World/Global music
366 articles
Miriam Makeba, Nina Simone: Carnegie Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Robert Shelton, The New York Times, 22 May 1961
TWO FOLK SINGERS PRESENT CONCERT ...
Interview by Jim Delehant, Hit Parader, August 1966
IN OUR FEATURE on the Byrds (in the July issue) they credited several sources of unconventional music as influences. They were quite specific about Indian ...
The Beatles, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar: Pop Eye: Ravi and the Teenie Satori
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 5 January 1967
THEY ARE waiting for him in the glass-enclosed library of Asia House, over coffee, cream, and croissants. All the regulars are there: the lady reporter ...
Live Review by Tracy Thomas, New Musical Express, 4 March 1967
P, P & M protest ...
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 29 June 1967
"The West is the best: Get here and we'll do the rest!" — The Doors ...
Yusef Lateef: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by Mick Farren, International Times, 28 July 1967
YUSEF LATEEF is at present playing a season at Ronnie Scotts backed by the Stan Tracey Trio. I have always thought of Lateef as one ...
George Harrison, Ravi Shankar: Ravi Shankar: 'My Music Not For Addicts'
Interview by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 29 July 1967
"THE MESSAGE I'm trying to get through is that our music is very sacred to us and is not meant for people who are alcoholic, ...
Report by Derek Taylor, Disc and Music Echo, 19 August 1967
DEREK TAYLOR reporting on George Harrison's American visit. GEORGE talks of the "magic of his beads". ...
Miriam Makeba: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Lon Goddard, Record Mirror, 25 November 1967
Cat-like Miriam at the Albert Hall... ...
The Beatles, Ravi Shankar: A New Development — An Electric Sitar
Report by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 2 December 1967
ELEVEN YEARS ago a pixieish Indian named Ravi Shankar hit these shores. His sole objective in coming here was to make the western world aware ...
The Beatles, George Harrison: Beatle George And Where He's At (Part 2)
Interview by Nick Jones, Melody Maker, 30 December 1967
WE WERE talking about how meditation and yoga leads to self realization. ...
Miriam Makeba: Miriam Makeba In Concert (Reprise RLP6253)
Review by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 13 January 1968
TODAY MIRIAM Makeba is a polished concert, cabaret and TV artist working on the fringe of folk song and popular music. ...
Ravi Shankar: Pop Sounds from India Rock Greek: Ravi Shankar, Greek Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Stephen M H Braitman, Van Nuys Valley News, 30 June 1968
THREE GREAT MUSICIANS from India, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Alla Rakha, rocked the foundations of the Greek Theatre last week as their "Festival ...
Ravi Shankar: Ravi Shankar at the Monterey International Pop Festival (Columbia)
Review by uncredited writer, Disc and Music Echo, 12 October 1968
RAVI SHANKAR at the Monterey International Pop Festival is a stone groove! The whole audience, who sat under glaring sun for three whole days last ...
Ravi Shankar: Fillmore East, New York NY
Live Review by Danny Goldberg, Billboard, 20 September 1969
Shankar Honors Ghandi in a Memorable Performance ...
Osibisa: Beat The (African) Drums For Osibisa
Profile by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 22 August 1970
IT MAY BE that, having endured the painfully stilted and emotionally lukewarm playing of most rock drummers for the last decade, audiences are waking up ...
Osibisa: Meet the Band: Osibisa
Interview by James Johnson, New Musical Express, 27 March 1971
AS AUDIENCES get cooler — almost listening to music has now become a kind of intellectual exercise — it is good to see a group ...
Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 24 April 1971
PEACE AND brotherhood, truth and happiness. These are words which crop up constantly in conversations with Osibisa, the creeds by which they attempt to live ...
Interview by David Hughes, Disc and Music Echo, 29 May 1971
OSIBISA – the name is now on the lips of everyone just as we prophesied. The criss-cross rhythms are exploding with happiness right across the ...
Hugh Masekela: the Union of South Africa
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 8 October 1971
HUGH MASAKELA is best known in this country for his UNI instrumental hit, 'Grazin' In The Grass', which later provided the Friends of Distinction with ...
Report and Interview by Ian Dove, Billboard, 6 November 1971
THEY ALSO SERVE WHO ONLY LIFT AND HANDLE... ...
Report and Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 15 January 1972
WITH AIRFORCE, Ginger Baker succeeded in providing the rudiments of the Afro-beat. Consciously he wanted to go back to the roots of highly percussive music, ...
Little Feat, Osibisa: Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles
Live Review by John Mendelssohn, Los Angeles Times, 6 May 1972
FEW INDEED are the groups whose emergence has been heralded by more glowing reviews than Little Feat. It's my guess, though, that few indeed who ...
Manu Dibango: Apollo Theater, New York NY
Live Review by Vernon Gibbs, New Musical Express, 18 August 1973
MANU DIBANGO'S appearance at the Apollo was the capper for a frenzied week of concert-going in New York and the East Coast. ...
Live Review by Ian Dove, The New York Times, 26 August 1973
'OUR LATIN THING' PLAYS AT STADIUM 30,000 See Fania All Stars and Others at Second Base ...
Manu Dibango: The Originator Of 'Soul Makossa'
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 31 August 1973
THERE IS absolutely a no contest when it comes to the most recorded song of the year in soul circles. It is simply 'Soul Makossa' ...
Funkadelic, Mandrill, Osibisa, Rare Earth: Black 'Woodstock': A Violent Fiasco
Report by Vernon Gibbs, New Musical Express, 1 September 1973
IT COULD have been the biggest event of the summer. For many of us trapped in the iron heart of the city, it promised to ...
Randy Weston Finds Himself in Africa
Press Release by Vernon Gibbs, Polydor, November 1973
RANDY WESTON sits in the middle of the hustling, super city of New York, the spiritual capital of the country that 22 million Afro-Americans consider ...
Manu Dibango: Joining Soul With Its Afro Roots
Interview by Vernon Gibbs, New Musical Express, 3 November 1973
THINGS HAVEN'T improved much in the last few weeks. The Apollo, the main showcase for black talent in the New York area, continues to run ...
Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 16 February 1974
HAPPY CHILDREN – maybe. Realistic and dedicated musicians – certainly. For beneath the jolly image of Osibisa, there beat sensitive hearts. ...
Manu Dibango: Manu: Breaking Out of Africa
Profile and Interview by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 2 March 1974
Manu Dibango, No. 1 in Africa, has finally broken through in America. Robert Partridge met him in Paris... ...
Manu Dibango: The Soul Makossa Man
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 9 April 1974
HIS FRIENDS call him Dibbs but to the rest of the world his name is Manu Dibango, and he is the creator of one of ...
George Harrison, Ravi Shankar: George Harrison: The Niceman Cometh
Report by Andrew Bailey, Rolling Stone, 21 November 1974
LOS ANGELES — Somewhere in the city, inside the trailer of a tractor-trailer rig, hammers, saws and measuring rules bang and whine toward conversion of ...
Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 11 January 1975
IT'S JUST ANOTHER of the great Woodstock fallacies. Let's face it, aside from the Who, Havens, and lovable John B. Sebastian it was those nice ...
Review by Chas de Whalley, New Musical Express, 31 January 1976
Too many holiday brochures getting you down – let some real sun into your home... ...
Hugh Masekela: Africa's Ambassador To The USA
Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 9 March 1976
Our diplomatic correspondent in Los Angeles talks to Hugh Masekela, one of Africa's favourite sons. ...
Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 27 March 1976
NICE TO SEE Osibisa back in the news and making some chart action after a difficult spell when it seemed they had lost their grip ...
Osibisa: Fairfield Hall, Croydon
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, New Musical Express, 24 April 1976
ONLY CRITICAL SNOBBERY could deny Osibisa the distinction of having played one of the finest sets I have seen this side of Christmas. On this ...
Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 11 September 1976
AFTER MY initial listening to this album I was going to take the easy way out, fob off with a few jokes about the Raga ...
Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 20 November 1976
WHEN I sat upon my mother's knee during the years of austerity, being spoon-fed National Health bubble and squeak, and listening to the Light Programme, ...
Herb Alpert, Hugh Masekela: Herb Alpert and Hugh Masekela: Herb and Hugh Fusion
Report and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 28 March 1978
Herb Alpert and Hugh Masekela explain their Tijuana Meets Africa project ...
Fela Kuti: The Rascal Republic Takes On The World
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 18 October 1980
FELA ANIKULAPO-KOUTI PLANS TO BECOME PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA IN 1983. HE'S ALREADY AFRICA'S MOST POPULAR MUSICIAN, WITH OVER 100 LPs TO HIS CREDIT. HE ALSO HAS ...
Fela Kuti: Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Africa 70: Hippodrome, Paris
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 28 March 1981
FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI is probably the unlikeliest of candidates to win the dubious honour of being the Great African Dance's Bob Marley – popularizer to ...
Fela Kuti, Sonny Okosun, Sir Victor Uwaifo: Juju, Afrobeat and Highlife
Report and Interview by Peter Murphy (British), The Face, April 1981
Special report: Rock in Nigeria. ...
Sam Charters: Chains that Gave Birth to the Blues
Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 6 June 1981
Mick Brown reports how the musicologist Sam Charters learned to stop feeling guilty about slavery ...
Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 28 November 1981
GASPER LAWAL'S track record might suggest that he is a music business hack. He is not. He has played with many who are anyone, from ...
Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 13 March 1982
WHAT'S SIX to eight yards long, gets tucked and tied, gathered up, taken round and pleated not less than seven times? Clue: it often takes ...
