Afro rock – PRI's The World

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PRI’s The World is a one-hour, weekday radio news magazine offering a mix of news,
features, interviews, and music from around the globe.

The forgotten beat of 70s Africa
by Sean O’Hagan
Originally published in The Observer

The World Ends, according to Soundway, “represents a forgotten chapter in Nigeria’s musical history”. That period coincided with the Biafran war, which started in 1967, just as America and Britain were celebrating the so-called summer of love. For young, hip Nigerians, the electric guitar was the symbol of all things new and vibrant, and the psychedelic sounds filtering out from San Francisco and London were the template for a hybrid sound that spoke only of the future. It has taken four decades for those sounds to be excavated, re-pressed from the vinyl, and marketed to a new audience….

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‘Champeta Criolla’ Compilation Rides Colombia’s Wild Afrobeat Wave
by Steve Hochman
Originally published in The Spinner

Never mind the British Invasion. In the early ’70s, Colombia was host to an Afrobeat Invasion. DJs were spinning whatever highlife, juju and soukous records they could get their hands on via their colorful picos sound systems in the poorer neighborhoods of Barranquilla and Cartegena and just as garage bands throughout North America in the previous decade were churning out enthusiastic – if rough – versions of “Day Tripper” and “Satisfaction,” Colombian combos of varying quality were playing competing interpretations of Nigerian icon Fela Anakulapo Kuti’s ‘Shakara’ and ‘Zombie’ by the handful…..

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LPs

Panama! 2 Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical & Calypso Funk on the Isthmus 1967-77 and Panama! 3 Calypso Panameño, Guajira Jazz & Cumbia Típica on the Isthmus 1960–75 are back in stock on LP along with Tumbélé! Biguine, afro & latin sounds from the French Caribbean, 1963-74. There is also a limited number of the Panama! 3 7″ (Little Francisco Greaves) available.

CDs

Colombia The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes – The Powerhouse of Colombian Music 1960-76 and both Nigeria Disco Funk Special The Sound of the Underground Lagos Dancefloor 1974-79 and Nigeria Rock Special Pyschedelic Afro-Rock & Jazz Funk in 1970s Nigeria are now available again CD.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE SOUNDWAY ONLINE STORE

‘Los Pelaos’ at the table in a café in Panama discussing which Soundway releases they have missing from their collection

Track list:

Pierre Antoine – Say Min Sy Soh (Cote D’Ivoire)
Hafusa Abasi & Slim Ali – Sintabana (Kenya)
Muyei Power – Ben Ben Bee (Sierra Leone)
Coulibany Tidiani – Sie Koumgolo (Burkina Faso)
The Eagles Lupopo – Kajo Golo Weka (Kenya)
Amadou Balake & Les 5 Consuls – Nambara Mogho (Burkina Faso)
The Torreadors – Gwinitshe (South Africa)
Muluken Melesse – Bemistir Kiberign (Ethiopia)
Orchestra Baba National – Sweet Sweet Mbombo (Congo/Kenya)
Rex Williams – Isip Pt.2 (Nigeria)
Orchestre O.K. Jazz – Mambu Ma Miondo (Congo)
Bembeya Jazz- Alalake (Guinea)
Kante Manfila – Dem Niare (Mali)
Boombaya – Gari & Beans (Ghana)
Joy Nwosu & Dan Satch – Egwu Umu Agbogho (Nigeria)
Djaga Francois & L’Orchestre De El Rego – Mayavio (Benin)

Spread over 2 CDs and 2 triple gatefold LPs, this bumper collection is brimming with youthful exuberance, fuzzed out guitar and cosmic organ vibes and owes much to the psychedelic sounds of Jim Morrison, Santana, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and James Brown.

As the summer of love was blossoming in London and San Francisco, Nigeria was imploding into civil war. Also known as the Biafran war of 1967, it was a grisly conflict taking over three million lives yet at the same time as the country was being pulled apart there was a new world beginning. The tracks featured represent a forgotten chapter in Nigeria’s musical history when the youth threw their varied morsels into the pot from hard rock to psychedelic soul when guitars were cherished instruments, symbolic of a new movement, when highlife and Afrobeat played second fiddle to ‘the beat’.

