Our friend Toni Polo of Radio Groovalizacion has spent the last few months in Bamako, digging deep into the rich musical traditions of Mali. He recently interviewed Baba Salah, a musician we featured on our first compilation Akwaaba wo Africa, and more importantly one of Mali’s most celebrated artist – yet a relatively unknown musician outside of Mali! Check back for some more Baba Salah music very soon, and in the meantime let yourself sink into the sounds of Baba… the interview is in French, but you can enjoy plenty of fine music on this great show.
Here’s a repost of a great video interview Toni did with Alou Sangaré:
Who knew… the Kenyan viral craze reaches the pages of the almighty Wall Street Journal – clash of the titans! Read the piece here, and enjoy some of the recent magazine coverage below:
When Akwaaba boy Benjamin Lebrave did the photo session with NY photographer Mark Squires, he was told that everybody wants to be in the Last Magazine, but that the mag’s picky editorial team turned down anything if they’d heard of it already: so no J-Lo or Lady Gaga in their pages, they are last as in first, and Mark automatically gave Benjamin major props just for having been chosen by the mag. Besides flattery and making his subject comfortable, we like to think that we are indeed the shiznit for landing this piece, which is well written by casting wizard and apparently quite talented occaasional writer Natalie Joos. Also check out this awesome video of someone flipping through the magazine’s pages. You can download a pdf of the article here, or find the entire mag at Colette in Paris – where else!
We share a lot of our ideals with Nomadic Wax, a fantastic structure which gave birth to the great Democracy in Dakar film, but also to a slew of other projects, you MUST have a look at their site. If you know the Akwaaba story, you’ll enjoy the similarities with the beginnings of Nomadic Wax – down to the founder’s first name!! From their site:
“In the summer of 1999, Nomadic Wax founder Ben Herson stumbled upon a thriving hip hop scene in Senegal, West Africa. Enthralled by the politically and socially conscious lyrics of the emcees he encountered, Herson researched and wrote his award-winning undergraduate dissertation Fat Beats, Dope Rhymes, and Thug Lives: Hip Hop, Youth and Politics in Senegal. In 2001, Herson returned to Senegal with collaborator Dan Cantor of Notable Productions. The two set up shop in a spare room in a Dakar community center to record African Underground Vol. 1, a compilation featuring fourteen of Dakar’s illest emcees.
Since 2001, Nomadic Wax has grown into an internationally recognized brand in global urban music and media, working with hundreds of pioneering artists worldwide. Focusing on Africa and the African diaspora, Nomadic Wax has expanded its projects into the Middle East, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean.”
Our friend Toni Polo of Radio Groovalizacion has spent the last few months in Bamako, digging deep into the rich musical traditions of Mali. He recently interviewed Baba Salah, a musician we featured on our first compilation Akwaaba wo Africa, and more importantly one of Mali’s most celebrated artist – yet a relatively unknown musician outside of Mali! Check back for some more Baba Salah music very soon, and in the meantime let yourself sink into the sounds of Baba… the interview is in French, but you can enjoy plenty of fine music on this great show.