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 10 July 1982
IT HAS ALREADY been wisely stated elsewhere that any thoughts of tribal ceremony soundtracks brought direct from the bush by intrepid white David Fanshawe types ...
Report by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 24 July 1982
VIVIEN GOLDMAN takes a trip around the WORLD OF MUSIC AND DANCE and discovers that even the beauty of ethnic cultures can be a victim ...
King Sunny Ade: Sunny Side Of The Beat
Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 28 August 1982
Edwin Pouncey meets the 'Minister Of Enjoyment' and monarch of juju music KING SUNNY ADE ...
Report by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 September 1982
The New African Music, part one: "More difficult to cage than reggae. It leaps and sprawls... It can go on and on because nobody wants ...
Report by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 September 1982
The New African Music: part two. Continuing our musical trek... to Mombassa, where we meet Mazembe — the voice of Kenya, and discover the talk ...
Bongos Ikwue & the Groovies: On the Road with a Nigerian Rock Band
Report by Randall Grass, Musician, October 1982
FOR YEARS most people have experienced African music via Hollywood as something mysterious, primitive, even threatening; or, courtesy of social scientists, as something arcane, exotic ...
Peter Gabriel: Don't Touch Me There
Interview by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 2 October 1982
Hugh Fielder gets an earbending from PETER GABRIEL ...
Jon Hassell: In Search of Future Music
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 2 December 1982
JON HASSELL creates music that falls not so much between, but outside, traditional categories of classical, pop or jazz. Yet, the 45-year-old trumpeter, synthesizer player ...
Interview by Simon Witter, Rock's Backpages audio, 25 January 1983
Nigerian giant Adé talks about juju music, tribalism and politics, the talking drum and much more.
File format: mp3; file size: 61.1mb, interview length: 1h 06' 43" sound quality: ***
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 29 January 1983
King Sunny Ade and his African Beats: Lyceum, London ...
King Sunny Ade and his African Beats: Synchro System (Island)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 June 1983
IN A THREADBARE year for outstanding pop records, Synchro System is something to set excitement aflame – a torch song for the powers of rhythm. ...
King Sunny Ade and his African Beats: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
THERE'S ONLY one thing wrong with King Sunny Ade And His African Beats: they make nearly everything else sound drab and mean-spirited. But that malaise ...
King Sunny Ade and his African Beats: Synchro System (Mango)
Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 24 July 1983
APPROACHING SUNNY ADE'S juju music from a Western pop perspective is difficult, because his creative objective is a smooth flow with nothing much happening in ...
Gasper Lawal Band: Cricketers, London
Live Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 13 August 1983
IN THE TROPICAL heatwave of Afro-beat addiction it is unjust that Gasper Lawal should remain in the shade. ...
King Sunny Adé: The African Influence
Profile by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 15 August 1983
AFTER EXHAUSTING the musical possibilities of rhythm and blues over the past 30 years, pop music is searching for ways to rejuvenate itself. The Police ...
Manu Dibango, Gasper Lawal: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 24 September 1983
READING THE music papers in mid-'76, I'd suspected that the touted wave of punk groups resembled nothing so extraordinary as a cross between zealous youth ...
Fela Kuti: Fela: Return of the Afrobeat Rebel
Profile by Randall Grass, Musician, October 1983
KANO, NIGERIA, 1974: Sitting in the midst of a spacious, immaculate patio surrounded by manicured shrubbery and the graceful curved stone-and-glass walls of a post-modern restaurant, ...
Fela Kuti: He Who Has A Quiver In His Underpants
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 26 November 1983
Fela Kuti — also known as He Who Has Death In His Quiver (and a shiver in his Y-fronts) — last week descended on London ...
Fela Kuti: The Republic Of Kuti
Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 3 December 1983
FELA KUTI gives Lynden Barber a lecture in African culture. ...
Fela Kuti: Resurrection Shuffle
Report by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 14 January 1984
ABOUT 200 PEOPLE turned out last weekend at the Country Club in North London, for a benefit to prevent its closure. Entertainment was provided by ...
Hugh Masekela: Blazing In The Bush
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 31 March 1984
AT A TIME when Western attention is once more turned on the evil and cunning of the South African government, it couldn't be more appropriate ...
Youssou N'Dour: Youssou N’dour Et Le Super Etoile De Dakar: London Venue
Live Review by Simon Witter, New Musical Express, 26 May 1984
SINCE I BOUGHT Etoile de Dakar’s Thiapathioly LP two years ago, the band have become ‘Super’ and the lead singer has achieved star status, making ...
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 14 July 1984
"THIS IS really embarrassing, we've come thousands of miles and now this happens," sighed Hugh Masekela looking at the vast blue tent-balloon Espace Balard venue ...
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 18 August 1984
SUNDAY'S "WORLD Cultural Music Festival" was postponed Friday after two key performers coincidentally ran into customs difficulties, festival publicist Jeff Gans said. He expects the ...
Interview by Carol Cooper, DownBeat, September 1984
For over a decade one of the most popular post-bossa Brazilian singer/composers, Nascimento finally arrives in the U.S. to demonstrate his particular brand of politically ...
Orchestra Jazira: Nomadic Activities (Beggars Banquet BEGA 56)
Review by Brian Case, Melody Maker, 15 September 1984
WANDERING STARS ...
Manu Dibango: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 24 November 1984
IT TAKES TENOR TO TANGO ...
Interview by Hank Bordowitz, unpublished, 1985
HB: You are doing something most American bands wouldn't think off, touring the country with a 20 odd person entourage. ...
Fela Kuti: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Live In Amsterdam (Capitol); Perambulator (Lagos international)
Review by Randall Grass, Musician, January 1985
NIGERIA'S FELA Anikulapo-Kuti was the presumed messiah to break African pop internationally, just as Bob Marley had broken reggae. He sings in comprehensible pidgin English. ...
Thomas Mapfumo: The Lion of Zimbabwe
Profile and Interview by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 5 January 1985
Inspiration to freedom fighters and creator of the Zimbabwean sound, THOMAS MAPFUMO is ready to conquer the world. VIVIEN GOLDMAN talks to Africa's Bob Marley. ...
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 9 February 1985
DUB CRAWL ...
Review and Interview by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 13 February 1985
"THE GOVERNMENT is trying to lure me into participation in the politics of Nigeria now but that doesn't really mean my situation is very cool ...
Fela Kuti: Music is the Weapon: Fela
Report by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 21 February 1985
THE CONCEPT OF combining music with a strong political message is a romantic, enticing notion to many young musicians but it's a harsh, often painful ...
Fela Kuti: Music Is the Weapon
Film/DVD/TV Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 23 February 1985
THE IDEA of combining music with a strong political message is a romantic notion to many young musicians, but the concept is a harsh reality ...
Fela Kuti: Army Arrangement (Celluloid)
Review by Simon Witter, New Musical Express, 18 March 1985
WITH MORE more pep in his step, and Bill Laswell by his side, Fela is back, up for the downstroke. Yes, that's Fela Anikulapo Kuti, ...
Fela Kuti: Army Arrangement (Celluloid)
Review by Carol Cooper, Spin, May 1985
IF YOU haven't yet heard of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, it isn't because he hasn't been trying to get your attention. ...
Special Feature by Randall Grass, Spin, May 1985
The King of Afrobeat enjoyed a reign of sex, hemp, jazz and rock 'n' roll — then the empire struck back, trumping up charges to ...
Manu Dibango: Montreux Jazz Festival, Casino de Montreux
Live Review by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 3 August 1985
IN MUCH the same way that reggae ultimately required the charismatic presence of Bob Marley to give it international focus, the Modern Music of Africa ...
Fela Kuti: Zombie, No Agreement, Shuffering And Shmlling (Celluloid)
Review by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 13 March 1986
ALTHOUGH HE is virtually unknown in the United States, Fela Kuti of Nigeria is the most dangerous musician in the world. For two decades, Fela ...
Youssou N'Dour: Voix d'Afrique
Interview by Mark Sinker, New Musical Express, 31 May 1986
2005 note: My very first full-length music piece for NME? I so much wish Youssou had not let himself be kidnapped by P.Gabriel. Marcello Carlin ...
Interview by Randall Grass, Spin, July 1986
Nigerian authorities thought 18 months in jail might silence the rebel king of sex, hemp, and Afrobeat. They were wrong. ...
Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Brothers)***
Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 6 September 1986
GRACE UNDER PRESSURE ...
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 13 September 1986
OF COURSE Paul Simon has always been blessed with a remarkable facility for penning eminently hummable melodies, but since the heyday of his association with ...
Asha Bhosle: The Celluloid Singing Star
Interview by Cath Carroll, New Musical Express, 20 September 1986
ASHA BHOSLE is India's best known singer of film soundtracks. CATH CARROLL meets the woman with 40 million record sales who began her career with ...
Fela Kuti: Africa's Cult Musician: Fela Anikulapo Kuti
Report by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 13 October 1986
WHEN ONE OF Africa's most celebrated musicians receives visitors at his home in the Nigerian capital of Lagos, he lounges in little more than a ...
Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros.)
Review by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 23 October 1986
IN HIS TYPICALLY understated way, Paul Simon has been an ardent musical explorer since he went solo in 1972. His songs have incorporated almost every ...
Fela Kuti: The Great Pretender: Fela Kuti
Interview by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 25 October 1986
So, who is this FELA KUTI? An African musician just out of jail and now threatening to run for President of Nigeria? A polygamist in ...
Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros.)
Review by Glenn O'Brien, Spin, November 1986
Graceland is a pilgrimage. On the title track the singer heads for the Presley estate in Memphis, filled with faith, trailed by doubt, led by ...
