at its highest. Produced by Saxon Baird and David Katz. {APWW #723}

[APWW #715] [Originally aired in 2015] Join us for a whirlwind tour to hear the hottest artists in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Kinshasa, Jo’burg and Cairo. We’ll check out the hits shaking the dance floors for today’s youth. And we’ll get the inside stories and scandals. Produced by Sean Barlow with assistance from Jesse Brent, Morgan Greenstreet, Ferida Jawad, Atane Ofiaja, Ben Richmond and Biranne Sahr.

[APWW #586] [Originally aired in 2010] This week, Afropop celebrates one of the true unsung heroes of African music: the bass. Join us as we slap, pop and thump our way across the African diaspora with our ears tuned to those fat sounds beneath the music and the funky men who make them. Our tour of the global low end will begin with an exploration of virtuosic bass wizardry in Cameroon. Then, we’ll go to Cuba to find out how bassist Israel “Cachao” Lopez invented mambo with the well-placed pluck of a finger. After that, we’ll stop by Detroit and hear how the innovations of funk bass playing got the whole world dancing. Special guests include Cameroon native Richard Bona, thought by some to be the best bassist alive today, and Bakithi Kumalo, one of Africa’s premier bassists and the man behind the groove on Paul Simon’s Graceland. Produced by Marlon Bishop.

[APWW #710] [Originally aired 6/11/2015] Join us on a freewheeling musical excursion. We start in Cape Town, South Africa listening to jazz, rock, and even classical music inspired by the city’s signature sound: goema. Veteran rocker and now-composer Mac McKenzie is our charismatic guide. Then on to Namibia where we meet one of the country’s most innovative and soulful singer/songwriter/bandleaders, Elemotho Galelekwe. We end in Cape Verde to hear old and new sounds from the first Portuguese settlement in Africa—from the vintage crooning of Ze Luis to the new sounds of cola-zouk.

World Sacred Music Festival In Fes #447 12/24/2015 The World Sacred Music festival in Fes, Morocco fully delivers on its promise of bringing together profound, spiritual music from around the globe. In one edition of the festival, Youssou N’Dour debuted his Egypt project, backed by an orchestra from Cairo; whirling dervishes from Turkey and qawwali singers Meher Ali and Sheher Ali from Pakistan revealed contrasting faces of Sufi music and dance; the Orchestra of Fes showcased Andalusian and Jewish traditions and the art of Arab maqam; and Sufi Nights showcased many varieties of Morocco’s rich Islamic folklore. This program brings you all that and more, including a behind-the-scenes glimpse of spiritual life in the medieval city of Fes.

Afro-Lisbon And The Lusophone Atlantic: Dancing Toward The Future - On this special Hip Deep edition, we take you on a journey to Lisbon, a city facing both the sea and 600 years of its own history. We’ll go to African club nights, hang out with obsessive record collectors, learn how to dance kizomba, and visit the projects that have produced a musical revolution. And through it all, we will try to answer a seemingly simple question: Just where did this music come from? Episode #722 Airdate: 12.17.2015

[APWW #509] [Originally aired in 2006] Once Puerto Ricans became U.S. citizens in 1917, El Barrio sprang up in New York. By the 1930s, they were the dominant Latin group in the city. Tito Puente, born on 110th St. in 1923, was the first important Latin star who was a native speaker of English. Puerto Ricans’ distinctive way of playing popular Cuban styles became, almost paradoxically, an expression of Puerto Rican national identity, even as traditional Puerto Rican bomba and plena became a familiar sound in New York, and as Ricans invented a unique jazz style. In the last few years, reggaetón has dominated Latin radio internationally. “Riqueza del Barrio” will explore Puerto Rico’s distinctive cultural identity as expressed through flavorful music. Produced by Hip Deep cofounder Ned Sublette, author of Cuba and Its Music, with guest scholar Juan Flores, author of From Bomba to Hip Hop.

[APWW PGM #721] Tuareg blues, Angelique Kidjo with a symphony orchestra, the return of Les Ambassadeurs and Kandia Kouyate of Mali. New sounds from Zambia and Nigeria, and classic ones from Senegal, Colombia, Zimbabwe, and the Dominican Republic. These are just a few of the musical highlights we'll hear on Afropop's annual roundup of the year's best music. Georges Collinet and Banning Eyre sit down for a lively whirlwind tour of another great year in music. Get out your notebook. There's sure to be a few holiday gift ideas for the music lovers in your life.

