Aug
1
2020
David Byrne Presents: The World’s Inspiration- Africa
By Todomundo
This month's playlist is African pop music from recent decades. Some familiar names like the classics from Fela and King Sunny Adé, William Onyeabor, many many more are not included. There are plenty of others- some well known and some not so much. Some thoughts came to me as I was putting this playlist together.
African artists are part of mainstream north american pop music now- Wizkid does collaborations with Drake and many others. Keleketla! works with a whole raft of DJs, and the Sault project with Michael Kiwanuka turns a mix tape into a true dramatic work of art.
Africa is big and diverse- to group songs from the whole continent together is insane - it would be like a playlist that includes Bluegrass, Hip hop, EDM, metal, ambient and gospel.
The other thought is how much we, the world, owe to African music- wind the clock back 200 years- did anything sound remotely like it does now? To a large extent the way the worlds pop music sounds and is organized can be traced back to Africa. The colonials did incredible harm and damage, but in the process their minds and bodies were colonized.
enjoy
Aug
1
2020
David Byrne Presents: The World’s Inspiration- Africa
By Todomundo