Fela Kuti & the Chords of Africa
Profile and Interview by Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, 7 November 1986
TWO YEARS ago, as Fela Anikulapo Kuti headed for America for what would have been his first tour here in 15 years, Nigerian authorities arrested ...
Fela Kuti: Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 17 November 1986
KUTI IN HIS OWN GROOVE ...
Fela Kuti: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 29 November 1986
COSTUME DRAMAS ...
Fela Kuti: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 29 November 1986
NOT SO much a gig, more a continuous cultural circus presided over by ringmaster Fela, fresh out of a Nigerian prison after his latest brush ...
Youssou N'Dour: Super Star of Dakar: Youssou N'Dour
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 8 December 1986
PETER GABRIEL HAS often acknowledged the influence of Third World styles on his recent songs and the veteran British rocker is paying back that debt ...
Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros.)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, January 1987
OUT OF AFRICA ...
Paul Simon: Still Mbaqanga After All These Years
Interview by RJ Smith, Spin, January 1987
For 20 years, Paul Simon whined and kvetched about the same things. Then he went to Africa and finally had fun. But he broke the ...
Zakir Hussain: Thunder On The Mountain
Profile and Interview by Ken Hunt, Folk Roots, February 1987
ZAKIR HUSSAIN is a musician who straddles the East-West divide. Like his father, Ustad Alla Rakha Khan, his instrument is the tabla and like his ...
Paul Simon: The Boy in the Boycott
Report by Mark Sinker, Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 4 April 1987
Is PAUL SIMON "a genius and a loathsome coward"? Does the lack of anti-apartheid statements on Graceland amount to condonation of Botha's regime? Or has ...
Paul Simon: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 18 April 1987
LET'S NOT beat about the bush. This is a celebration of black South African music with an anti-apartheid spirit mixed into its magic. And it ...
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Paul Simon: Ladysmith Black Mambazo: "God sent Paul Simon to do this"
Profile and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Q, June 1987
With glorious results. Times have changed for Ladysmith Black Mambazo. ...
Peter Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour: Earls Court, London
Live Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 4 July 1987
THE '70S DINOSAURS are dying out; either through lack of brain, excess of dosh or both. ...
Amadu Bansang Jobarteh, Dembo Konte, Fanta Sacko: Rendezvous In Mali
Report and Interview by James Fox, House & Garden, September 1987
YOU WILL rarely hear of anyone traveling for pleasure in Mali, except to visit the great handmade mud mosques at Mopti or Djenne on the ...
Hugh Masekela, Paul Simon: Hugh Masekela: Grazing in Graceland
Interview by Roy Trakin, Creem, October 1987
HUGH MASEKELA hasn't been back to South Africa since he left his homeland 27 years ago to study trumpet in London and New York, but ...
The Trio Bulgarka: Never Mind The Balkans: The New Bulgaria
Report by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 12 March 1988
Not exactly Bananarama, perhaps, but 4AD's LE MYSTÈRE DES VOIX BULGARES and TRIO BULGARKA and other Bulgarian artists are shifting a surprising number of units ...
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 18 March 1988
THE RECENT GLUT of African pop releases has now revealed a mesmerizing vocalist, one capable of reviving the hoary show-biz adage that he could excel ...
Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 29 March 1988
Ofra Haza: S.O.B.’s, New York ...
Ofra Haza: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Live Review by Jane Solanas, New Musical Express, 16 April 1988
NOT A hip-hop victim in sight, and still Ofra Haza sold out the QEH. Israel's most successful pop star drew a crowd which consisted of ...
Interview by James Brown, New Musical Express, 14 May 1988
Already a star in her native Israel, OFRA HAZA has broken out of the 'world music' ghetto thanks to a sample of her remarkable voice ...
Ofra Haza: Yemen They Couldn't Hang
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, Melody Maker, 14 May 1988
AFTER ERIC B AND RAKIM ABDUCTED HER EXOTIC VOICE FOR THEIR HIT SINGLE 'PAID IN FULL', EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT OFRA HAZA SOUNDS LIKE. CAROLINE SULLIVAN ...
Global Music With a Single Heart
Report by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 7 August 1988
QUICK, WHAT do English rock star Peter Gabriel, L.A. club favorites the Bonedaddys, West African vocalist Salif Keita, Israeli pop star Ofra Haza and the ...
Report and Interview by Mark Sinker, New Musical Express, 10 September 1988
2005 note: Collapse of post-comm Balkans into internecine war hinted at, kinda. Well, only if you read WAY between the lines I think. Another submerged ...
Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Billboard, 17 December 1988
THIS BULGARIAN vocal ensemble, better known by the name of its Nonesuch album, Le Mystere De Voix Bulgare, made its U.S. debut here Nov. 4. ...
Interview by Martin Aston, Auckland Star, 1989
NOT FOR nothing has New York been labelled "the first Third World city in a First World country." ...
Mickey Hart: Ethnomusicologist Mickey Hart Gives Us The World
Interview by Christine Natanael, Reflex, February 1989
THIS IS THE story of a recordist – a man that has made it his business to preserve moments in time and memories of his ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Dery, Elle, February 1989
"I THINK people were a little tired of rock and roll and disco," says singer Ofra Haza. "And suddenly, along came something very different, very ...
Papa Wemba: Papa's Got a Brand New Wardrobe: Papa Wemba
Profile and Interview by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 11 March 1989
Film-star, superhero, total poseur, Zairean PAPA WEMBA brings his brand of designer World Beat to town, with a swish of posh cloth and a creak ...
Peter Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour: Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos
Report and Interview by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 3 June 1989
YOUSSOU N'DOUR and PETER GABRIEL, the pair that have set so many causes alight, have combined again, this time to champion female emancipation. LEN BROWN ...
The Gyuto Monks: Freedom Chants From the Roof of the World (Rykodisc)
Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, July 1989
FOR CONNOISSEURS of the weird, the Gyuto Monks' Freedom Chants From the Roof of the World demands a place of honor among your trophies. ...
Youssou N'Dour: Can Youssou N'Dour Score?
Profile and Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 13 July 1989
With a little help from Peter Gabriel, Senegal's top artist looks to the West ...
Interview by Martin Aston, Music Week, 1990
IF BRIAN ENO, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, David Sylvian and Tears For Fears have anything in common, you wouldn't instantly think of American avant-garde composer/trumpeter ...
Paul Simon: Melancholy beat of a backpacking magpie
Report and Interview by Mark Cooper, Independent on Sunday, 1990
Mark Cooper on Paul Simon's latest borrowings and his lucrative flair for domesticating the alien ...
Ofra Haza: And The Wind Whispers Ofra
Interview by Christine Natanael, Reflex, February 1990
OFRA HAZA... when spoken, the name rolls lyrically from the tongue, flowing in fluid phonetics, ancient rhythmic mystical syllabications closer to the soul than to ...
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, 22 March 1990
'YA BE YE', the first single from Yemenite thrush Ofra Haza's Desert Wind, is a song of maternal advice, a Middle Eastern rejoinder to the ...
Youssou N'Dour, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Ryuichi Sakamoto: Dominion, London
Live Review by David Toop, The Times, 27 March 1990
Dissolving the borders ...
Ali Farka Touré: Ronnie Scott's Club, London
Live Review by David Toop, The Times, 26 April 1990
A modern primitive ...
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 1 August 1990
YOUSSOU N'DOUR has supplanted King Sunny Ade as the most visible African artist to Western pop audiences since the current surge of international interest in ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 22 September 1990
MARCEL CELLIER first began assembling his library of haunting folk recordings after visiting Bulgaria in 1950. Shrewdly, the Swiss businessman seems to have retained copyright ...
Live Review by Gene Santoro, Musician, November 1990
Still Ethnic After All These Years ...
Youssou N'Dour: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by David Toop, The Times, 20 November 1990
YOUSSOU N'DOUR has been described as the first World Music superstar; as meaningless titles go, this is hard to beat and offers the remarkable Senegalese ...
Paul Simon: Across The Tracks: The Rhythm of the Saints
Interview by Gavin Martin, Vox, December 1990
'Obvious Child' "I THOUGHT IF anything was going to be a single it would be that. I thought that as soon as we recorded the drums, ...
3 Mustaphas 3: Soup of the Century (Rykodisc)
Review by Richard Gehr, Spin, January 1991
THE 3 MUSTAPHAS 3 are the Residents of non-Western popular music, right? After all, both groups (1) hide behind costumes, (2) make musical hash of ...
Review by John McCready, Select, June 1991
BAABA MAAL is best known in Africa as an exponent of Senegalese folk music, which he plays on guitar, fora and riti. Something of a ...
Peter Gabriel, Van Morrison: Peter Gabriel: World Party
Report by Johnny Black, Q, November 1991
One week this summer, Peter Gabriel's dream came true. Musicians of the world, from Sinead O'Connor and Van Morrison to stars of Lapland and Tanzania, ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 23 April 1992
DISCO DIVAS now come in all nationalities and flavours. The Yemenite Jewish disco queen Ofra Haza, best known for the minor hit 'Im Nin Alu', ...
Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 2 May 1992
IGGY POP? As if Eldritch wasn't unlikely enough — Iggy f***ing Pop? This lady's agent doesn't lack imagination. What next? A guest spot with GG ...
Interview by Fred Shuster, DownBeat, June 1992
IT'S A BRIGHT, sunny Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles and Joe Zawinul is motioning towards the Pacific Ocean far below the patio of his hillside ...