Hip Deep: Congo-Goma: Music, Conflict and NGOs Original Air-date: 11.26.2015 Show# 720 Produced by Morgan Greenstreet

#719 Inside The Nile Project Produced by Banning Eyre and Ian Coss Airdate: Nov 19th 2015 The Nile Project is an ambitious and imaginative attempt to bring about better stewardship of one of the world’s longest rivers by fostering collaboration among artists from the 11 countries the river traverses. It’s an endeavor that spans the Muslim north and the Christian south, as well as the diverse languages, cultures, and music styles in between. This program takes listeners inside the Nile Project's creative process, letting us hear how artists find common ground and create songs--from first encounters through rehearsal and refinement, all the way to the concert stage.

[APWW PGM #663] [Originally aired in 2013] "African Sounds of the Indian Subcontinent" In this Hip Deep program, Afropop explores musical connections between Africa and India. First up is the story of the Afro-Indian Sidi community. In the 13th century, Africans arrived in India as soldiers in the armies of Muslim conquerors. Some were able to rise through the ranks to become military leaders and even rulers. Their descendants continue to live in India today, performing African-influenced Sufi trance music at shrines to the Black Muslim saint named Baba Gor. Next, we dive into the swinging jazz era of 1930s Bombay, when African-American jazz musicians arrived by the dozen to perform at the glitzy Taj Mahal Hotel. They trained a generation of Indian jazz musicians who would become instrumental in the rise of India’s Hindi film music industry. Then we head south to the island of Sri Lanka, where Africans have had a presence for almost 500 years. We explore their history through the groovy Afro-Indo-Portuguese p

[APWW PGM #676] [Originally aired in 2013] Technology is one of the great drivers of musical change, and often one of its least understood. In this episode, we will explore the synthesizer, looking closely at the history of this ubiquitous (and often debated) piece of musical technology, and investigating how and why it was first used in a variety African musics. Enabled by groundbreaking reissues of synth pioneers like William Onyeabor (Nigeria) and Hailu Mergia (Ethiopia), disco stars like Kris Okotie, and South African bubblegum superstars like Brenda Fassie, we will take you back to the ’70s and ’80s, listening to the birth of a distinctly African electronic sound.

Producer Jake Hochberger brings us to the southernmost island in the Caribbean, Trinidad. Trinidad is the birthplace of the steel drum, calypso and soca music, and is home to the largest Carnival celebration in the world. Here we encounter the musical and philosophical movement called rapso--an infectiously danceable rhythmic oration style that comes with a philosophy championing a Trinidadian identity in the face of a colonial history and a globalized present. We meet three generations of artists, from the founding King of Rapso, Brother Resistance, to the emerging musicians behind the American hip-hop influenced trapso sound. Brother Resistance shares stories of how local rhythms and participation in Trinidad’s Black Power movement influenced him to define his music as the most recent manifestation of an ancient oral tradition, as passed down from the West African griot. Omari Ashby of Kindred, Wendell Manwarren of 3Canal, and Ataklan bring us into the Trinidadian cultural matrix, where speed-rapping Carniv

[APWW #718] It's our annual roundup of live recordings Afropop Worldwide has made in the past year. This program includes highlights from the 29th Nuits d'Afrique festival in Montreal including a performance by Cuba's Los Van Van. We'll also hear a selection from Angolan music pioneer Paulo Flores's U.S. debut at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City--rare sound, as this was Paulo's only appearance here so far (though certainly not his last). We'll also hear live sounds from Tal National of Niger recorded at Le Poisson Rouge: Put on your dancing shoes and crank it up! Produced by Banning Eyre and Jesse Brent.

Show number: 692 encore: Oct 22nd 2015 original airdate : 8/14/2014 North African music receives very little coverage in the United States. There are no high-profile mixes of recent Tunisian underground dance music from hip DJs, and no young Algerian musicians with major distribution deals in the U.S. So we decided to explore what exactly is going on today in this part of the world. We trace the origins of some of the region’s most interesting current music to the banlieues of Paris, like raï ’n’b--a new Autotuned and synth-heavy offshoot of raï. We also explore the Gnawa reggae movement, which finds common ground between Sufi trance and the message of Marley. Returning to familiar traditions, we present a live recording of Kabyle mandole player Hamid Ouchène from Montreal’s Nuits d’Afrique festival, backed by a group of Montreal-based musicians with origins throughout the African continent. We next turn to the North African metal scene that developed during Algeria’s civil conflict to meld Berber folk music