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In France, where African emigrés energize the most enthusiastic and
affluent Afropop audience in the world, the plummy, plangent voice
of 27-year-old Malian Oumou Sangare has been a sensation for most
of this decade. And in her Islamic homeland, this impassioned
opponent of polygamy and arranged marriage is so popular that
politicians pay lip service to her newfangled feminist ideas.
Onstage, Sangare's complex charisma is totally convincing--simultaneously
regal and outgoing, sexy and sisterly, traditional
and emancipated. On record, admittedly, it's easier to access once
you've learned her story and glanced over the lyrics of
Worotan
(World Circuit).
But before long, undistracted attention to the sounds on her third
and best album make clear that she's an effective progressive in
music as well as politics. The interlocking rhythms, the unforced
synthesis of African and American instruments, and the occasional
horn charts from James Brown alumnus Pee Wee Ellis add up to a
bunch of tracks anyone in the market for some fresh funk can
appreciate and enjoy.
After something of a dry spell on America's Afropop front, a
few other releases are also recommended. Paris-based Zairean Tshala
Muana is a less challenging breed of songbird than Sangare, but her
second U.S. album, Mutuashi (Stern's Africa),
does a nice job of sprucing up the soukous rhythms that
have kept the continent going for two decades now. Joseph Chege, in
his other life a postgraduate student in Iowa, generates the
bright-eyed innocence of early Kenyan benga on
Kickin' Kikuyu Style
(Original Music). And
for those looking for a way in, compiler Daisann McLane dips into
the Caribbean and even the U.S. on her superb introductory tour of
the rhythms of the African diaspora. It may be called Kwanzaa
Party! (Rounder), but for these musicians, every day's a holiday.
Playboy, Nov. 1996
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Oct. 1996 |
Jan. 1997 |
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