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages audio, 27 July 1992
Gabriel talks about his Real World studios and record label and its association with WOMAD; his recording methods and his new album Us; being in therapy, his marriage breakup, and his children... and Rosanna Arquette; his early love of soul, and seeing Otis Redding; surviving punk; his dislike of the "World music" tag, and records soundtracks for films such as The Last Temptation of Christ.
File format: mp3; file size: 90.6mb, interview length: 1h 34' 21" sound quality: ** (wind and trains)
Peter Gabriel (1992) [Transcript]
Transcript of audio interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 27 July 1992
This is a transcript of Adam's interview with Gabriel. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Sheila Chandra: Voicing her own identity
Interview by David Toop, The Times, 25 September 1992
Sheila Chandra, a singer drawing on Asian, African and European sources, talks to David Toop ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party: Town Hall, NYC
Live Review by Richard Gehr, Newsday, 11 October 1992
SITTING CROSS-LEGGED on an Indian carpet, surrounded by his seven-man qawwali "party," rotund Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan may look like Jabba the Hut but he ...
Live Review by David Toop, The Times, 4 November 1992
Riveted by the rhythm — African sounds are sheer joy ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Sequoia Athletic Club, Buena Park CA
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 10 November 1992
A Spirited Performance of Qawwali: Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his eight-man group deliver an impressive set of intricate compositions to an appreciative ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Musical Missions and Spiritual Highs
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 19 November 1992
WHEN NUSRAT Fateh Ali Khan performs, people get high. They break into tears, fall into trances and feel like they're flying. They may even see ...
Paul Simon (1993) [transcript]
Transcript of audio interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1993
This is a transcript of Adam Sweeting's interview. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Apache Indian, Cornershop, Fun-Da-Mental: Real Lives: Rock of Asians
Report and Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 13 March 1993
Britain's Asian community has long hosted a thriving pop scene, operating in a lucrative parallel universe to the chart mainstream. Now, CAROLINE SULLIVAN reports, radical ...
Live Review by Andrew Smith, The Guardian, 2 November 1993
IN 1992, WE thought we were unshockable. Then came news of an English band, those angry sons of Asian immigrants, who had found a chink ...
Paco de Lucia's Flamenco Odyssey: Expression, Serenity & Feeling
Interview by Hank Bordowitz, Guitar Player, April 1994
"PACO DE LUCIA, in opinion, is the greatest flamenco player alive," says John McLaughlin of his friend. "Working with him really was a great experience." ...
Salif Keita: Wilshire Theatre, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 11 April 1994
L.A. Debut by Golden-Voiced Keita ...
Interview by Don Snowden, Escape, 12 April 1994
THE 18-WEEK run atop the Billboard World Music charts enjoyed by Ali Farka Touré's album The Source added the sweet touch of popular success in ...
Ry Cooder, Ali Farka Toure: Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder: Talking Timbuktu (Hannibal)
Review by Richard Gehr, Spin, May 1994
DE BLUES is a harsh mistress. So what a pleasure when someone like Mali guitar giant Ali Farka Touré comes along to let us off ...
Manu Dibango: Dibango the Giant
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Eye Weekly, 28 July 1994
GLOBAL MUSIC often works best on the dance floor where, free from ghetto-izing labels and strict radio formats, it can cross over and capture the ...
Jon Hassell: Behind the Blue Screen: Jon Hassell
Profile and Interview by David Toop, The Wire, August 1994
Jon Hassell's music with his group Bluescreen is an exotic domain of ritualised sex, strange tonalities, erotic transgressions and invisible connections. David Toop enters the ...
Cornershop: Falcon, Camden, London
Live Review by Ian Watson, Melody Maker, 24 September 1994
SITAR SICKNESS ...
Transglobal Underground: Trans-Global Underground: 24 Hour Liberal Party People
Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 22 October 1994
TRANS-GLOBAL UNDERGROUND are the ultimate in multi-ethnic, politically correct entertainment and they've never been guilty of thinking non-PC thoughts about anyone. Ever. At least, not until STEVEN ...
Transglobal Underground: International Times (LP/CD/MC NAT38)
Review by Lucy O'Brien, Vox, November 1994
World piece ...
Roaring Lion: At 87, he's still king of Calypso
Retrospective and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 18 May 1995
HE'S THE GRAND old man of calypso, the historian and upholder of Trinidad's legendary musical tradition. He's also a living legend himself, the gentleman with ...
Report by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 8 July 1995
The last time FUN-DA-MENTAL took a journalist to Pakistan, the writer came home a jibbering wreck and the band split. A return trip anyone? Bribes/blackmail/strict ...
Retrospective by David Toop, The Times, 22 July 1995
Rolling Stone Brian Jones was intoxicated by the music of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, says David Toop. Now they are in London. ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Pyramid Arena, Long Beach CA
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 18 September 1995
Khan Rocks Cal State's Pyramid Arena ...
Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Joseph Shabalala: The Sonic Balm of Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 29 February 1996
NOW THAT THE turmoil of recent times has passed, Joseph Shabalala can look back fondly on those halcyon days nearly 10 years ago when his ...
Report by Chris Campion, The Wire, March 1996
ALIGHTING FROM the famed Marrakech Express, Frank Rynne, Joe Ambrose and myself were hustled into an illegal taxi. It careered along Boulevard Mohamed V, the ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Best all-rounder since Botham?
Interview by David Toop, The Times, 22 March 1996
David Toop meets Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, ubiquitous superstar of world music ...
Angélique Kidjo: House of Blues, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 8 April 1996
Kidjo Saves Heavy Hits for Show's End ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Abida Parveen: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Subcontinental Drift
Report and Interview by David Toop, The Wire, May 1996
In this extended edition of our monthly survey of sounds from around the planet, David Toop reports from the teeming streets, temples and concert halls ...
Johnny Clegg, Juluka, Savuka: Johnny Clegg: Scatterlings of Africa Regroup
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 18 July 1996
HIS TOUR BUS has broken down. His cellular phone is running low on batteries. But Johnny Clegg has faced far greater obstacles in his career. ...
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Eye Weekly, 26 July 1996
IN THE WORLD of ambient music, Brian Eno is god, the all-knowing, all-powerful genius of the recording studio. So omnipotent is Eno that his disciples ...
Nitin Sawhney : Nitin Sawhney: Displacing The Priest (Outcaste) ***
Review by David Bennun, Muzik, October 1996
SAWHNEY'S SECOND album is so omnivorously eclectic that it would be easy to mistake it for a new David Toop compilation. All the same, there ...
Paul Simon: Graceland; Warner Bros 925447-2, Released September 1986
Review by Chris Charlesworth, unpublished, 1997
IN THE SUMMER of 1984, as he faced the problem of furthering a critically successful but commercially waning career, Paul Simon received a gift from ...
Talvin Singh: The Blue Note, London
Live Review by Ngaire Ruth, Melody Maker, 17 May 1997
HOW ARE all the people in this queue going to get into a place that small? ...
Interview by Don Snowden, Escape, 10 June 1997
"WE HAVE A proverb in my hometown that says, 'Music must be the generosity of something that you take from your heart and you must ...
Fela Kuti: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti 1938-1997
Obituary by Vivien Goldman, Rolling Stone, 18 September 1997
KING OF AFRO BEAT DEAD AT 58 ...
Harry Belafonte Follows New Rhythm
Profile and Interview by j. poet, San Francisco Chronicle, 21 September 1997
Singer makes his first CD in nine years ...
Fela Kuti: Afro Poppa: Fela Kuti, 1938-1997
Obituary by Richard Gehr, Spin, October 1997
IN THE annals of pop political activism, taking on TicketMaster or spoofing K Mart consumerism hardly compares to the cheeky dissidence of Nigerian superstar Fela ...
Obituary by David Toop, MOJO, October 1997
"MUSIC IS THE HEALING FORCE OF the universe," So said saxophonist Albert Ayler, whose body was found floating in New York’s East River many years ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 1948-1997
Obituary by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 2 October 1997
STAR OF PAKISTAN DEAD AT 48 ...
Buena Vista Social Club, Ry Cooder: Some Cuban Sizzle: Ry Cooder turns up the musical heat in Havana
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 13 October 1997
RY COODER'S RESUMÉ is one of the most impressive in popular music. He has lent his guitar skills to recordings by the Rolling Stones, Van ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, 1948-1997
Obituary by Will Hermes, Spin, November 1997
IT'S SADLY IRONIC that superstar qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan — the uncontested voice of modern Pakistan — would die on August 16, only ...
Jingo! World Music at Fairfield
Comment by Brian Torff, Fairfield Now, Summer 1997
IN WESTERN POP culture, we often see music as a product that is heavily advertised through the media, and presented in a buy and sell ...
Overview by Charlie Gillett, Developments, March 1998
IN 1987, THE owners of several British independent record labels convened a series of meetings in an Islington pub to discuss ways to get their ...
Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, August 1998
"BRITPOP IS AN ATTEMPT TO REASSERT A sort of mythical whiteness," asserts Aniruddha Das, aka Dr Das, bassist of Asian Dub Foundation, leaning forward in ...
4 Hero, Talvin Singh: Talvin Singh: O.K. (Talking Loud/Mercury); 4 Hero: Two Pages (Island)
Review by Marc Weingarten, Vibe, November 1998
Is electronic music turning into the underground equivalent of New Age music? ...
Taj Mahal: In Progress and Motion (Columbia/Legacy)
Review by Tony Scherman, The New York Times, 29 November 1998
EMERGING IN THE late '60s as an anomaly – one of the few young black musicians to embrace the folk-blues revival – Taj Mahal flirted ...