CD Double Digi Pack with 44 page booklet
Triple Gatefold Vinyl (Version 1 & 2) – BONUS TRACKS INCLUDED

CD Track Listing

CD1

Ify Jerry Krusade – Nwantinti / Die Die
The Hygrades – Rough Rider
The Hykkers – Deiyo Deiyo (Akpuwunlobi)
Wrinkar Experience – Soundway
The Funkees – Breakthrough
The Mebusas – Mr. Bull Dog (45 version)
Foundars 15 – Don’t Take Me For A Ride
Ceejebs – Eti Ufok
Tony Grey Super 7 – Yem Efe
The Identicals – Akwa Kayi Ji Bia Nuwa
P.R.O. – Blacky Joe
Cicada – Oli Nkwu
The Lijadu Sisters – Life’s Gone Down Low
Eppi Fanio – Ikoko Ti Yio Jata (On Perseverance)
Bongos Ikwue – All Night Long

CD2

The Thermometers – Babalawo
Colomach – Ottoto Shamoleda
The Black Mirrors – The World Ends
The Semi Colon – Isi Agboncha
Lawrence Amavi Group – Money That’s What I Want
The Hygrades – Somebody’s Gonna Lose Or Win
Ofege – In Concert
The Elcados – Chokoi & Oreje
Sonny Okosuns & Paperback Limited – Ohomi
Chuck Barrister & The Voices Of Darkness – Be Kind, Be Foolish, Be Happy Tony Grey & The Black 7 – Ugbo Ndoma
Reme Izabebo’s Music Research – (Ayamayama) The Same Man
Action 13 – Active Action
The Actions – Kpokposikposi
The Strangers – Onye Ije
The Comrades – Bullwalk
Ofo The Black Company – Egwu Aja

On May 28th, the Soundway Record label take an early jump into the silly season as head honcho Miles Cleret makes his second UK DJ appearance for 2010 for the unofficial launch party of Soundway’s forthcoming compilation Palenque Palenque: Champeta Criolla & Afro Roots in Colombia 1975 – 91, released on the 7th June.

Click here for a map of the venue

Co-compiled by Lucas Silva (resident of Bogota and owner of Palenque Records) and Soundway Records’ Miles Cleret, the album highlights the long relationship that the Caribbean coast of Colombia has with Africa stretching back to the 17th century. Specifically, the rise of the percussion heavy champeta sound, born out of a wave of popularity for psychedelic Afro, Latin & Caribbean music inspired by the DJs of the time.

The influence of the sound-systems spread to local artists as well as re-energising traditional African folk songs and rhythms that had survived since the days of slavery. Record labels recognized the major change in direction from the days when cumbia and porro ruled the hearts of the ghettoes and began employing bands that began experimenting and tapping into these new cultural and musical movements. Disco Fuentes were one of the first labels to recognize this sudden swing and duly signed Wganda Kenya who went onto record some of the first Afrobeat records in Colombia. The trend in recording African music continued at pace with labels like Machuca, Discos Tropical, Orbe & Costeño quickly adapting to the newly adopted sound of the Palenques and bands like Son Palenque, Cumbia Siglo XX and La Cumbia Moderna de Soledad went onto readapt Afrobeat rhythms with a Caribbean slant.

The vinyl version comes as a triple LP with two extra bonus tracks.

Track List

1. Manuel Alvarez y Sus Dangers – Esclavo Moderno
2. Cassimbas Negras – Bumburumbumbum
3. Abelardo Carbonó y su Conjunto – Palenque
4. Son Palenque – Tungalala (El Sapo)
5. Cumbia Siglo XX – Naga Pedale
6. Wganda Kenya – Pim Pom
7. Banda Los Hijos de La Niña Luz – Dejala Corre
8. Pedro Beltran – Puyalo Ahi
9. Cumbia Moderna De Soledad– Tetero
10. Abelardo Carbonó y su Conjunto – Quiero a Mi Gente
11. Lisandro Meza y su Conjunto – Shacalao
12. Son Palenque – Palengue Palengue
13. Abelardo Carbanó – La Negra Kulengue
14. La Tromba – Calaba Calabao
15. Los Soneros de Gamero – Katunga
16. Rabel Y su Grupo – Manaye
17. La Nelda Pina – El Sucusu
18. Wganda Kenya – El Lobo
19. Son Palenque – Dame Un Trago
20. Grupo Palma Africana – La Botellita
21. Wganda Kenya – Yoro

Vinyl Bonus Tracks

Cumbia Siglo XX – Los Esquelitos
Los Aguilas Rojas – Yeye Yeye

In the early 1970s, many Ghanaian musicians found themselves at a crossroads. With the pervading influence of American soul music – spearheaded by James Brown – and the cross-over success of London-based Afro-pop sensations Osibisa, who were founded by three Ghanaians, the idea of emulating such sounds from abroad must have seemed like an obvious and lucrative route for young aspiring bands to follow. Besides, many young people in Ghana by then saw highlife as music of the past.

