Afropop Worldwide is an internationally syndicated weekly radio series, online guide to African and world music, and an international music archive, that has introduced American listeners to the music cultures of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean since 1988. Our radio program is hosted by Georges Collinet from Cameroon, the radio series is distributed by Public Radio International to 110 stations in the U.S., via XM satellite radio, in Africa via and Europe via Radio Multikulti.
Beneath the gloss of Nigeria’s contemporary pop, older roots styles, mostly derived from Yoruba tradition, still thrive. In this program, we meet four top stars of fuji music, the percussion-driven, message-heavy, and occasionally profane trance music that animates weddings and parties on a daily basis in hidden corners of Lagos. Rival “kings” K1 da Ultimate and Saheed Osupa, and a rare woman of fuji, Salawa Abeni, take us inside the rough and tumble of an exciting musical subculture little known outside Nigeria. We also meet juju legend Shina Peters, meet up-and-comers on the Lagos roots scene. This program fills out our Hip Deep portrait of a vibrant African city where music holds the keys to a tumultuous collision of cultures and peoples.
Technology is one of the great drivers of musical change, and often one of its least understood. In this episode, we explore the synthesizer, looking closely at the history of this ubiquitous (and often debated) piece of musical technology, and investigating how and why it was first used in a variety of African musics. Enabled by groundbreaking record reissues by synth pioneers like William Onyeabor (Nigeria) and Hailu Mergia (Ethiopia), disco stars like Kris Okotie, and South African superstar Brenda Fassie, we take you back to the ’70s and ’80s, listening to the birth of a distinctly African electronic sound.
The 1970s was a decade that changed the world's popular music... No. Changed the world's culture. Whether you were boogieing to full-flower rock and funk, delving into free jazz, or discovering a hidden identity, the music was your constant companion. This was true in Africa as well. Ten years after most of the continent gained independence, new sounds were flourishing. This program samples the bounty from Ghana, Mali, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe and more.
Produced by Sean Barlow and Banning Eyre in 2005 APWW #461
The leopard cult of Ekpe in Calabar, in present-day Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon, has one of the most unique performance traditions in all of Africa - a complex theatrical tradition, referred to in calabar English as "play," which encompasses a cycle of sacred dramas that takes many years to execute. The music of this society is almost completely unknown outside the region, because it was not recorded until the 1980s. This program will feature Calabar-themed recordings by artists including Sexteto Habanero, Chano Pozo, Arsenio Rodriguez, and Los Munequitos de Matanzas. Dr. Ivor Miller, the only scholar who has both penetrated the Abaku society and visited the motherland in Calabar, and promoted the first-ever re-encounter between the two traditions, will play some of this powerful music and tell stories of this fascinating culture.
Hip Deep by Ned Sublette (originally aired 2007) APWW #534
There's a lot of fantastic music being made by Brazilian artists living in the U.S. They entertain an estimated 1.5 million Brazilian immigrants here as well as a growing number of other fans. And Brazilian music is enjoying a resurgence here - on Mazda commercials, endless bossa nova soundtracks played in upscale restaurants; inter-cultural collaborations and so on. We'll hear many of the best: Jorge Alabe, the godfather of many samba schools; Bebel Gilberto, daughter of bossa pioneer Joao Gilberto; singer Luciana Souza; the quirky percussionist Cyro Baptista; the funky, unorthodox Forro in the Dark and others. They all have fascinating stories to tell. We'll hear them in concert, visit with them in their homes, and hear songs from records produced in the U.S. New York University's widely published Professor of Music Jason Stanyek will be our co-host.