Black Star Liner: Leeds' star of Asia
Interview by Max Bell, The Evening Standard, 22 January 1999
Choque Hosein of Black Star Liner has a sense of humour almost as rich as his music. MAX BELL meets the Yorkshire Indian in the ...
Black Star Liner: Bengali Bantam Youth Experience! (WEA)
Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 29 January 1999
Dave Simpson adores Black Star Liner's mix of Bollywood soundtracks and skyscraping dance beats ...
Nitin Sawhney : The Outsider: Nitin Sawhney
Profile and Interview by Andrew Smith, The Observer, 19 September 1999
Nitin Sawhney says he feels like a stranger in England, where he was born, and in India, the land of his parents. The tension has ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Forum, Kentish Town, London
Live Review by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 30 October 1999
PUNK IS DEAD! LONG LIVE, ERM, PUNK! ...
Baaba Maal: Dropping in on Baaba Mal
Interview by Amy Linden, Code, January 2000
FOR YEARS THE music press has insisted that African pop is poised to become the next big thing. That American audiences will embrace the various ...
Are We the World? Global Music in the U.S. Faces the 21st Century
Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 8 February 2000
SONY MUSIC'S recent and massive Soundtrack of a Century collection includes a two-CD set called International Music, ostensibly to celebrate the geographically diverse roots of ...
Matato'a: Global Ear: Easter Island
Report by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, March 2000
A survey of sounds from around the planet. This month … Easter Island ...
Unlikely Fruits of Apartheid: South African Sounds in the Post-War Era
Report by Andy Farquarson, The Independent, 5 March 2000
THE SEGREGATION OF music played a significant role in supporting South Africa's post-war National Party policy of "separate development". This little-known facet of apartheid has ...
Ali Farka Touré: Barbican, London — Niger river delta blues
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 14 March 2000
IT HAS become increasingly difficult to prise Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré away from the rural life in his home village of Niafunke. ...
Femi Kuti, Fela Kuti: Femi Kuti's Family Tradition
Report and Interview by Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, 17 March 2000
A FEW YEARS ago, Femi Kuti's 'Beng Beng Beng' was banned from Nigeria's airwaves by that nation's military regime. When a civilian government took over ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Community Music
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, April 2000
Storming new set of eclectic agit-pop from best live band in Britain ...
¡Cubanismo!, Jesús Alemañy: ¡Cubanismo!: Jesús Alemañy goes beyond Buena Vista
Report and Interview by j. poet, The Boston Phoenix, 17 April 2000
IT'S BEEN EASY to get the impression over the past couple of years that Cuban music starts and ends with the Buena Vista Social Club. ...
Interview by Rob Young, The Wire, May 2000
Fusing traditional musics and puppet displays, Heri Dono's extraordinary installations and sculptures satirise the trashed landscape of Indonesia. ...
David Byrne: The King of Afropea: David Byrne
Interview by Andy Farquarson, The Independent, 11 June 2000
"Isn't this where the Profumo thing started?" someone asks. We're soaking up the seedy mock-opulence of The Eve Club on Regent Street and, for the ...
Jane Bunnett: Our Gal in Havana
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 26 June 2000
SHE'S BEEN CALLED "Havana Jane", and Canada's Jane Bunnett has certainly earned the title. The celebrated jazz flautist and soprano saxophonist has been a familiar ...
Interview by David Stubbs, The Wire, July 2000
Before their drums fell silent, 23 Skidoo’s percussion-heavy apocalypses ripped away the city’s civilised surface to reveal its primitive heart. Now the long wait is ...
Ali Farka Toure: Connections: Ali Farka Touré's Cross-Cultural Blues
Profile by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 31 July 2000
THE BLUES CAME to America in chains, contained within the hearts of the enslaved people of Africa. Two hundred odd years later it went back, ...
Report and Interview by Carol Cooper, Crawdaddy!, September 2000
As an acronym, the term A.S.E.A.N. has become the name of a small regional trade & tourism organization known as the "Association of South East ...
HIM, Doug Scharin: HIM: Our Point of Departure
Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 2000
DOUG SCHARIN certainly has the alchemists touch in assembling and directing groups of excellent musicians. ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companio to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
Jahoul 'Chico' Bouchikhi; Nicolas Reyes, b. 1957; Andre Reyes; Tonino Baliardo; Canut Reyes ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Sunday Adeniyi, 1946, Ondo State, Nigeria ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Henry St Clair Fredericks, 17 May 1942, New York City, USA ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001
b. William Evans, 1920, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA ...
Report by Jason Gross, The Wire, March 2001
A monthly survey of sounds from around the planet ...
Bright Eyes, Son, Ambulance, State of Bengal: Rack Jobbing
Review by Will Hermes, Spin, March 2001
More ace product with no market clout whatsoever ...
A little sax with the snorkelling: Spice Jazz festival, Grenada
Report by Chris Salewicz, Daily Telegraph, 3 March 2001
Grenada is trying to extend its season with a jazz festival. For Chris Salewitz, the listening was all too easy. ...
Anoushka Shankar: Daddy's Girl
Profile and Interview by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 30 May 2001
If anyone was born to play the sitar, it's Anoushka Shankar. Adam Sweeting asks her about life in Ravi's shadow. ...
Baaba Maal: Going Home: Baaba Maal Returns To The Roots Of His Music
Profile and Interview by j. poet, SF Gate, 10 August 2001
WHEN BAABA MAAL comes to the Fillmore on Saturday, August 11, Bay Area audiences will get to hear a voice that is one of the ...
The Beatles, George Harrison: George Harrison: All Things Must Pass
Comment by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 30 November 2001
For those who grew up in the 60s, George Harrison's death further compounds the feeling that popular culture will never be as good again. ...
Harry Belafonte: Island in the Sun
Sleeve notes by Colin Escott, Bear Family, 2002
WHEN "WORLD MUSIC" became a phrase on everyone's lips a few years ago, it sometimes seemed as though an interest in other countries' musics was ...
Taraf de Haïdouks: Johnny and the outlaws take Hackney by storm
Report by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 29 January 2002
IT IS not every day you find a Hollywood superstar slumming it in the East End. But last night Johnny Depp came to deepest Hackney ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Hudson, Daily Telegraph, March 2002
BEFORE MIRIAM Makeba's first venture outside South Africa in 1959, her mother, a sangoma or traditional medium, was warned by one of her familiar spirits ...
Femi Kuti and Positive Force: Ocean, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 11 March 2002
SAXOPHONIST FEMI KUTI fronts a 14-piece band, with drums, two percussionists, guitar, bass, keyboards, four horns and three singers. Like a soul review or a ...
Maher Shalal Hash Baz: Mad in Japan
Interview by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 12 April 2002
They're Japanese; their group's name is in Hebrew; their music defies definition. Ben Thompson meets the exotic Maher Shalal Hash Baz ...
Damon Albarn, Afel Bocoum, Toumani Diabaté & Friends: Mali Music (Honest Jon's)
Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 13 April 2002
YOU HAVE to admire his nerve, if nothing else. In between existing musical commitments to Blur and Gorillaz, Damon Albarn is going global with his ...
A. R. Rahman, Andrew Lloyd Webber: Bollywood by numbers
Report and Interview by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 30 May 2002
When Lloyd Webber wanted a composer for his Indian musical, it had to be AR Rahman. ...
Caetano Veloso: Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil (Knopf)
Book Review by Will Hermes, The Village Voice, 24 September 2002
IT'S TOUGH TO imagine an American pop star penning a memoir like Tropical Truth. That's not just because our musical celebs are rarely imprisoned for ...
Tony Allen: Invisible Jukebox: Tony Allen
Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, October 2002
Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...
World of Mouth: Mariza and more
Essay by Charlie Gillett, The WOMEX Guide, October 2002
WHEN MARIZA SINGS, time stands still. Every word is sung with intense concentration, every note hit flawlessly. When she pauses for dramatic effect, ...
Asha Bhosle: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Pete Paphides, The Times, 28 October 2002
POP STARS who complain about their workload might care to ponder the achievements of Asha Bhosle. Since she first stepped into a studio, aged ten, ...
Anoushka Shankar: Pleasing herself, as well as Dad
Interview by Kris Nicholson, Record, 8 November 2002
Anoushka Shankar, at 21, has had a life full of music ...
Youssou N'Dour: The Forum, London
Live Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 24 December 2002
YOUSSOU N'DOUR has much to thank his mother for. On her advice, this year, the Senegalese superstar stopped trying to please the pop audience that ...
Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant: Robert Plant (2003) [transcript]
Transcript of audio interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 2003
This is a transcript of Barney's interview with Robert. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Faces and Windows: Asian Dub Foundation
Profile and Interview by David Stubbs, The Wire, January 2003
Community, collectivism, connection are keywords in Asian Dub Foundation's irresistible assaults on cultural apathy. From their Community Music roots they have established a broad popular ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Rappers With A Cause: Asian Dub Foundation
Report and Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 24 January 2003
They helped secure the release of the warehouse worker Satpal Ram from prison. Now they're tackling domestic violence, asylum, the war on terror and the ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Foundation Course
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, unpublished, February 2003
JOHN PANDIT is hopping mad. We were supposed to be discussing the latest album by Pandit's multi-cultural protest-pop collective Asian Dub Foundation, but our interview ...
Panjabi MC: The Album (Dharma/Showbiz)
Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 2 May 2003
PANJABI MC has already provided one of the most refreshing hits of the year with January's 'Mundian To Bach Ke', which fused bhangra, breakbeats and ...
