Sample here.

Senegalese-born N’Dour talks about his career and “I Bring What I Love“, the new documentary film about his music, on Canadian TV program, Studio Q.

(I went to see the film earlier tonight at the Brooklyn Academy of Music: the film is built around N’Dour’s recording of the album, “Egypt,” and the negative reaction to it within Senegal. Some Senegalese could not reconcile N’Dour status as a pop singer with his desire to sing (Senegalese) Sufi Islam devotional music. Though I was occasionally put off by the National Geographic feel of parts of the film and found it too long at times, I was drawn to the recordings of live music and the recounting of N’Dour’s early musical career (the film includes some grainy TV footage from 80s Senegalese TV, among others), his central role in cultural life in Senegal and N’Dour’s relation to his family (a number of whom work for him).

Simon Cowell’s progeny.

Saxophone player and bandleader Zim Ngqawana (you can hear a bit of Abdullah Ibrahim in Zim’s music) this Friday in the annual Vision Jazz Festival in Lower Manhattan. Here’s the details.

Friday, June 12th, on the Abrons Main Stage, 466 Grand Street
11:00 pm
Collective Quartet
featuring: Zim Ngqawana – sax
Matthew Shipp – piano
William Parker – bass
Nasheet Waits – drums

HT: Marlon Burgess.

I am not sure what to make of this video for a brand campaign for Channel O, an African-based MTV-clone. The advertising executives behind the campaign, stripped Nina Simone’s 1968 charged anthem, “Young, Gifted and Black,” from its radical politics, to sell the channel’s consumption-driven identity. (A top-heavy line-up of the continent’s pop stars–Ikechukwu, Lizha James, Buffalo Souljah, Stoan, and Gal Level, among others–line up to sing the lyrics).

[Here, the advertising executives behind the campaign explain the "movement." and here's the campaign's Facebook page].

I guess identity politics is always for sale.

The Playlist is back. The latest guest is Jeremy Weate. He blogs as Naijablog (one of my daily bookmarks), is behind Cassava Republic Press in Abuja (with his partner, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf) and has a hand in the new Nigerian newspaper, NEXT, that has everyone talking.

For his playlist, Jeremy picked “… music that utterly inspires me to the bottom of my soul and back up again – guaranteed mood-lifters”

1. “Love Theme from Spartacus” by Terry Callier.

2. “You’ve got to have freedom” by Pharoah Sanders

3. “Miracles” by The Jackson Sisters

4. “Unfinished Symphony” by Massive Attack.

5. “Solid Air” by John Martyn.

6. “Rock Creek Park” by The Blackbyrds.

7. “Light Flight” by Pentangle.

8. “Water No Get Enemy” by Fela Kuti

9. “Lady Day and John Coltrane” by Gil Scott Heron

10. “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qorvyRszZKs“>Maiden Voyage” by Herbie Hancock.

Large parts  of Mos Def’s new album, “The Ecstatic,” has been leaked already. That does not put a damper on  the anticipation.