To make this unprecedented program, producer Ned Sublette traveled to Mbanza-Kongo, the ancient seat of the Kongo empire located in present-day northern Angola, where he spoke to Dr. Bárbaro Martínez Ruiz, professor of art and art history at Stanford. We’ll learn about the simbi, the spirits that Martínez Ruiz describes as “the multiple power of god”; hear Antonio Madiata play the lungoyi-ngoyi, the two-stringed viola of the Kongo court; attend a session of the lumbu, the traditional tribunal of elders; and talk to Pedro Lopes, a nganga mawuko (traditional healer). With C. Daniel Dawson and Angolan composer and musicologist Victor Gama, we’ll explore Kongo-Ngola culture in the diaspora – in Brasil, Haiti, Cuba, and more. A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY TO MBANZA-KONGO is supported by a 2012 Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion. The fellowship is a program of the University of Southern California's Knight Chair in Media and Religion.
Originally produced by Ned Sublette in 2012 APWW #651
Haiti became the first black-ruled republic in the Americas in 1804, and music has mirrored, and at times shaped, the twists and turns of Haiti's politics and culture ever since. A primary source of Haitian culture is Dahomey, the birthplace of vodou--the most commonly held world view among Haitian people today. We explore how each of Haiti's rulers has championed his own preferred music. The Duvalier dictators favored compas dance music, and suppressed the most African-identified cultural expressions. When Baby Doc was run out of the country in 1986, African-derived racine, or roots, music exploded. Elizabeth McAlister, professor of religion at Wesleyan University, and Holly Nicolas--interweave music and history to tell a dynamic, and at times heart-breaking story. Included in the mix we'll hear the sweet sound of troubadour balladeers, as well as the exuberant tones of rara bands, the call and response of a capela kombit songs of work parties, impassioned choral music of evangelical churches, and the sophisticated, improvisational rhythms used in vodou rituals.
We explore the role music played in the creation of a uniquely Angolan consciousness as the country struggled toward independence in the 1960s and ‘70s after centuries of colonialism. Our guides will be producer Ned Sublette, on the ground in Angola, and Dr. Marissa Moorman, historian of southern Africa, and author of Intonations: A Social History of Music in Luanda, Angola from 1945 to Recent Times. We’ll hear the pathbreaking group Ngola Ritmos, who dared sing songs in Kimbundu publicly when it was prohibited by the Portuguese. We’ll hear immortal voices from the age when the guitar-driven style called semba ruled, as well as some snazzy ‘60s guitar instrumentals.
Our Hip Deep edition “A Tale of Two Rebellions,” produced in August, 2007, recounts the stories of two remarkable military campaigns in early Islamic history. Both uprisings take place in the late 9th century, both involve Africans as key players, and both set the scene for the crystallization of the Sunni-Shi’ite divide in Islam, which of course continues to this day.
Scholar and author Joseph Braude guides us through the often overlooked popular music of the Persian Gulf, the music known as Khaliji. We learn about the Africans of places like Bahrain and Kuwait - slaves of yore - their free descendents, and more recent waves of African immigrants, notably from Sudan. This episode features spectacular historic recordings, such as the songs of the all but disappeared pearl divers, a well as Khaliji hits by the likes of Abdullah al-Ruwaished and Areel Abou Bakr.
Toumani Diabaté, the most celebrated kora player of his time, passed away in July, 2024, just days before his 59thbirthday. Afropop Worldwide was blessed to call Toumani a friend for over 30 years and to interview him some 15 times, often at his home in Bamako, Mali. In this episode we celebrate a life of massive virtuosity, creativity and innovation. Toumani overcame daunting obstacles and extended the global reach of this venerable West African harp as no one else has ever done. We hear the voice and music of Toumani at many points in his storied career, along with commentary from his longtime producer and friend, Lucy Durán.
Jorge Ben Jor first began to experiment with fusions of samba, bossa nova, rhythm ‘n’ blues and soul in the early 1960s. Together with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, he participated in the watershed cultural movement, Tropicália, in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, he further explored Afro-Brazilian history and culture in a series of popular albums that have since become key points of reference for a contemporary neo-soul movement. Jorge Ben Jor continues to be an active presence in Brazilian popular music, and he grants us a rare interview to tell his story. The program is produced by Sean Barlow and coproduced with Christopher Dunn, author of Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture (University of North Carolina Press, 2001) as part of Afropop Worldwide’s Hip Deep series.