Afel Bocoum, Oumou Sangare, Tinariwen, Ali Farka Toure: Various Artists: Le Festival au Desert
Review by Charlie Gillett, bbc.co.uk, September 2003
The Best Live Album Ever? ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Community Music
Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 1 September 2003
ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION formed in the mid-nineties, the product of a government-sponsored scheme designed to teach young Asian men music technology, two teachers, their pupil ...
Lhasa de Sela : Lhasa de Sela: The Beautiful Sadness of Lhasa
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, Fall 2003
SHE RAN AWAY to join the circus. Although she'd been signed to prestigious Atlantic Records and was being touted as an Edith Piaf for the ...
Obituary by Ken Hunt, The Guardian, 25 March 2004
One of the greatest sitar players of his age ...
David Byrne: Grown Backwards (Nonesuch)
Review by Pat Blashill, Rolling Stone, 29 April 2004
Ex-Talking Head – and the most cosmopolitan man in New York – continues his global luau. ...
Youssou N'Dour: A Song and a Prayer
Profile and Interview by Mark Hudson, The Observer, 23 May 2004
As the first superstar of world music, Youssou N'Dour has consistently sought to reconcile Africa and the West, but his most personal record yet is ...
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 28 May 2004
Winners of a Radio 3 award, Senegal's top hip-hop trio Daara J are back on the road. Tim Cooper meets them in Paris. ...
Hugh Masekela and D. Michael Cheers: Still Grazing – The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela
Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times Book Review, 13 June 2004
IN THE MID-1950s, as Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and all the rest were leading a rock 'n' roll revolution across America, Hugh Masekela found himself ...
Putumayo: The Little Label That Could
Report by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 2 July 2004
WHILE THE REST of the music industry downsizes like mad, an 11-year-old independent label the majors used to snicker at has scored a 15 percent ...
Youssou N'Dour: Egypt (Nonesuch)
Review by Charlie Gillett, The Observer, 18 July 2004
THIS BEAUTIFUL record is a new album by Youssou N'Dour, but it is not 'the new Youssou N'Dour album'. We have had one of those ...
Papa Wemba: Pop Star, People Smuggler, Jailbird, Demagogue – and all in a coat that cost £15,000
Report and Interview by James Fox, Sunday Telegraph, 14 August 2004
James Fox looks at the bizarre life of world music star Papa Wemba. ...
Michael Franti: Various Artists: Reggae on the River
Film/DVD/TV Review by j. poet, Paste, October 2004
TWENTY YEARS AGO, the residents of Piercy, Calif., held a benefit concert to rebuild a community centre torched by a local arsonist. ...
Femi Kuti, Fela Kuti, Seun Kuti: Fela Kuti: A Difficult Fela To Follow
Report and Interview by Mark Hudson, Daily Telegraph, 2 October 2004
As the Barbican celebrates the life and music of Fela Kuti, Mark Hudson travels to Lagos to meet his sons Femi and Seun, bitter rivals ...
Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times Book Review, 31 October 2004
THE IMAGE OF the bluesman Robert Johnson standing at a crossroads in the Mississippi Delta, selling his soul to play guitar as though he had ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, 21 December 2004
Ibrahim Sylla is African music's answer to the likes of Berry Gordy. Charlie Gillett pays homage to the man whose influence is felt from Paris ...
Darko Rundek and Cargo Orkestar: Ruke
Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, Summer 2004
IF ONE DAY I suddenly fall to the ground in two pieces, the cause of my demise will be put down to a lifetime of ...
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, 2005
A potted history of one of Africa's biggest pop stars ...
Salif Keita, Youssou N'Dour: Various Artists: Golden Afrique, Vol 1
Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, February 2005
MOST OF THESE wonderfully atmospheric, seminal recordings were made in West Africa during the 1970s, a decade when a regime change was happening in recording ...
Konono No. 1: Konono No 1: Congotronics
Review by Rob Young, The Wire, March 2005
IN AFRICA, corrupt and irresponsible governance has led some of the continent's most prominent modern musicians to cast themselves as surrogate leader figures — think ...
Konono No. 1: Konono No.1: Congotronics (Crammed Discs)
Review by Will Hermes, Spin, May 2005
IN FEBRUARY the Motherland finally got its own MTV channel; vive la revolucion! Sure, there may be just one TV for every 16 people in ...
Ry Cooder: Ode to a lost shangri-la
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 11 June 2005
After the Buena Vista phenomenon, Ry Cooder has made an album about his home town of LA. He talks to Robert Sandall. ...
Various Artists: Balkan Beats (EastBlock)
Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, July 2005
THIS IS THE ALBUM I needed when I played records at the Big Chill for the first time, two years ago. ...
Emmanuel Jal: Straight Out of Sudan: A Child Soldier Raps
Interview by Will Hermes, The New York Times, 2 October 2005
THE CONSENSUS among American rappers may be that happiness, as John Lennon once sang, is a warm gun, but Emmanuel Jal is more ambivalent on ...
Rachid Taha: Raucous rocking in the casbah
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 29 November 2005
SIGHTINGS OF BRIAN Eno playing music in public in Britain have been rare enough these past 30 years, and as for jigging excitedly around the ...
Retrospective by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 10 February 2006
"THEY LOOKED LIKE three angels," the singer and composer Caetano Veloso wrote of his first sight of the members of Os Mutantes, a young rock ...
Amadou & Mariam: Here's the case for global warming
Interview by Pete Paphides, The Times, 31 March 2006
The blind Malian couple Amadou and Mariam will be the toast of the World Music awards next week, Pete Paphides met them ...
Fat Freddy's Drop: Playing to the expats
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, June 2006
They're massive in their home countries, and their London gigs sell out thanks to the multicultural populace. ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: African Roots
Review by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 15 June 2006
Lee Perry's lost Congolese album and other global grooves. ...
DeVotchKa's music is as offbeat as its name
Profile and Interview by Jim Sullivan, Christian Science Monitor, 28 July 2006
The band's goulash of foreign sounds forms the soundtrack to the movie Little Miss Sunshine. ...
Kanda Bongo Man, Konono No. 1: Womad: Rivermead, Reading
Report by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 1 August 2006
THE MOST relaxed and family-friendly festival of the summer season, Womad again transformed a quiet corner of the Thames Valley into a bustling global village ...
Salif Keita: Rockin' With Soul Of Africa
Profile and Interview by j. poet, San Francisco Chronicle, 6 August 2006
SALIF KEITA grins when he says: "I love rock'n'roll." It may seem like an unlikely sentiment since Keita's last two albums, this year's M'Bemba (Ancestor) ...
At Hatikvah Music, the Whole World is Jewish
Report and Interview by Kirk Silsbee, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, 23 December 2006
BOXES ARE SCATTERED around the floor of Hatikvah Music International at 436 N. Fairfax Avenue. Stacks of CDs, reams of packing plastic, mounds of mailing ...
Tinariwen: Aman: Water Is Life
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, February 2007
WHEN THEY FIRST formed in the Libyan guerilla camps of the late ‘70s, Tinariwen referred to their music simply as "guitar". And no wonder. Electric ...
Ozomatli: Don't Mess With the Dragon
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 7 April 2007
IF YOU'RE A giddy optimist like me, you hope to one day hear Ozomatli's cheerfully rebellious politi-pop wafting from every car radio in New York ...
Bewitching And Captivating: A Calypsonian history of Trinidad
Review by Tony Russell, Catalyst, May 2007
"The report of the Commission of Inquiry/Has arrived in this colony/It touches health and sanitation/Housing, wages and education . . ." The subject matter of ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 17 August 2007
THERE'S A SORT OF junkyard, trash-culture exuberance about M.I.A.'s beats that infuses the Anglo-Tamil rapper's work with freshness and immediacy. ...
Interview by John Lewis, Metro, September 2007
"I QUITE LIKE the fact that, as I get older, my audience seems to get younger," laughs Caetano Veloso. The Brazilian megastar has played London ...
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Harp, September 2007
"THERE IS only one thing I still don’t understand," Manu Chao says the day after his triumphant Bonnaroo set and not long after an equally ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 11 September 2007
FOUR SONGS into La Radiolina, an onslaught of beefy, staccato guitar chords chop like butcher knives into a mix of vertigo-inducing electronics and air-raid sirens. ...
Tinariwen: A shot from the Sahel
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 30 October 2007
MANY MOONS AGO, when I moved as a child to Africa, my mother, my sister, and I resided in the Sahel. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 2 January 2008
SOMETHING PECULIAR happened at the dawn of the 21st century: eccentric folk music of the late 1960s became covetable again. ...
Salif Keita: "I prefer Céline Dion these days"
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2008
Singer Salif Keita tells Robert Sandall about his new UK tour – and why he's weary of rock. ...
Realistic Crew, Suhancos: "This is Hungary - we don't have stars": Realistic Crew and Suhancos
Report and Interview by Angus Batey, The Guardian, 29 February 2008
Hungarian hip-hop has been going strong since 1984, and its musicians are keen to be recognised globally. The problem: they're just not Hungarian enough. Angus ...
Interview by Jude Rogers, The Lipster, March 2008
BACK IN OCTOBER last year, in the misty early days of The Lipster, I e-mailed Björk's publicist, telling him about the plans for our website, ...
Retrospective and Interview by Wayne Robins, eMusic.com, 21 April 2008
BILLED AS THE posthumous music of a wilfully obscure musician named Marvin Pontiac, The Legendary Marvin Pontiac: Greatest Hits package came with a photo purported ...
