In its new production of La Bohème, South African company Isango Ensemble re-imagines Puccini’s Paris in Cape Town, and brings it to Hackney. Does it work? Continue reading Love, death and money. La Bohème / Abanxaxhi
Archive for the Africa/Middle East: Features Category
In the hot glove of a sticky East African night, the last act of the annual Sauti za Busara festival takes place. ‘Local’ outfit FM Academia – with over twenty members in the band – are rocking the open-air venue (an old walled fort in the centre of Zanzibar Town) with their unique ‘muziki da dansa’ rumba style, when, suddenly, on stage come literally dozens of the festival’s crew. The now over-crowded hugely enthusiastic stage dances out the last number of the 2012 event. Mark Stewart reports… Continue reading Busara Festival to leave its Zanzibar home?
Fatoumata Diawara by Youri Lenquette
Fatou is set to be the next sensation from Mali, a country embarrassingly rich in musical talent. She has a sound like no other and an easy charm that wins over audiences immediately. On the eve of the release of her debut album, due out on World Circuit, Fly wanted to find out what makes her tick Continue reading Fatoumata Diawara – Malian pathbreaker
Check it out live
We spoke to Amira Kheir about life, origins, destinations and love. Her debut album View from Somewhere is a stunning set infused with many influences but anchored in the sounds and identity of her parents’ homeland Sudan.
Continue reading Amira Kheir – Music between the spaces and places
‘The Malian Hip Hop prodigy honouring the African youth’ profiled by his international manager and one of his biggest fans Marie-Agnes Beau Continue reading Amkoullel – The Fula Child
Late at night in Salif Keita’s studio in Bamako a cellist and a kora player recorded their jams. Vincent Segal (cellist) tells us what lay behind his collaboration with Ballaké Sissoko
Idir, a musical superstar hailing from Algeria is credited as being one of forces behind the surge of urban ra?Ø music. Moroccan Chaabi singer Najat Aatabou has changed the face of Moroccan music with her powerful lyrics and compositions in both French and English. We caught up with both artists recently to speak about their trip to America
Continue reading A Night in the Maghreb – Idir and Najat Aatabou at Lincoln Center
Veteran German pianist Joachim K?ºhn is not the first free-jazz artist to look to North Africa for inspiration — sax legend Archie Shepp recorded with Algerian and Tuareg musicians at the Pan African Festival — but to find such an electric collaboration between two such distinct musical worlds is exciting
Continue reading Joachim Kuhn/Majid Bekkas/Ramon Lopez – Out of the Desert
The tragic loss of Edwin Dyer’s life has shone a wholly unwanted light on the northern, desert region of Mali. It’s an area known to music fans for great bands like Tinariwen and amazing festivals like the Festival au Desert. We asked Tinariwen’s manager and regular visitor to the region to respond to the dreadful news of British tourist Edwin Dyer’s execution
Mauricio Pacheco’s passion for Angolan music has flowered into a wonderful album of reinterpretations of classic Angolan tunes by the cutting edge of Brazil’s underground scene
Continue reading Comfusoes – from Angola to Brasil with Producer Mauricio Pacheco
Taking that electro, hip-hop B-more thing a stage further, welcome to the Afrobotic.
Go anywhere in Mali and people will fall over themselves to tell you how great Habib Koite is. Whether on guitar, flute, vocals or one of the seemingly hundreds of other instruments he plays, he is a musician to the core. He has the charisma to match so why is it so few people outside Mali know his name?
Continue reading Habib Koite – The Greatest Malian Musician You Don’t Know
On stage he’s a wild torrent of punk energy channelled into an eclectic musical output. In person, he locks eyes with you and declares in his accented English, “you are my brother.” Rachid Taha is a self-confessed hippy punk rocker with a big heart
Israel’s premiere soul collective are representing soulful music, regardless of genre
Continue reading United People of Zion – The Middle East Beats Process