Produced by Sean Barlow & Christopher Dunn APWW #430
Afropop returns to Senegal for a thrill-packed tour of Dakar nightlife and a first time visit to the rich traditional music tapestry of Casamance. We check in with Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal and Cheikh Lo, and meet stars like Cheikh Ibra Fam, Dieyla, Sahad and mbalax heartthrob Pape Diouf. In Casamance, we experience the frenzy of a female fertility ritual and the serenity of the Diebate kora family. It’s a classic Afropop field adventure, with nonstop music.
Musical improvisation comes in many forms. A jazz player creates within the harmonic structure of a composition. A Shona mbira player in Zimbabwe improvises interactively with another player, and the audience, in some cases, an ancestor spirit. An Arabic maqam musician works within the elaborate set of rules governing the movement of melodies within one or more particular maqamat, or modes. How are these musicians’ experience the same? And how are they different? Musicians and scholars weigh in on this Hip Deep episode.
This Hip Deep episode is Part 1 of a two-part series comparing and contrasting approaches to musical improvisation. Beginning and ending with bebop and free jazz, Part 1 takes sidetrips into Ghanaian percussion traditions, Mande string and vocal music, and solo taqsim improvisation in Arabic music. With insights from UCLA’s A.J. Racy and Wesleyan University’s Eric Charry, among others, we launch a provocative and revealing meditation on spontaneity in the world’s music traditions.
Umm Kulthum has been called the greatest singer in the Arabic speaking world in the 20th century. Born in 1904 the humble daughter of an Egyptian village imam, she went on to become a glamorous Cairo celebrity in her 20s, and soon after that, a cultural icon whose monthly live radio broadcasts brought much of Egypt to a standstill. She turned high poetry into popular culture. She extended musical forms with her virtuoso, extended vocal improvisations. Combining historical, religious, literary and musical passions, she inspired an enduring sense of national pride and left a legacy for the ages. Millions gathered for her 1975 funeral. With Umm Kulthum biographer Virginia Danielson as guide and guest, this program explores the life and music of a musical legend.
This program presents a musical portrait of Bamako in the wake of crisis. We explore the precarious lives of griots in Bamako in the early 21st Century. The program draws on the groundbreaking documentary work of Lucy Duran, exploring how hereditary musicians apprentice and grow in various cultural contexts. In this case, we focus on the upbringing and education of children in these hereditary griot (djeli) families of historian-entertainers.
Cheikha Rimitti was more than Algeria's musical icon - she was the embodiment of defiance itself. Born into a life of poverty and oppression, her powerful voice resonated as the rallying cry for the marginalized, fearlessly giving voice to the forbidden themes of love, sexuality, and political injustice. Rimitti's music ignited a fire for independence, challenging societal norms with each daring lyric. Though her songs faced bans and censorship, her indomitable spirit could not be silenced. A century after her birth, Rimitti's legacy burns ever brighter, inspiring a new generation of artists to remix and reinterpret her anthems of freedom. As we celebrated the 100th birthday of this trailblazing queen of raï in 2023, we honor Cheikha Rimitti - the voice that could not be oppressed, the embodiment of liberty through song. On this poignant journey through her extraordinary life, we meet the musical descendants carrying Rimitti's defiant torch forward, a century after that first cry of dissent rang out.
Over the years, as barriers to international touring in the U.S. have risen, and more and more talented African and African diaspora artists have made their homes in American towns and cities, the sounds and voices of Africa have become more and more common on local scenes. In this edition of Afropop's "Africa in America" series, we spotlight women, Marie Daulne (of Zap Mama) collaborating with NYC Afrobeat band Antibalas, Razia of Madagascar, and the incomparable Afro-jazz innovator Somi, also Sudanese-born Alsarah and Awa Sangho of Mali.