Damon Albarn: Honest Jon's: Shellac shock
Report and Interview by John Lewis, Financial Times, 28 April 2008
Damon Albarn's label Honest Jon's has discovered the world on their doorstep in the form of the EMI Archive. ...
Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend (XL)
Review by Will Hermes, Spin, June 2008
AT 1:32 A.M. last Valentine's Day, a demo titled 'Oxford Comma' by a band of Columbia University buds was posted on the blog Music for ...
Various Artists: Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues, 1970-76 (Soundway)
Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, June 2008
IT WOULD have been difficult to find a way to hear this music in the UK back in the early 1970s – nobody was playing ...
Vampire Weekend et al: Scramble for Africa 3.0
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11 June 2008
AFRICA IS NOT a monolith. Africa is not even Africa: the outsider bastardization kicked off in earnest when the Roman misnomer of a finite North ...
Report and Interview by Ben Thompson, The Observer, 15 June 2008
Suddenly indie rockers are embracing African sounds. Could the long years of a cultural apartheid be coming to a close, asks Ben Thompson ...
Interview by Christine Natanael, crushermagazine.com, July 2008
SOMETIMES going backwards can actually be going forwards. Is that not, after all the basic premise of most disciplines learned, from religion and mathematics to ...
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 22 July 2008
DEVOTCHKA, an American four-piece fronted by exuberant singer-guitarist Nick Urata, play what might best be described as "indie-world", or "Slavic punk". Their sepia website plays ...
Anat Cohen: Jazz clarinetist Anat Cohen — so many roads
Interview by Kirk Silsbee, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, 28 July 2008
JAZZ STAYS VITAL by virtue of the young players who step up and bring something new to the music. One of the most delightful "arrivals" ...
El Mamouni, Rajery, Sissoko: Sissoko, El Mamouni, Rajery: 3MA (Contre Jour)
Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, August 2008
GIVEN THE CHOICE of listening for the first time to new albums by two unknown artists, one instrumental, the other vocal, I instinctively opt for ...
Femi Kuti: Born Into The Struggle
Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 10 October 2008
Femi Kuti has both Nigeria's music and its deadly political conflicts in his blood, he explains to Nick Hasted ...
Toumani Diabaté: "Our music is older than Bach"
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 17 October 2008
Damon Albarn, Björk and the LSO have all fallen under the spell of Toumani Diabaté. Where will Mali's master kora player strike next? ...
Damon Albarn: From Pop to Opera
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 2 November 2008
He's indifferent to money and drugs. He hates the celebrity circus. And he famously said no to Tony Blair — but yes to getting drunk ...
Amadou & Mariam: Welcome to Mali
Review by Ben Thompson, The Observer, 9 November 2008
IF YOU HADN'T EVER HEARD A RECORD by this Malian husband and wife duo, but had only read of their initial meeting at Bamako's Institut ...
Profile by Jon Stewart, Guitarist, December 2008
Jon Stewart finds a new source of inspiration from a guitar-heavy world music band. ...
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 January 2009
GLOBALFEST SHOWCASES so much high-quality talent that artists accustomed to headlining elsewhere can find themselves opening this three-stage marathon to less-than-capacity crowds. ...
Profile and Interview by John Lewis, Hotline, February 2009
Amadou and Mariam, the blind couple of Mali, talk to John Lewis about Led Zeppelin, Damon Albarn and feeling shy. ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, 15 February 2009
SO WHY, with more than 50 African countries to choose from, do we keep returning to the music of Mali? Surely there must be other ...
Staff Benda Bilili: Music from diversity
Profile and Interview by Rob Fitzpatrick, The Sunday Times, 22 February 2009
The band is formed of homeless paraplegics and polio victims from Kinshasa, Congo, and travel in customised wheelchairs ...
Baaba Maal: 'Say What You Believe is True'
Profile and Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 27 February 2009
BAABA MAAL IS BACK in Britain next week. If he isn't yet as familiar a name here as his fellow Senegalese Youssou N'Dour, this is ...
Robert Plant, Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara
Interview by Stephen Dalton, The National, April 2009
A LIGHT BREEZE of mellifluous music wafts from behind the half-open door of a long, low, bunker-like building nestled deep in the English countryside. Inside ...
Moondog: The Viking of 6th Ave: The Music of Moondog
Preview by John L. Walters, Barbican show programme, 30 May 2009
Presented by the Barbican and Eat Your Own Ears; part of Only Connect ...
Damon Albarn And The Honest Jon's Revue: Uptown Rankin'
Report and Interview by Ken Scrudato, Filter, June 2009
OH DEAR. Damon Albarn is at it again. ...
Crystal Fighters: New band of the week: Crystal Fighters
Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 23 June 2009
This East London five-piece bring traditional Basque folk music screaming and kicking into the 21st century by fusing it with heavy dance rhythms and synthesisers. ...
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Running for the Drum (Cooking Vinyl)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 3 July 2009
BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE'S first album in 17 years finds her spirit as undiluted as her charm, still making persuasive, engaging arguments for Native American attitudes, and ...
Sound of the World: Otro Mundo: An Interview with Charlie Gillett
Report and Interview by Mark Hudson, Daily Telegraph, 15 July 2009
"WHEN I PLAY a new album," says Charlie Gillett, "I want to be surprised, to be completely captivated by the music – the way we ...
Amadou & Mariam: Roundhouse, London
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 30 July 2009
THIS IS A STRIKINGLY, INHERENTLY VISUAL and rock-infused show, turning what you might expect from a duo once bluntly dubbed "the blind couple from Mali" ...
Miriam Makeba : Mama Afrika 1932-2008
Review by Colin Irwin, bbc.co.uk, 5 October 2009
Majestic recordings by a genuine world music pioneer. ...
Rodrigo y Gabriela: Natural Acoustics: Rodrigo y Gabriela
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2010
YOU'D THINK a pair of former thrash-metal heads from Mexico City would have the kind of backstage rider that was a hedonistic Eden. Not a ...
Welcome to Fez: The Sacred Music Capital of the World
Report and Interview by Mark Kemp, unpublished, 1 June 2010
"The city of Fez lies below, very slowly disengaging itself from the morning mist and smoke, while a million cocks crow at once." Paul Bowles, 1947 ...
Paul Simon: "He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the sound"
Retrospective by Graeme Thomson, Uncut, October 2010
25 years ago, PAUL SIMON was going nowhere, until a bootleg cassette from Soweto inspired him to set off on a fantastic South African adventure. ...
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole: Somewhere Over the Rainbow… lies a crock of gold
Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 5 December 2010
A cover version of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', by a ukulele-playing, morbidly obese Hawaiian called Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, has become an unlikely multimillion-seller hit. ...
Junior Kimbrough, Ali Farka Toure: African Connections
Comment by Don Snowden, Rock's Backpages, 16 February 2011
LISTENING TO Junior Kimbrough again recently brought it all back home—how much that guitar tone had nagged and nagged at me, so damn familiar you ...
John Storm Roberts: An Appreciation
Memoir by Don Snowden, Rock's Backpages, April 2011
I'VE ALWAYS BEEN more than a bit ambivalent about the whole concept of mentoring, at least when it applies to the music world we run ...
Courtney Pine: Common Cause: Courtney Pine is making all the right connections
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2011
IF THE JAZZ police, those self-appointed protectors of a genre that's about freedom of expression (the irony is obviously lost on them), didn't know what ...
Concha Buika, Les Nubians: More Than Words: Going Polyglot With Concha Buika and Les Nubians
Retrospective by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 20 June 2011
IN THE '60s and '70s danceable jazz-pop in foreign languages made American radio more exciting: Jorge Ben's 'Mas Que Nada' charted when recorded by Sergio ...
Retrospective by Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, July 2011
STEVE VAN ZANDT, May 2011, Lillehammer, Norway: "The anti-apartheid Sun City project (single, album, video, documentary, book, teaching guide) was a high point and a ...
Amadou & Mariam: New Century Hall, Manchester
Live Review by Rob Hughes, Daily Telegraph, 19 July 2011
The music of Amadou & Mariam, the blind superstars, came in gloriously vivacious colour at the New Century Hall Manchester. ...
Interview by James Medd, The Word, August 2011
"THE FIRST 50 years have been eventful, haven't they?" asks Andy Kershaw, reassuringly still the cocky young'un off The Whistle Test despite 2009's half-century. ...
Shin Joong-hyun: South Korea's psychedelic mimic turned master
Retrospective and Interview by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 15 September 2011
He learned American pop via a hand-built radio, became a psychedelic pop star in his own right, then was tortured by South Korea's dictatorship. Meet ...
A Look At Pop Around The Globe — From Operatic Creole Harmonies to Riot-Grrl-Inspired French Rappers
Overview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 5 October 2011
THE END of the year brings a flurry of world music albums with commercial intentions ranging from the archival to the optimistically opportunistic. ...
Review by Johnny Sharp, bbc.co.uk, January 2012
Nine numbers from the pair's back catalogue are reworked, with mixed results. ...
Obituary by Carol Cooper, Rock's Backpages, 3 January 2012
BURIED ON HER home island of São Vicente the Tuesday before Christmas amid nationwide mourning in her native Cape Verde, singer Cesária Évora enjoyed more ...
Fela Kuti: Live in Detroit 1986
Review by Stevie Chick, bbc.co.uk, 14 May 2012
Rediscovered concert recording from the king of afrobeat. ...
Ljuba Davis Ladino Ensemble: Drom, New York City
Live Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 18 June 2012
FOR THOSE OF US who grew up hearing a lot of Yiddish, it can come as a nice surprise to discover that Hebrew modified Spanish ...
