1.6
Tif
« 1.6 it is for this version of Counter-Strike which we played when we were younger. We were coming out of the dark years but there was still terrorism. We were going to cyber. It contrasted with the period I think. 16 is also for Algiers, the department explains the young Tif during an interview for PAM. Originally from Algeria, Toufik by his real first name arrived in France seven years earlier with dreams of rap. He tried different forms: the boom bap, the trap, the battles. And found himself much later at the rhythm of the titles he brought together in a first EP Houma Sweet Houma which reflects his construction in exile, the music charged with nostalgia… Tif put his emotions on the EP, lulled by the swell of the waves of his childhood. With 1.6 and his titles like “3inyia” or “S12” in collaboration with Flenn, the young music lover dreams today of making the crowds dance.
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Al Hadr
Sabrina Bellaouel
True to herself, the Franco-Algerian singer and producer Sabrina Bellaouel delivers an album in her image: eclectic, honest and full of cultural riches. Love and spirituality mingle in this first album ” Al Hadr » (the present time) which resonates like an ode to feelings. The singer is not at her first attempt: she has collaborated with the French group TheHop and rappers like Jazzy Bazz or Ichon, but this very personal first opus really brings her out of the shadows. From the UK Garage of “Trust”, to the languorous rock of “Goodbye” on which she invites Bonnie Banane, nothing stops her. In French on guembri basses, in English on neo soul or even in chaoui (the Berber language of the Aurès region, in Algeria) in the intro of the album, Sabrina immerses us in the universes that have cradled. A mixture which, far from shocking, seems strangely to agree as if it were guided by an underground red thread: that of his personality. The snippets of discussions recorded in Tangier, the church choirs mixed with his compositions, give the impression of hearing a diary that one would like to listen to on repeat.
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Bantu Spaceship
Bantu Spaceship
The group Bantu Spaceship unveils their first album, at the crossroads between contemporary and traditional music from Zimbabwe. The duo is part of this new generation struck by the creative wave that has affected the country. Ulenni Okandlovu and Joshua Chiundiza baptized their style “New Jit Wave” which mixes hip hop, disco and electronic productions and takes us both into the past and the future, in a resolutely afrofuturist spirit. The rhythms of Bantu Spaceship lead us both to the past and to the future. Traditional Zimbabwean sounds are modernized with electro touches. We will remember the emblematic “Don’t break” and its Sungura guitar riff (composed of lead, rhythm and bass), which will take you into a sunny mood specific to the group. From this first album released by Nyami Nyami, the Parisian label, emanates a poetry and a meditative introspection that would remind you of Gregorian chants.
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Being
Destroy Money
“I go where the music is, to the music that calls me”, here are the words of the successful Senegalese performer, Baaba Maal, who was not destined for the career he had. The singer was born into a family of fishermen, with a father who had traveled little further than the local mosque, and certainly never sang outside of it. Baaba had a clear path, in the footsteps of his father. Because traditionally it is only up to the elitist caste of the griots to provide Senegal with itinerant singers, poets and historians… so many human vehicles of knowledge, myths and wisdom, guardians of the collective memory who express themselves with as much energy and scenic charisma as a contemporary star. Baaba himself had a completely different vision. A vision which, following four decades spent recording, performing and refining his hybrid art mixing tradition and innovation, led him to Being, a contemplative album, driven by a sense of urgency, and which contains all the lessons gleaned along the way by this artist, transmitter, explorer, author and adventurer. His first album for 7 years despite notable appearances, notably in the soundtrack of the film Black Panther in 2018.
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Cociage
Pö
The Franco-Ghanaian singer and half of the duo Poko Poko, gives us her first project. The young signing of the Ugandan label Hakuna Kulala arrives with Cociage, a punk jewel with a wide range of influences. With its cryptic atmosphere, Cociage, is a brilliant album halfway between psychedelic experience and auditory hallucination. The lyrics loop to offer new sounds and mingle with electronic punk rhythms. These vocal loops also form the major part of the musical production, a strange atmosphere which rises until reaching trance. A breathtaking elevation that does not prevent Pö from indulging in a form of inner calm with “Over the Clouds”, in a sensitive sound break. An album where spiritual and supernatural come together, while refusing to enter a box. Besides, who has ever caught a djinn?!