This joyful celebration of gospel music greats brings together Africa and America. Ladysmith Black Mambazo is the South African male a capela choral group singing in the local vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They became known internationally after singing with American Paul Simon on his joyous Grammy Award winning 1986 album Graceland. The Fairfield Four, started over 100 years ago, won a Grammy for the Best Roots Gospel Album. The Four Eagle Gospel Singers are a historic a cappella gospel group from Bessemer, Alabama, known as one of the state's oldest gospel groups. The Gospel Harmonettes were a pivotal 1950s female gospel group, fronted by the legendary Dorothy Love Coates, known for their powerful vocals, civil rights activism, and intense performances that influenced soul/R&B; Also featured are The Birmingham Sunlights who are distinctive for using no instruments in their church services.
It's been decades since house and techno music exploded out of South Side Chicago and inner-city Detroit, and most Americans still don't know their dance music history. In 1977 a DJ named Frankie Knuckles moved to Chicago to spin and remix disco records at an underground club called The Warehouse. Out of a fringe subculture that formed there - gay and African-American - house music would emerge to become one the biggest club music genres in the world. Meanwhile, young black futurists of Detroit channeled their city's post-industrial decay into a utopian machine music known as techno.
APWW #619 Produced by Marlon Bishop and Wills Glasspiegel
Elijah Wald, acclaimed author of “Escaping the Blues: Robert Johnson the Invention of the Blues”, talks with producer Ned Sublette, and plays lesser-known recordings by Peetie Wheatstraw, Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr and others, who provided source material for some of Johnson’s classic tunes.
The Harlem Renaissance was a vibrant 1920s-1930s Black cultural movement centered in Harlem, a hub for African American creativity, literature (Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston), music (jazz, blues), and art (Aaron Douglas), fueled by the Great Migration and a desire to redefine Black identity that forged a new sense of Black Pride. In this program, we hear less well known artists such as James (“Big Jim”) Reese Europe who led an orchestra of 120 musicians. We also hear iconic songs of the era including Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, Mamie Smith’s massive 1920 hit “Crazy Blues,” Cab Colloway’s “St. James Infirmary” and more. Along the way, we’ll enjoy the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra featuring Louis Armstrong on trumpet and vocals and Coleman Hawkins on sax, Ethel Waters, James P. Johnson, and Willie the Lion Smith. Harlem also drew the top Cuban orchestras who came to New York by steamship to record, calyso singers, and Haitian vodou music and theater. Harlem was famous for its rent parties and a wide open attitude to defying Prohibition where revelers danced to the shimmy, the black bottom, and the Charleston from down south. Relive the glory!
Sierra Leone has deep reserves of resilience, and an ability to come together and overcome great obstacles embedded in its culture. To provide the kind of history that is all too often overlooked when reporting on current events on the African continent, we are encoring this Hip Deep episode, which explores the nation’s past.
When Sierra Leone gained independence in 1961, Freetown swayed to the beguiling, breezy lilt of palm wine guitar and danced to the funky pop of Geraldo Pino and the Heartbeats. Once a center of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Sierra Leone became an improbable amalgamation of indigenous peoples and repatriated Africans freed from slavery. Thirty years of political and economic disintegration led to a horrific civil war that claimed tens of thousands of victims and created a generation of maimed bodies and ruined lives between 1991 and 2002. A significant portion of the violence was internal, with community members and sometimes children taking up arms against each other.
Following the conflict, efforts to restore peace included truth and reconciliation programs aimed at strengthening social ties. This episode profiles the inspiring story of Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, a band formed in war-era refugee camps in Guinea. The band played a key role in giving citizens the courage to return home, and now, along with other young musicians in Freetown, attempt to pick up where others left off before the war. Produced by Simon Rentner with Wills Glasspiegel.
