BALOJI (Part 1) – Super sorcerer of Belgo-congolese rap
DANYEL WARO – Say it loud, mongrel and proud!
SOUNDTRACK TO THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS: From Fear to Fury
GADDAFI AND THE TOUAREG: Love, hate and petro-dollars
Once a member of Starflam, one of Belgium’s most successful hip hop crews, Baloji...
Like the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley and Eminem, Danyel Waro has taken a style...
It took a rapper to light a firecracker and lob it at Tunisia’s youth,...
Gaddafi has been buying the affections and fighting skills of the nomadic tribes of...
A few days ago, on Friday March 23rd, I managed to reach an MNLA fighter called Intarhia on his satellite phone. When I called, he was in a 4x4 that was being driven across open desert, seemingly at top speed going by the incessant roar that formed a trying backdrop to our conversation....
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Here’s a letter I just wrote to the London Review of Books in response to an excellent essay on the future of the newspaper industry by John Lanchester, which you can read here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n24/john-lanchester/let-us-pay Dear LRB, This excellent essay is a very good example why good print journalism should, must, nay, will, I believe,...
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The Tap Tap is the local transport in Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti. As the country struggles with every cataclysm and curse known to a nation, it’s public transport system remains one of the beautiful in the world. How about that for a paradox?! Tap Taps are decorated with a baffling mix...
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I just learned that Rhissa Ag Ogham, one time guitarist and singer with the Touareg group Terakaft, died in a car accident a week ago. Apparently he was driving back to Tamanrasset from Libya with his father, who also died in the accident. Rhissa toured Europe with Terakaft back in 2007 and 2008, and...
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I’ve been busy translating the lyrics for the forthcoming album by Tamikrest, the band from north eastern Mali lead by the talented Ousmane Ag Moussa. If you don’t know them already check out their existing album ‘Adagh’. One thing I always suspected but now know for sure is that Ousmane is a really excellent...
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When the record producer Nick Gold traveled to Cuba in the early 1990s and fell in love with a cassette by the late great Ñico Saquito, the Afro Cuban...
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“Africa needs to speak out right now,” says Ousco calmly over a crackling phone line from Bamako. “Africa must stop crying.” His words are a neat little summary of...
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It’s this gentle yet luminous spirituality that makes Cheikh Lo’s music so unique, injecting its boundary-busting mix of Cuban, Congolese, Senegalese mbalax and international pop flavours with a tender...
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“As far as I’m concerned, it’s Tinariwen who created the path,” declares Ousmane Ag Mossa, frizzy-locked leader of Tamikrest, in a pre-emptive strike against a thousand inevitable questions. “But...
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Son of the great Sidiki Diabate, the father of the modern kora, Toumani is 71st in a direct line of griots that stretches back to the reign of the...
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News from the Sahara / Temoust.org:
They say that takamba has its origins in a neighbourhood of the same name situated on the edge of the small town of Témera, up-river north of Gao, on the road to Bourem. Its driving force is the unmistakable takamba rhythm which pulses on the boom and bip before lurching at the end of...
Yabous Productions, the non-profit Palestinian organisation behind the Jerusalem festival, has been organizing cultural events in Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1995. After the second intifada started in 2001, they were one of the few cultural organisations in Palestine to survive the Israeli crackdown. Their small offices in Arabic East Jerusalem buzz with...
As the most famous Malian woman alive, Oumou Sangare embodies this alluring dichotomy like no one else. She’s the epitome of tough femininity; beautiful, elegant, determined, independent, talented…and, well, hard.
The word ‘nomad’ might make us dream about freedom, but in the southern Sahara...
Once a guitarist himself, Socklo now makes about 2 to 3 instruments per week,...
In terms of music and culture, the Sahara is like an inland sea, where...
It’s this gentle yet luminous spirituality that makes Cheikh Lo’s music so unique, injecting...
Look at Omar in his sheer white body-length jellabiya and gingham keffiya, with his...
That’s why the Festivals in the Desert are so important. They give a...
But where exactly is Rachid Taha today? With the success of ‘Voilà...
Arab. Algerian. Berber. Woman. Muslim. Poet. Musician. ...
It was one of those perfect moments, when passion burns up the concept, and...
In that same moment of dream-like calm, not more than two hundred kilometres away...
Africa doesn’t need our pity. Africa demands and deserves our admiration and...
This battle for recognition in the hierarchy of the hard is the subject of...