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The Lost
Segal Sissoko / Parisien Peirani
A conversation that looks like a trip, how better to describe the alchemy of the Sissoko Segal Parisien Peirani quartet? The two duos come together to produce The Lost, a delicious 10-track album in which the ear and the heart seem to be one. Ballaké Sissoko (kora), Vincent Segal (cello), Vincent Peirani (accordion) and Émile Parisien (alto saxophone) navigate between traditional music, jazz and contemporary music. The kora player rocks us once once more with his talent within a coherent collective which leaves room – via improvisation – for the expression of all the characters. The artists even make a detour via cumbia with “Esperanza”, a cover of the piece by the famous accordionist Marc Perrone. One thing is certain, if we don’t know where they are taking us at the beginning of the album, and that’s good, these lost people seem to have found themselves.
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Love Vibration
Nkono Teles
Disco detour for this compilation from the brilliant producer Nkono Teles. Born in Cameroon but raised in Nigeria, Nkono is a pioneer of electronic music in West Africa. He participated in the successes of big names on the continent from King Sunny Adé to Guy Lobè. The keyboard master who died in 2011 was as comfortable in electronic music as in traditional music and this reissue of his work is an opportunity to continue his work. His meeting with the Nigerian Steve Black will allow him to leave aside the Cameroonian makossa to refine his famous funk touch. Nkono is reputed to be one of the first to introduce the drum machine into Nigerian popular music, associated in his compositions with guitars and various synthesizers. Lagos’ 1980s soundtrack is now immortalized on vinyl.
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Soul Tropical
David Walters
Magnificent musical journey between the musical influences and the roots of the singer, Soul Tropical is David Walters’ latest ray of sunshine. Carried by the singles “Gimme Love” and “Di Yo”, this 13-track album explores genres with intelligence. Disco and groovy on “No One”, in collaboration with Captain Planet, punctuated by a title infused with rumba with the Brazilian Flavia Coelho, haunting on the strings of the chorister Ballaké Sissoko and the cellist Vincent Ségal, David Walters managed to venture into Africa, Latin America and the West Indies without losing the thread. Soul Tropical invites you to dance, to celebrate, to sing, but also to read between the lines. As always, the singer from Marseille addresses themes that are dear to him with subtlety, such as attachment to his land and his family.
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Synthetic hearts
Masaki, Tubatsi
Msaki, Tubatsi Mpho Moloi and French cellist Clément Petit worked for a week in the bright cold of the South African winter, sharing ideas for melodies, sketches of lyrics and occasionally heart-to-heart conversations. The result ? Synthetic Hearts, an experimental 9-track album, released on No Format. With their harmonious voices carried by minimal arrangements, the two artists sing their romantic torments on the delicate notes of a cello, and deliver themselves with an open heart, taken in by the atmosphere of an almost therapeutic stay. ” During this residency, Msaki and I had several conversations regarding human relations, explains Tubatsi, conversations that we can have with an uncle, a niece, a relative… Conversations between two people who welcome each other in a healthy space, and who try to find a way to emerge from it. I think that translated into the music. »
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Traveler
Ali Farka – The Best Of Ali Farka
Seventeen years following the departure of the late Ali Farka Touré, his producer Nick Gold, the World Circuit label and his son unveil nine new compositions by the immense Malian guitarist in a posthumous album called Traveler. « It was the most beautiful thing in the world to see him play the guitarremembered Nick Gold in the interview he gave to PAM while he was thinking regarding releasing these unreleased songs. It was as if he was one with the instrument, he played it without any effort, he literally caressed it. Every note he played made sense, he didn’t put unnecessary flourishes or ornamentation to fill in the gaps. It was precise, subtle, magnetic. We will not be disoriented – and that’s good – by this new disc, which takes us to the heart of the loop of Niger, where the influences of all the cultures of Mali intersect, which infuse Ali’s music. But we will find some nice surprises, like these three pieces to which Oumou Sangaré lends her voice, or even these wind and brass arrangements that are quite rare in Ali’s work. Traveler completes the extraordinary discography of the guitarist at the three Grammy Awards who – from his native village Kanau on the banks of the Niger River to Los Angeles, will have planted the seeds of world music on all continents.
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