Right now is a really good time to be into African music. As Captain Planet (on Soul Sides) puts it, there is a "vast, continent-wide vinyl archeology [sic] dig that seems to be taking place." DJs, collectors and music scholars have fanned out, on vast record hunting missions, to find remaining copies of rare African afrobeat, funk, juju and highlife records, before they're gone for good. With varying motives, whether it's to discover, preserve, flaunt, profit or make people dance, the core they share is an obsession with the music. And there is an urgency. Until recent years, the relatively low global demand for African music placed so little value on the physical product, that the vinyl copies were being thrown out, treated as junk, and in some cases burned for fuel.
Where to start? Compilations seem to be coming out as fast as they can be packaged, usually accompanied by informative liner notes and exotic promo photos. And the fact there there's so much excellent music that has heretofore been unavailable on CD, the quality of the music has not yet suffered from the pace. As the compilations are released, scattered MP3's invariably show up on music blogs, as is the case with four cuts recently posted on SoulSides (downloading all four is highly recommended).
Voodoo Funk is a mind-blowing blog by Frank Gossner, a German DJ who retired from club life, moved to Africa, and devoted himself full-time to finding and preserving the endangered grooves of impossibly rare afrobeat and funk sides. His travels are chronicled and finds posted, some with the wonderfully primitive sleeves that scream other-worldly-ness. Much of the music is not available on CD, or on vinyl outside of Africa. Even without the music being posted, it's a fascinating read as he describes the lengths he will go, and the dangers of traveling long distances to remote areas with would-be hosts knowing full well that he's carrying a decent sized chunk of change. Take Me There Fast, a documentary about his mission, is a work in progress by Leigh Iacobucci, and the trailer can be found here.
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As rare as some African vinyl can be, some music never even gets pressed. Where financial constraints prevented the jump to record stardom, easily duplicated cassette tapes filled the void. That's where Awesome Tapes From Africa comes in. Just as the name implies, the blog hosts samples of tapes that are, by and large, awesome. Host Thursdayborn spent a year in Ghana, and has another blog documenting the Hiplife movement, a indigenized national music mixing contemporary hip hop and Ghanaian influences.
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If the unfamiliarity of African music puts you off, don't let it. It's high time to get down. .
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