The New York Times finally makes this discovery this weekend (over two pages) in an article “the changing sounds of Africa.“ The article is actually decent. It announces something that the rest of us have known for a while: the digital age means African artists can distribute their music globally (myspace pages, filesharing, iTunes and other Mp3 platforms) and Western fans, still the key market for buying music, can more easily access the music. More importantly, it reminds its readers about something else we’ve known for a while too: that modern African music is a hybrid of various styles and influences.
At the heart of the piece is a profile of the old-school musicians Amadou and Mariam from Mali. These two blind singers have built quite a following in the West. Kanye West, Coldplay, hippie-pop festivals and Lincoln Center bookers like them. Then the piece highlights a lot of the music we have been going on about on this site for a while now: Spoek Mathambo, Buraka Son Sistema, K’Naan, etcetera.
It is accompanied by a sidebar written by Piotr Orlov on “Township Funk” producer, DJ Mujavu.
I liked this quote from João Barbosa, known as Lil’ John, of Buraka Som Sistema (whose music move between Luanda, Brazil and Lisbon):
“People forget Africa is a big continent with different countries, and when you travel to these places, you see it’s not all prehistorical … There are big cities with economies and traffic and Internet and cellphones.”
I guess it’s a step in the right direction, but I’m still annoyed as hell at the underlying assumption that African musicians are only interesting in so far as they export to the US and Europe, and that they actually have to defend what they’re doing to western tastemakers. It’s so neo-colonialist.
Just a quick comment to let you know its not just one way traffic. I’m working for the UK based company Songlines Magazine who have just started up a World Music Travel service offering tours to key world music destinations including Morocco, Mali, and Senegal, often tied up with festivals.
The digital age has leveled the field with regards to the access people have to different forms of music online, and with this people, are not only discovering African music but also wanting to visit Africa to learn more.