However, Sweet Talks succeeded by taking highlife back to its roots, consciously featuring local influences in their music. This was most obvious in their signature style, the ‘Kusum’ beat (‘native’ or ‘from Ghana’), which drew on rhythms from the country’s Upper, Central and Western regions.

The band were founded on December 15, 1973, by Jonathan Abraham, the proprietor of Talk Of The Town, a lively hotel in the port town of Tema. Under the joint leadership of guitarist Smart Nkansah and singer Crentsil, Sweet Talks alternated with the other resident band The Talkatives. They kept the punters grooving every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday night, and on Sunday evenings, when a lower cover charge made family entertainment the focus.

By 1975, they had released their first album Adam and Eve. The title track was the first example of the biblical themes Crentsil would subsequently explore on the likes of Satan Go, The Lord’s Prayer and Moses. This mirrored the huge increase in the number of churches appearing in every Ghanaian neighbourhood, an inevitable consequence of the steady economic decline that would eventually have serious consequences for the band.

In 1976, Nkansah left to form his own group The Black Hustlers (and later Sunsum), which left Sweet Talks with guitarist Eric Agyeman, and Crentsil on vocals/guitar, plus brass and percussion sections. They recorded the albums Spiritual Ghana, Mbesiafo Nto Nsa and The Kusum Beat that year. The influence of the arrival of disco can be heard on the Hollywood Highlife Party album from 1978, which they recorded in California, while on an American tour.

However, on their return, it became increasingly difficult to keep a 12-man band afloat. By then, Ghana’s ailing economy had been struggling under military leaders for more than a decade, and the music industry was in terminal decline. On top of this, a curfew from sundown onwards meant many big bands had to call it a day, and Sweet Talks were one of them. But the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back in 1979 was a dispute with the band’s proprieter, Mr Abrahams:

“He signed a contract on our behalf, which is never done, which is improper,” recalls Crentsil. “Because composing fees and things like that have to be strictly something between the composer and the recording company. Composers fees are not to be paid to any third party. They have to go to the composer himself, direct, but our proprietor chose to collect these monies on our behalf and the whole thing became an argument. We said: ‘No we can’t tolerate that’ …[so] we broke up.”

The following year, Crentsil reformed the band as Super Sweet Talks, a smaller unit. With ‘International’ added to their name, they recorded the classic album Adjoa – a.k.a. The Lord’s Prayer – in 1981, and Tantie Alaba (1984). Crentsil also pursued a solo career, starting with the album Moses (1982) and continuing – usually backed by his Ahenfo Band – right up to the present. After Sweet talks broke up, Eric Agyeman went on to lead his own Kokoroko band and have a successful solo career, as did Tony Mensah and other former members.

Jon Lusk

Download from the new Soundway Store or iTunes.

1. Ebo Taylor – Heaven (Ghana Soundz: Afro Beat, Funk and Fusion in 70s Ghana)
2. Fruko Y Sus Tesos – A la Memoria Del Meurto (Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes: The Powerhouse of Colombian Music 1960-76)
3. Papi Brandao – Viva Panama (Panama! Latin Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75)
4. Lito Barrientos – Cumbia En Do Menor (Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes: The Powerhouse of Colombian Music 1960-76)
5. Oscar Sulley & The Uhuru Dance Band – Bukom Mashie (Ghana Soundz: Afro Beat, Funk and Fusion in 70s Ghana)
6. Les Loups Noirs de Haiti – Jet Biguine (Tumbélé! Biguine, afro & latin sounds from the French Caribbean, 1963-74)
7. Sweet Talks –Akumpaye (Sweet Talks “The Kusum Beat” album)
8. The Action 13 – More Bread To The People (Nigeria Rock Special: Psychedelic Afro Rock & Fuzz Funk in 1970s Nigeria Blues 1970-6)
9. Los Silvertones – Tamborito Swing (Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical & Calypso Funk on the Isthmus 1970-6)
10. Celestine Ukwu – Okukwe Na Nchekwube (Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-6)
11. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo – Gendamou Na Wili We Gnanni (T.P Orchestre Poly Rythmo: The Kings of Benin Urban Groove 1972-80)