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I’ve stumbled upon several artists from African nations over the past few weeks and wanted to share them with you and get your opinions about their music. In our collection at home we have a few albums by musicians from Africa; they are probably the usual suspects – Fela and Femi Kuti, Bhundu Boys, a couple of great compilations, a band from Ivory Coast called Magic System, which my brother in law bought for me after a trip to see my father in law, who lives in Ghana and one of their songs was constantly on the radio. The recent death of William Onyeabor introduced me to his music. Other than that, my shelves are pretty blank when it comes to music from this continent.
From various sources the following three artists came onto my radar. All different and all fantastic.
Livy Ekemezie – Friday Night. I know almost nothing about this fella other than he comes from Nigeria and this is a re-release of a long lost EP. It’s so funky and just makes me want to dance!
Ebo Taylor – Ene Nyame ‘A’ Mensuro. I know this guy comes from Ghana and this seems to be a remix of a track on an album of his from 1977. Again really funky.
Mulatu Astatke – Yegelle Tezeta. An Ethiopian jazz musician. This track was sampled by Damian Marley and Nas on As We Enter (I think, but happy to be corrected).
Yet again ‘Spillers I come to you to fill in the gaps in my musical knowledge. What can you tell me about all this and who else should I be tracking down?