Nestled between Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria, Benin is a rich sliver of West Africa too often overlooked. This program puts Afropop's spotlight on Benin, starting with the country's favorite daughter. International star Angelique Kidjo looks back on her musical education in the Benin capital, Cotonou, as she walks us through the songs on her album Oyo, which spans covers of songs by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Miriam Makeba, and Benin's own Bella Bellow. We meet the 70s "vodoun funk" band Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, who are still going strong, and recently made their belated US debut. We move forward to present a chat with Lionel Loueke, a Beninois guitarist who has moved on to become one of the most original voices in contemporary American jazz. The program ends with a remembrance of the brilliant Malian guitarist and singer Lobi Traore.
In the music of the French Antilles - the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe - you can hear influences that range from the traditional béle and gwo ka drumming of the islands' rural communities, to European additions like polka and French chanson. But when these islands produced a pop genre that took much of the Caribbean and African world by storm - the smooth and sexy dance music zouk, which exploded in the 1980s - it was an entirely new blend that uniquely reflected the complex layers of identity in these Caribbean communities that are, administratively, a full-fledged part of France. Still colonies? Many think so. Either way the Antilles have long produced artists and thinkers with deep sensitivity to the gradations of race, class, migration, and relationship to a powerful, distant metropolis. Now, musicians in Guadeloupe and Martinique are re-exploring their roots, celebrating rhythms that go back to slavery days without pulling back from the cosmopolitanism of recent years. Our guide to this music - and the rich history and ongoing debates that it reflects - is Brenda Berrian of the University of Pittsburgh, whose book, Awakening Spaces: French Caribbean Popular Songs, Music and Culture, is a definitive - and enthusiastic - treatment of the subject. Hip Deep by Siddhartha Mitter.
The first decade of the 21st century saw the beginning of huge changes in African diaspora music. Afrobeats and amapiano were still in the cradle, but a new spirit was in the air. In this program, we return to that crucial decade to hear some of the bold new ideas bubbling up in Africa. We’ll hear Buraka Som Sistema from Angola and Portugal, Nigerian rapper 9ice, an Akon remix of Amadou and Mariam, and a then emerging American rock band with a bright future ahead of them, Vampire Weekend. Produced by Wills Glasspiegel.
Once-substantial Jewish enclaves of Morocco, Algeria and other North Africa states have dwindled steadily since World War II, mostly through migration to Israel. In sub-Saharan Africa, lesser known Jewish communities provide strikingly different narratives. Guided by ethnomusicologist and Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit of Tufts University, this program focuses on the history and music of a small but robust community of Jewish converts in Uganda, the Abayudaya. Summit’s own recordings include the Abayudaya singing choral music, modified folkloric songs accompanied by local drums and harps, such as the enchanting adungu, and also ventures into pop music bring this remarkable story vividly to life. This program will also introduce history and music from a younger community of practicing Jews in Ghana.
In hard times and boom times, people in Ghana know how to party. In this program, we hear regional pop and neo-traditional music at festivals, funerals and community celebrations across the county. We travel to the lush south-east Volta region to hear Ewe borborbor, agbadza and brass band music. In the northern city of Tamale, we hear Dagbani traditional music, hip-hop and pop, and visit the vibrant Damba chieftaincy festival in nearby Yendi. And back in the bustling metropolis, Accra, there’s new trend moving hips: classic highlife, with a new pop flavor.
Tarab, the ecstatic feeling associated with listening to and playing great music, is a fundamental characteristic in many varieties of Arab music. In this program, we explore tarab with special guest UCLA ethnomusicology professor A.J. Racy. Racy draws on his lifelong study of music and musicians, and also his insights as a virtuoso performer on the nay flute and the buzuq. Racy guides us through the experiences of listeners and players, providing deep insight into many varieties of tarab. We hear works by A.J. Racy, Sabah Fakhri and Ensemble Al-Kindi of Syria.
