Afropop Worldwide

Fifty years ago, the president of Senegal’s nephew was putting together a band for his new, upscale Dakar nightclub, and he recruited a handful of musicians who are still together today. Bringing together elements from their homes across West Africa to the Afro-Cuban style of the time, the Orchestra Baobab became one of Dakar’s top bands. From the rough recordings made in Club Baobab, to their 21s...

The dembow, the beat behind reggaetón, is much more than just a backdrop for a night of partying and dancing. The style of music, widely associated with Puerto Rico and forged from a mixture of Jamaican dancehall, Panamanian reggae en español, and American hip hop, has always existed as a form of social and political resistance, and continues to do so in 2020. And as such, it has endured constant...

Flamenco as we know it was “born” in Spain in the mid-19th century. But for centuries before that, Roma (Gitanos, Gypsies) had been living in Spanish cities, often rubbing shoulders with the descendants of Africans (Moors), who had been there as both citizens and slaves going back to Medieval times and earlier. This overlooked pre-history of flamenco is explored in Miguel Angel Rosales’s groundbre...

The Kenyan capital is roaring into the 2020s. On this program singer/songwriter/producer Eric Wainaina introduces us to a rising cadre of artists rocking the Nairobi scene. From hip-hop and dancehall to r&b and Gengetone, the city’s cultural melting pot is coming to a boil at a time of political change when artists are finding their voices to speak out against government corruption and champion so...

Sia Tolno escaped war-torn Sierra Leone to become a popular singer in Guinea. As her career blossomed, she shifted to Afrobeat, with deep grooves and strong political messages. But festivals and her record company discouraged her new, big band direction, and she set out on her own. That’s when Sia met American guitarist/bandleader Aaron Feder, leader of Alma Afrobeat Ensemble out of Barcelona. Whe...

Known as Australia’s music and cultural capital, Melbourne is a hub of creativity boasting a diverse arts scene. The African community in Melbourne has been growing with Africans from all parts of the continent bringing their fashion, food and music to the city. In this episode we’ll explore African musicians and music curators who are making their mark in Melbourne. Expect to hear a blend of trad...

On March 6, 1971, a group of some of the top musicians from the United States – Ike & Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, The Staples Singers, Santana, and more – boarded a plane bound for Ghana to perform in a musical celebration that was dubbed the “Soul to Soul Festival”. Thousands of audience members filled Accra’s Black Star Square for a continuous 15 hours of music. The festival was planned in part...

Yamé is a French artist of Cameroonian descent who artfully merges R&B, hip-hop, and jazz in his music. On the strength of his breakout single “Bécane,” with a video shot in Cameroon, this young artist held firm at #1 on the Global Spotify Viral charts, accumulating over 68-million streams to date, and winning the attention of the producer Timbaland. Like Stromei before him, Yamé has made the unli...

They call Sam Mangwana "Le Pigeon Voyageur" - a roaming pigeon. He could also be called a rolling stone because wherever he lays his microphone is his home. In this episode, we behold the amazing return of rumba's living legend - Sam Mangwana. Produced by Georges Collinet. APWW #863

The Cumbia Diaspora: From Colombia to the World by Afropop Worldwide

When Zimbabwe’s dynamic roots band Mokoomba had a chance meeting with a house music producer and an American kamelengoni (Malian pentatonic harp) player, the sparks flew. A few weeks later, they all gathered for two days to write and record a song aimed at the lucrative Afro-House, DJ remix market. In this Zimbabwe-focused episode, we hear new mbira music from Mary Anibal and Othnell Mangoma Moyo,...

Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian musical giants have long enjoyed the spotlight, yet throughout Latin America there are other black enclaves producing some of the New World's most vibrant music. Their stories have gone untold for far too long. In this episode, Afropop explores these lost sounds, starting in an Ecuadorian desert valley where African and Andean traditions have mixed seamlessly into fie...

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Tsapiky is fierce, joyful, high-energy, electric-guitar driven dance music from southwest Madagascar. Producers Morgan Greenstreet and Boris Paillard went to Tuléar to record and interview today’s main female players in the tsapiky scene. The music is typically performed in “bal poussières” (dust balls, mandriampototse in malagasy) ) that can last from three days to a week—non stop! In this episod...

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New York City has long been a major incubator for Latin music with its large populations of Puerto Rican, Dominican, Panamanian, Cuban, and Colombian musicians and music fans. We celebrate some of the giants of New York’s Latin music scene—Ray Barretto, Larry Harlow, Jerry Gonzalez—as well as less well known artists. Topics include the cross-pollination between Latin music and jazz, the Panama con...

Planet Afropop - Afro Nation by Afropop Worldwide

In this Hip Deep program, we explore 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...

Yes, it’s the age of South African House, Afrobeats, Afro R&B and the likes, but roots music lives on in South Africa. This show updates the Zulu pop music known as maskanda, with a look back at its history and a survey of the current scene--rich musically, but troubled by fan rivalry that can lead to violence and even deaths. We’ll hear nimble ukapika guitar playing, heavy Zulu beats and bracing...

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 in this part of the world. We trace the origins of some of the region’s most interesting current music to the banli...

Bongo Nation: Tanzania's Music Economy by Afropop Worldwide

This program tells the story of generations of creative musicians from Benin who translate traditional, largely Vodun occult music into popular and experimental music. We hear traditional music styles including tchinkoumé, agbadja, and kakagbo, and explore how, starting in the 1970s, Sagbohan Danialou (a singer, drummer, guitarist and composer known as "l'homme orchestre," the one-man-band) and To...

New Orleans, Louisiana is home to some of America's greatest musical traditions, and plays an outsized influence on the evolution of everything from jazz through to r&b, rock and funk. Today, the city is still legendary for its second line brass bands and brightly costumed Mardi Gras Indians. But if you've rolled through New Orleans on pretty much any night in the last 30 years, you've probably he...

Foutanga Babani Sissoko, known also as Baba Sora, was one of the most generous patrons of Malian musicians, particularly griots, in modern times. His gifts of cash, gold, cars and houses are legendary, and the amount of music he inspired was voluminous. But the source of all those riches turned out to be dubious, to say the least. And when he died in March 2021, he had spent his latter years a poo...

The Abakuá society of Cuba conserves with remarkable orthodoxy language and rituals from the Ekpe society of West Africa. For The Cameroon-Cuba Connection, Dr. Ivor Miller shares with Georges Collinet and Ned Sublette his decades of research into the roots of Cuban Abakuá in Cameroon. Featuring ceremonial and pop music of southern and southwestern Cameroon, as well as Abakuá-themed music from Cuba...