Damon Albarn, Afel Bocoum: Damon Albarn in Mali
Report and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, Seven, 23 July 2012
Between staging an opera and preparing for Blur's Olympic show, Damon Albarn travelled to Mali to spend quality time with an old friend. But Islamic ...
Damon Albarn: Africa Express: Ritz, Manchester
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 7 September 2012
DAMON ALBARN has had a busier Olympic summer than even Lord Coe, juggling multiple Games-linked projects including his Doctor Dee opera and Blur’s mammoth Hyde ...
The Gift of Music: Anthologies to please
Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 14 November 2012
WHY ARE multi-disc collections of old music still valuable in an era of downloads retrieved from nearly boundless clouds? Because these box sets and greatest-hit ...
Ravi Shankar: Within And Without Him: Gavin Martin pays Tribute to Ravi Shankar
Obituary by Gavin Martin, unpublished, 13 December 2012
An edited version of this piece appeared in the Daily Mirror on 13 December 2012 ...
Why "World Music" Doesn't Mean Anything Anymore: What I Learned at APAP
Comment by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 14 January 2013
IF YOU EVER had any doubts about whether the global pop promotion game was an intellectual enterprise as well as an entrepreneurial movement, this year's ...
Fela Kuti: The Best of the Black President 2
Review by Stevie Chick, bbc.co.uk, March 2013
Cherry-picked cuts from the catalogue of He Who Carries Death In His Pouch. ...
William Onyeabor: Who Is William Onyeabor
Review by Will Hermes, NPR, 20 October 2013
IF FELA KUTI was a child of James Brown, fellow Nigerian William Onyeabor is something like the next-generation musical offspring of Parliament-Funkadelic. His songs are ...
Various Artists: Choubi Choubi! Vol. 2 — Folk & Pop Sounds from Iraq
Review by John Doran, The Quietus, 29 November 2013
THIS EXCELLENT LP is a follow up to the original Choubi Choubi album that Mark Gergis put together in 2005 for Sublime Frequencies. ...
George Harrison, Ravi Shankar: Ravi and George in the Angel City
Book Excerpt by Kirk Silsbee, 'It Was Fifty Years Ago Today', 2014
GEORGE HARRISON is credited with bringing Indian music and Ravi Shankar to the attention of the larger public, through his sitar playing on 'Norwegian Wood', ...
Cut Hands: Festival Of The Dead (Blackest Ever Black)
Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, November 2014
THE SHOCK WAVES generated by Cut Hands' 2011 album Afro-Noise (Volume 1) have long dissipated. Ritualistic electronic music built around African drum rhythms is now ...
Harry Belafonte, Lord Kitchener: Various Artists: Calypso Craze – 1956-57 and Beyond (Bear Family)
Review by Mick Houghton, Uncut, November 2014
173 cuts from calypso's thrilling, if brief, mainstream heyday. ...
Robert Plant: "Embrace It Or Fuck Off": Robert Plant interviewed
Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 20 November 2014
Julian Marszalek talks to Percy about the influence of North and West African music, not succumbing to the cabaret disease and why he'll never cut ...
Ginger Baker, Remi Kabaka, The Rolling Stones, Wings: Talking Drummer: An Interview with Remi Kabaka
Interview by Steve Roeser, Rock's Backpages, July 2015
ON A SATURDAY afternoon in late May, I arrive at a large outdoor sports facility on the west side of Los Angeles. There are several playing fields ...
William Onyeabor, Sinkane: Ahmed Gallab: "I want to make people feel the joy of being alive"
Interview by John Aizlewood, The Evening Standard, 14 August 2015
Ahmed Gallab is all set to blow minds at David Byrne's Meltdown festival, and he hopes his hip sound will inspire youngsters back in his ...
Blick Bassy: "I want to expose the dangers of the immigration dream"
Interview by Laura Barton, The Guardian, 9 September 2015
The Cameroonian singer-songwriter draws on figures from Miles Davis to African freedom fighters to produce his soulful, melodic sound — but it wasn't until he ...
Family Atlantica's Profound Party Jams
Interview by Richard Gehr, Bandcamp Daily, 27 April 2016
"I TELL THE AUDIENCE, 'I'm not YouTube. I don't want you to look at me. I want us to do it together.'" — Luzmira Zerpa ...
David Lindley: Behind the Curtain: David Lindley
Profile and Interview by Steven Rosen, Rock Cellar, 9 December 2016
THERE'S AN OLD saying about traveling to the beat of your own drummer. Taking the road less walked upon. Following your own muse. Making up ...
Paul Simon: Kate Mossman on Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints
Memoir by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 16 December 2017
WHEN I WAS TEN, we entered a raffle at an ice rink and won a holiday to the south of France. ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 28 March 2018
THE YEAR WAS 2008. Charlotte-based Russian guitar virtuoso Vadim Kolpakov was onstage in front of 60,000 Madonna fans packed into Park Izvor in Bucharest, Romania. ...
Sudan Archives: I'm new here: Sudan Archives
Profile and Interview by John Lewis, Uncut, July 2018
This month: heady, Afro-futurist R&B from the violinist and singer otherwise knownas Brittney Denise Parks ...
Mahmoud Guinia, James Holden: Moroccan gnawa: "It's a healing sound"
Interview by John Lewis, Uncut, August 2018
Why Moroccan gnawa music continues to seduce Western artists, from Hendrix to Holden ...
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 17 September 2018
An in-depth history of the most important pop innovation of the last 20 years, from Cher's 'Believe' to Kanye West to Migos ...
Davido: O2 Arena, London — Afrobeats' alpha male takes Nigeria to the world
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 28 January 2019
Aided by Idris Elba and Popcaan, the Nigerian singer underlines his global credentials by tying together US rap and African pop ...
Review by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 3 February 2019
BEIRUT MUSIC sounds like the fuzzy memory of a wedding involving distant relatives, where you were swept up in folk dances and traditional drinking games, ...
Tinariwen, Ali Farka Toure: Various Artists: The Rough Guide To Mali Blues
Review by Tony Burke, Morning Star, 8 July 2019
THE CONNECTION between blues music and the African continent and how African slaves carried their music to the Americas has been well documented for almost ...
Sampa the Great: Rough Trade, Bristol
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 19 November 2019
RADIATING THE kind of energy that could power a small city, the rising Afro-soul star Sampa the Great played to a rapturous crowd in Bristol. ...
Lhasa de Sela : The Romantic, Uncompromising, Audacious Life of Lhasa de Sela
Retrospective by Fred Goodman, Literary Hub, 20 December 2019
On the Tragically Short Career of a Spellbinding Musician ...
Profile and Interview by John Lewis, The Guardian, 27 May 2020
The city's young jazz community has flourished by drawing on everything from hip-hop to calypso and highlife, creating a unique cosmopolitan sound. ...
Paul Simon: How Graceland saved Paul Simon — and offended the anti-apartheid world
Retrospective by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 10 June 2020
Forged in South Africa, the 1986 masterpiece drew accusations of 'cultural appropriation', offence and theft. What were Simon's intentions? ...
Review by Lloyd Bradley, The Guardian, 14 August 2020
Fun and fury from Nigerian pop polymath. By rooting modern production in traditional melody, and drawing on various musical styles while staying true to African ...
Little Simz: Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Review by John Lewis, Uncut, October 2021
Epic fourth album by the award-winning north London rapper ...
Purbayan Chatterjee: Unbounded (Abaad)
Review by Neil Kulkarni, The Wire, October 2021
HOW, WHEN MAKING music wherein avowedly East meets West, can you avoid simply slathering Eastern instrumentation onto Western pop tropes? ...
"My aim was Oyé, not Glastonbury": Liverpool's beloved African music festival turns 30
Retrospective and Interview by Patrick Clarke, The Guardian, 14 March 2022
Africa Oyé attracts the world's biggest African artists, inspires local Black musicians and remains free to all. So what next for the community-minded festival that ...
Young Fathers: Heavy Is The Heart: Young Fathers
Interview by Patrick Clarke, DIY, 7 November 2022
Young Fathers stand as one of the most creative, boundaryless bands of their generation. Now, with fourth LP Heavy Heavy, they're channelling it into a ...
Fiona Soe Paing: Sand, Silt, Flint
Review by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 21 December 2022
The Scottish-Burmese singer evokes history, folk tales and atmospheres in this nicely uncanny set blending electronics and field recordings ...
Goat, Pale Blue Eyes: Goat/Pale Bue Eyes: Electric Brixton, London
Live Review by Irina Shtreis, Louder Than War, 22 April 2023
Enigmatic psych-rock collective Goat finish the UK tour in fittingly eclectic South London. ...
Fatouma Diawara: Songs of Experience
Interview by Nick Hasted, Uncut, June 2023
Escaping tragedy in her home country and beyond, Malian superstar has found respite reimagining her proud musical heritage in dynamic new ways. But with a ...
Review by John Lewis, Uncut, June 2023
Desert rockers still militant but more approachable. ...
Live Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 4 June 2023
A historic, spiritual experience that didn't skimp on sex ...
Theon Cross: Top Brass: Theon Cross' Baker's Dozen
Interview by Stewart Smith, The Quietus, 4 October 2023
Ahead of a special performance at Kings Place's Luminate festival later this month, London jazz outlier Theon Cross takes Stewart Smith through his 13 favourite ...
Shabaka Hutchings: Shabaka: Barbican, London
Live Review by Jasper Murison-Bowie, Rock's Backpages, 10 May 2024
A journey of inspiration, transcendent and transfixing. ...
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