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Hungu - African Musical Instrument

The Canadian National Film Board has a long history of supporting and producing some remarkable independent film projects and the short film Hungu is no execption.

The filmmaker Nicolas Brault combines 2D animation on a graphics tablet with the warmth of sand animation, thus uniting modernity and tradition, Brazil and Africa, music and memory. Sparse in design and humanist in its outlook, Hungu exudes the elegance and suggestive power of a timeless story.

For those of you who already know the Brazilian berimbau -- the hungu is its African musical ancestor. Its origins are carried on in an ancient tradition. Inspired by the grace and raw beauty of African rock paintings, Nicolas Brault applies his narrative gifts to a world where humans and nature are subtly linked.

Under the African sun, a child walks in the desert with his kin. Death is prowling, but a mother's soul resurrected by music will return strength and life to the child when he becomes a man...

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Cesaria Evora "Radio Mindelo" the forgotten recordings

Cesaria Evora's 60's radio recordings forgotten for over fifty years!! Cesaria Evora fans owe the genesis of the album Radio Mindelo to Gustavo Albuquerque, a former sound engineer at Radio Barlavento. Albuquerque happened to be reminiscing about the good old days of the Cape Verdean radio station when he remembered that Cesaria had made a series of recordings for Barlavento at the start of the '60s. Albuquerque immediately got on the phone to the singer's producer, José Da Silva, and informed him of the whereabouts of the tapes, which he claimed had been stashed away at the back of a cupboard and forgotten. One can imagine the shock - and the buzz of excitement - that suddenly animated Da Silva on the other end of the line!

This was nothing short of a miracle! Now, he could finally document the barefoot diva's first tentative steps and share proof of Cize's early years with fans. In the sleeve notes to Radio Mindelo, Da Silva enthuses about having fans "discover the voice of Cesaria's youth, a voice in which you will recognise the same phrasing, the same intonations and the same serenity it has today - and which are just some of the reasons behind her extraordinary success."

Evora's languid vocals on Radio Mindelo certainly bear premonitory signs of the lively but laidback celebrity she will become thirty-five years later.

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Rokia Traore on tour in the U.S.

Rokia Traore has established herself as West Africa’s most exciting and precocious new talent. Her third album, Bowmboï, breathtakingly transcends all her previous achievements as she strikes a perfect poise between the roots of traditional African music and her own thoroughly modern outlook on the world. Bowmboï is characterised by a bold and cliché-free approach that will confound those looking for easy categories. Much of Bowmboï was recorded in Mali on traditional instruments. And yet it is not a traditional album. Rokia also travelled to San Francisco to record two tracks with the world-class strings of the Kronos Quartet. And yet Bowmboï is not a fusion album.

Probably the most important subject Rokia discusses on this album is Childhood. It’s something that she feels very strongly about and is the main theme of the title track ‘Bowmboï ‘and ‘Manian’. “I wanted to talk about this period as the basis of every human beings life.” She continues “There are no universal rights for people, no level platform from which we all start and so our whole lives are linked in one way or another to our childhood environments.”

Several songs on Bowmboï and most of her previous album 'Wanita' deal with the position of women in modern African society. “We have a lot of freedoms our mothers didn't have,” Rokia admits. “But women have to be brave to fight for their rights. You need courage. So a lot of my songs pay tribute to strong women.” To many, this has made Rokia a role model. Yet not everybody is ready to accept her forthright attitude. “I'm saying stand up and you can be free,” she says. “But some people don’t like that. They want their stars to have bleached skin and wear lots of make-up and drive around in big cars. And they’re not going to get that from me.” What they’re getting instead is some of the most profound music being made anywhere in the world right now. And that should be more than enough for anyone.

Rokia Traore on tour

Tour Dates:

Rokia Traore upcoming Performances in the United States
February 3 Mountain View, CA Mountain View Center for the Arts
February 4 Stanford, CA Dinkelspiel Auditorium
February 6 Minneapolis, MN Cedar Cultural Center
February 8 Chicago, IL Old Town School of Folk Music
February 11 New York, NY Le Poisson Rouge
February 12 Vienna, VA Barns At Wolftrap
February 13 Boston, MA Somerville Theatre
February 14 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts

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Djelimady Tounkara - 'Solon Kono'

It’s hard to pin down just what makes Malian guitar wizard Djelimady Tounkara’s latest acoustic album his best ever.  Maybe it’s the fact that he cuts loose a bit more than on his previous, also excellent, release, Sigui.  Or the way he varies the mood by picking up his electric here and there, as on “Sarankégni,” a reprise of an old number made famous decades back by the electric Super Rail Band.  Maybe it’s that his group has gelled, with his daughter Mariam “M’Baou” Tounkara sounding stronger than ever, and a terrific selection of other vocalists giving each song a unique character.  At the core of everything is the profound musical lock between Tounkara and his rhythm guitarist, Samba Diabaté.  Tounkara holds his accompanists to a very high standard.  The free-wheeling solos on this album clearly telegraph the sense of freedom and satisfaction he derives from Diabaté’s sterling musicianship, and the result is sheer pleasure, start to finish.  Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org

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The Best of Congolese Rumba

The Congolese rumba is to Africa what the bossa nova is to Brazil and the morna to Cape Verde. Discreet elegance, flushing emotion, haunting, melancholy melodies and a refined sound mix, all contribute to the universal character of this music.

In the fifties, Wendo Kolosoy and Antoine Moundanda, were pioneers and the rumba blossomed in Kinshasa and Brazzaville, two capital cities separated by the Congo river. The elegant Kolosoy, famous singer for his suave voive and also called ‘Papa’ Wendo, and Moundanda, well known sanza player (a kind of "thumb piano") were the voice of the pre-independence and independence years. Worshipped since their youth, they have been through many turmoils, wars and dictatorships, and experienced both glory and oblivion.

This double album, 'The Kinshasa Abidjan Sessions', was recorded in Abidjan (1997, 1999) and Kinshasa (2002).

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Amparo Sanches and Amparonoia

Amparo Sanchez is a wonderfully expressive singer, and armed with her powerful full-bodied voice. "In Spanish slang," she explains, "a paranoia is an intense passion, an obsession. And in my case it's for music."

Sanchez has been indulging her paranoia - making music - backed by her ever-evolving band, Amparanoia which included Manu Chao for a period in the nineties. Meeting Manu Chao was a turning point for Sanchez. Chao had been breaking musical boundaries since the late Eighties with his cross-pollinating rock.

"He opened my mind," she says, brimming with excitement. "The songs I was writing were a bit rara - they were unusual. But he taught me that it's okay to mix things up, to take the interesting bits from different kinds of music and put them together." His encouragementgave Sanchez the self-assurance she needed to really let herself go. She grins like a proud child: "Because of Manu Chao I lost my fear."

Politically aware, her songs rage against social injustice and the futility of war, values sharpened by her short spell with the Zapatistas in Mexico in 2000.

Sanchez's songs are inspiring not just for those suffering inequality. The sparring Latin rhythms are irresistibly uplifting, regardless of whether you understand the Spanish words. Sánchez agrees: "Amparanoia is like life," she says. "It has all the things life has. Good times, hard times and momentous decisions. It's a living thing. But the alegria - the happiness - always comes out of the music."

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